I've been interviewed

I know I'm going a bit meme crazy at the moment, but they're like peanuts, once you've had one... and this is one is different, it's more interactive: it's an interview. And anyone can join in.

After reading her answers and asking very nicely if I could play too, the beautiful Annika has asked me the following:

1: Desktop or laptop?
I actually prefer my desktop computer. Its virtues are numerous: the machine is much more powerful, the screen is bigger, it's better for my posture. The only thing missing really is an ergonomic chair to go with it, but if I had that I doubt I'd ever leave my little office.

2: Gory horror or slapshot comedy?
Hmmm... I'm not too keen on contemporary slapstick, but I love the old stuff with Jack Lemmon, and of course How to steal a million, one of my all-time favourites. Gory horror would never enter my house. I'm too afraid. When I watched the Exorcist years ago I got so freaked out I almost needed to be exorcised myself afterwards.

3: Small apartment in a big city or big house in the far-off countryside?
Can I have both? Or a big apartment in the big city and little cottage in the far-off countryside? No? Ok, I'll settle for the big city and the small abode then, for the time being.

4: Which is, according to you, The Best Song Ever?
No, no, no, no... I can't answer this. There are so many songs that are associated with incredible memories, but whether these are great songs or not is debatable... I don't have a favourite song, different moods calls for different songs.

5: If you had one month left to live - and you know that for a fact - how would you spend it?
Oh, what a difficult question. I would like to make one request. Can it be a summer month please? Yes? Oh, thank you. In that case I would like to rent a big beautiful house by lake Siljan in Sweden and invite my dearest friends to come and stay. The house would have a team of chefs cooking all our favourite foods, and cleaning staff so we never would have to lift a finger. The endless days would be spent talking, laughing, eating, drinking, playing games, swimming, horseback riding, snoozing in hammocks under a tree... that sort of thing. I wouldn't want my whole family there the whole time, but because we would be in Sweden they could come and visit.

Do you want to play too? Great, these are the rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Too much information?

The lovely Cheeky has tagged me for this four things about me meme, so here goes... some more information you never knew you didn't need to know about me...

4 jobs I’ve held:

1. The first job I ever had was making souvenirs at the copper mine in Falun, the town in Sweden where I grew up. I hated it
2. Journalist and free-lance writer
3. Waitressing…
4. Marketing manager. They hired me despite my lack of experience or formal training, and I didn't even have a formal interview. Sometimes it’s good to know the right people

4 movies I can watch over and over:

1. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
2. Together
3. The Straight story
4. The Shawshank Redemption

4 places I’ve lived:

1. In my parents house in Sweden
2. A hayloft in Canada
3. A squat in the Netherlands
4. Countless flats in the UK

4 TV shows I like to watch:

I don’t like watching TV, and like even less that I often end up watching it anyway. On top of that I just read somewhere that your metabolism slows down more when you watch TV than if you just sit still doing nothing. So it’s a fact: TV makes you fat.

Despite these issues, I have to admit I quite like the following, in no particular order:

1. The Apprentice (The UK version)
2. House MD – Oh, Hugh you sexy bastard
3. The occasional rerun of Frasier
4. Random documentaries
   

4 places I’ve been on holiday:

1. My first ever holiday without my parents was to the Greek island of Kos with a girlfriend, we were 17 and had an absolute ball
2. The most recent holiday was to Istanbul, which is becoming one of my favourite cities
3. San Cristobal de las casas in the Chiapas in Mexico was pretty amazing
4. Venice

4 of my favourite dishes:

1. Split belly aubergine, as cooked by my partner’s mother. Actually anything with aubergine does the trick for me
2. A selection of pickled herring, new potatoes, a little chunk of Västerbotten cheese, chives and a dollop of sour cream (mmmm... my mouth is watering), perhaps accompanied by a little vodka
3. Fresh chantarelles fried in a little butter served with hot, buttered toast (a lot of butter I know, but it’s worth it) and freshly ground pepper. Yummmmy...
4. A big bowl of fresh raspberries, wild strawberries, cherries. The cherries should be cold, but the other should be sun-warm

4 websites I visit daily:

1. BBC news
2. Guardian unlimited
3. various blogs
4. I constantly update the websites where I work, so I suppose I visit these daily too

4 places I’d rather be right now:

1. At home, snuggled up on the sofa with my cats piled on top of me, a cup of hot water and lemon, reading Eat, Pray, Love
2. On a loooong train journey with my man, in our own compartment, with a bottle of champagne and 24-hour butler service
3. At a spa… in fact I'd like to be in a spa every day
4. On a long hike, perhaps in Wales

La Cubana Gringa, Daisies, Marcos and Vedrana: you're it...

Just because I can't resist

First I saw this meme on Luzie's blog, and then it also popped up on Daisies and Dreamer Girl's. And I just couldn't resist it. So here is a little bit more about me you never knew you didn't need to know.

Are your parents married or divorced?
They have been married for 56 years – amazing isn’t it? I blogged about them very early on in my blogging career, you can read their sweet story here.

Do you believe in heaven?
I don’t believe we go to heaven or hell when we die, but I often use the word heaven to describe moments or experiences of heavenliness…

Have you ever come close to dying?
There was the time I was nearly swept out to sea in Australia…

What jewellery do you wear 24/7?
I don’t often wear jewellery

Do you eat the stems of broccoli?
Absolutely, I think they are the best part.

Do you wear makeup?
I feel naked without mascara, but I have never had a good relationship with lipstick, I find it icky.

Would you ever have plastic surgery?
Hmmm… I would like to say no, but I’m not so sure. I hope I will feel comfortable enough to let nature take its course.

What do you wear to bed?
Nothing

Have you ever done anything illegal?
Yes, but nothing major.

Can you roll your tongue?
Yes

Do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend?
I have a lovely partner. He’s no longer a boy, though. He’s just my man.

Do you believe in abortions?
Absolutely

What is your hair colour?
Kind of auburn, darker underneath and quite light on top. Multi-coloured in other words.

Future child’s name, boy and girl?
I won’t have children, but I like Ripley for a girl.

Do you smoke?
Not any more. I have been smoke-free for four years.

If you could go anywhere in the world where would it be?
I would like to take the Blue Train from Pretoria to Cape Town. But I would actually go almost anywhere in the world, as long as it is by train.

Do you sleep with stuffed animals?
No, but I share my pillow with my little cat-girl Nar.

If you won the lottery, what would you do first?
Freak out, and hopefully not die of a heart attack. Then perhaps book that Blue Train journey…

Gold or Silver?
Silver

Hamburger or hot dog?
My man makes the bestest burgers, so I’ll have to say burgers. Although the best hot dogs can be had in Sweden. I LOVE Swedish hotdogs. Yum!

If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Is fruit considered one food? If I have to be specific I would say cherries, although that may hurt my stomach after a while. But I love cherries. And wild strawberries.

City, beach or country?
Hmmm… I’d like to pick and mix. Country – city - beach, in that order. Anything but suburbia. I am terrified of suburbia.

What was the last thing you touched?
The keyboard.

When’s the last time you cried?
Watching a program about homing pigeons two nights ago. Don’t ask.

What colour are your pants?
Pants as in underpants (that’s what we mean by pants here in the UK) or as in trousers? I’m not wearing trousers, so I’ll go with the first: they’re black.

Ever been involved with the police?
Yes, I was burgled once and had the pleasure of dealing with an incompetent fool who didn’t show up until 3 days after the burglary, during which time I was told NOT to change the locks (even though the door had been kicked in) and NOT touch anything. Ridiculous.

What’s your favourite shampoo/conditioner and soap?
I use Kerastase shampoo and conditioner for big/impossible/frizzy hair. It’s OK. I love this vervain soap I buy from the health food shop. It smells yummy.

Do you talk in your sleep?
No.

Ocean or pool?
Ocean. I don’t think the two have anything in common really, apart from being wet. Oceans are alive, they have souls; pools are dead and completely soul-less.

What’s your favourite song at the moment?
Africa by Toto, but only because someone just drove past my window playing it. I love hearing old songs from my past, they sometimes bring back amazingly powerful memories.

Have you ever had a cavity?
When I was a child I had a lot of cavities, but nothing in the past 10 years or so. I had a sadistic dentist when I was young and he scared me into looking really good care of my teeth. Now I have a wonderful dentist and have them checked twice a year.

Window seat or aisle seats?
Window. Especially on a train. I can happily sit and look out a train window for hours. I’m working on enjoying the view from a plane window.

Ever met anyone famous?
Last year when I was in Stockholm during the Nobel Prize festivities I met Orhan Pamuk, who won the literature prize, at a book signing. I said hello to him in Turkish, and he said hello back and smiled. In my waitressing days I also served quite a lot of famous people. And I once saw Cate Blanchett in the local supermarket, I’m still swooning...

Do you feel that you’ve had a truly successful life?
I’m still too young to answer that question... and what is success anyway? So far my life has been rich and varied in experience but not in financial terms.

Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it?
I’m a twirler.

Are you self-conscious?
Of course. I don’t think it’s possible not to feel self conscious at times.

Have you ever ridden in an ambulance?
Yes, quite a few times.

Last gift you received?
It was a beautiful necklace sent to me by the lovely La Cubana Gringa

What occasion did you receive your gift?
It was a belated birthday present.

Last thing you spent lots of money on?
The plane ticket bought with two days' notice to see my father in March.

Where do you live?
In a miserable basement flat in Brighton.

Last wedding attended?
It was a glorious wedding in the south of France last September. Everything was perfect. The weather, the band, the food, the (unlimited amounts of) wine… and the beautiful couple of course.

Favourite restaurant?
Hmmm… a tricky one. I love our local sushi bar Murasaki, but for the occasional splurge we usually head to Hotel du Vin for an afternoon of absolute hedonism. But the best food is really a picnic on the beach (in the winter a picnic on the living room floor is also good).

What is your favourite kind of car?
Volvo Amazon. Or a VW camper van.

What’s your least favourite chore(s)?
I need a new toilet slave, my last one quit.

Favourite drink?
Water with freshly squeezed lemon juice, or champagne.

Ten days - ten things

Inspired by one of my favourite bloggers, Nicole, I’ve decided to share 10 things today to get back into the swing of things after an unexpected long-ish hiatus from the blogging world, which, incidentally, lasted 10 days.

1. Istanbul is an amazing city, managing the near impossible by being both one of the most beautiful and ugliest cities I have ever visited. I have a full-blown, complex love-hate relationship with it and marvel that it can be both so insanely fast-paced and yet so, at times, frustratingly laid-back and relaxed, all in all leaving me confused and both absolutely invigorated and utterly exhausted
2. There are more people living in Istanbul than in the whole of Sweden. Being from a hick-village (to quote my best friend K) it's perhaps not so surprising that I sometimes struggled with its enormity
   
3. I had promised my man to try the infamous chicken dessert… but in the end I didn’t dare. I watched him eat it, and it looked too weird and gelatinous. I chickened out
4. But I managed to eat a huge amount of other, absolutely delicious, food while I was there. Most of the food they eat is prepared with olive oil, which makes it intensely fresh and light. One of my favourite dishes is Karnıyarık (or split belly aubergines stuffed with ground meat, onions and tomatoes), which I blogged about here. I can't recommend it highly enough. Try it... It is so delicious
   
5. I always though tulips were more or less invented by the Dutch, but I now know better. During our holiday, Istanbul were in the middle of celebrating its annual tulip festival and I found out that not only are the flowers native to this part of the world, they were also so popular with Sultan Ahmed III, that the unusually peaceful period that coincided with his reign became known as the tulip period (1718-1730)
   
6. On my birthday we went to Vogue, a rooftop terrace bar/restaurant with a breathtaking view over the Bosphorus, in the achingly trendy area of Nişantaşı. Unfortunately (for my man) my favourite cocktail (Bellini) cost £13 (or $26 or €19) and I happened to be very thirsty
7. The call to prayer is one of my favourite aspects of Istanbul. Five times a day a cacophony of voices is heard echoing between the buildings, over the water, against the countless hills on which the city is built. In the good old days the imams with the most beautiful voice was selected from each mosque to make the call, but these days pre-recorded voices, not always very beautiful, are turned on at full whack from speakers pointing in every possible direction on the minarets of the cities’ countless mosques
8. My dad, who has been quite ill following surgery six weeks ago, appears to be at the door of a complete recovery. He’s again spending his time divided between his favourite hobbies of stamp collecting; bridge playing and limerick-writing. When I came back from Istanbul last night there was a hilarious limerick about the short-comings of Tony Blair waiting for me. I couldn't have had a better belated birthday present
9. Lionel Shriver is coming to town to do a talk during the annual Brighton Festival and so I decided to read We need to talk about Kevin during my holiday. The book played a major role in my not doing any blogging, as any time that wasn’t spent eating or wandering around the city, was spent with my nose glued to the book, which was intensely harrowing and disturbing, yet impossible to put down. It was eerie to return back to the UK to the terrible news of the shooting in Virginia, especially since the exits from the engineering classroom building were locked using chains, just like they were in the book
10. Next Tuesday I’m starting a ten-week shiatsu course. This is a taster for what I'm hoping could become a major change in the direction of my life. At the end of the introduction I’m planning to enroll in a three-year course, which starts this autumn. It feels that the time has definitely come to lay down the foundations so that I stand a chance of eventually navigating myself out of the marketing world, which I so detest

Thinking... about food

When I was a little girl meal times were associated with immense stress and at times, depending on what was on the menu, I would be so anxious I would be close to tears. I was phenomenally picky and disliked almost everything, and the thought of eating the food put in front of me regularly left me feeling physically sick. I can still remember the feeling of absolute dread as I sat down, faced with yet another plateful, each bite expanding, growing in my mouth as I chewed and chewed and chewed, unable to swallow... it was torture, on a daily basis.

Of course my not eating caused my mother no end of stress and she tried pretty much every trick in the proverbial book, from letting me eat only what I liked, to forcing me to remain at the table until I had cleared my plate (this approach did not last long since I then ended up sitting at the table in front of a plate of stone cold food until well past my bed time).

I know that my problems had nothing to do with my mother being a bad cook, in fact she cooks very well, and food now plays a huge role in the enjoyment of visiting my parents. My taste buds must have simply been severely under-developed, and I only really started enjoying food when I was in my 20s. And when it happened it was like flicking a switch. Suddenly almost everything (apart from runny egg yolks, which I still don't like) tasted delicious. Food and everything to do with it became synonymous with pleasure.

I'm currently on holiday in Istanbul, visiting my partner's parents, and it's interesting to notice how the familiar feeling of stress sometimes rears its ugly head during meal times. Don't get me wrong, the Turkish cuisine is absolutely delicious, everything is so fresh and so full of flavour, and apart from a peculiar dessert made from chicken breast, it doesn't contain anything scary. It's just that they show their love and care through cooking, and they want you to eat and eat and eat. Turning down seconds and thirds becomes an offence, and I feel almost panicky as I struggle with the mountains of food placed in front of me.

And so as we prepare to go to the country house for a big Sunday feast today I kind of regret putting myself on a diet these past few weeks. Had I not done that, my stomach would have been in better shape to accommodate the copious quantities I know will greet me this afternoon. What if I explode? I'll let you know how it goes, if I survive...




On a different note, Meredith of Poppy Fields really surprised me the other day by passing on the Thinking Blogger award. Thank you so much Meredith, I'm really chuffed! I love visiting your blog, you paint beautiful pictures with your words, and I especially love your descriptions of the smells and tastes of Provence.

Now the idea is for me to pass on the award to five other bloggers who regularly make me think, not an easy task, since the very reason I read the bloggers I do is because I find their writing stimulating and thought-provoking.

But here are five of my favourites, in no particular order:

• Edvard Moonke
• A sometimes everything girl
• Pluck the petal
• Travels into the unknown
• Write now is good

How participation works:
If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
Optional: Display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

My visual DNA

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

This is fun, so if you haven't done your visual DNA yet and you have a few minutes to spare, I'd recommend it. Not that it's profound and tells you things about yourself you didn't already know. It's just some good innocent fun, and the website is quite nice (although I had problems when using Firefox, it was happier on IE).

Apparently I'm a dreamer, escape artist, high time roller, lovebug. The high time roller tag doesn't really make any sense, but it seems my choice of bedroom and the fact that my vice is a nice glass of wine qualifies me as one.

What's your visual DNA?

Tagging 101

My darling Nar

I've returned from my brief visit to Sweden and it's been quite a harrowing few days. I last saw my dad in early December for his 80th and he looked quite well then, so it was a shock to see him now, only three months later. He'd lost so much weight, and was down to a mere 145 lbs to his 6'2". It's clear that he has been suffering a great deal more than he's let on in recent months.

Ultimately the surgery was a success, but he's still incredibly weak. The evening before I left I sat by his bedside, and he looked so small and fragile. I know he was very moved that I had come to see him and spend time with my mother. And I know I made the right decision; it wasn't always easy, my mother and I managed to drive each other crazy a few times, but I'm so glad I could be there.

Darcy (BlueJude) cleverly thought what was needed after all this was some light-hearted fun. So she's tagged me for a five things about me meme. This is my first time being tagged and it feels like a fun milestone, a reason to have a little celebration. Does this mean I'm finally a proper, real blogger..?

Here we go:

1. I love getting up in the mornings, and feel almost always ridiculously happy about a brand new day. I like going for a walk while the rest of the world is slowly waking up. Everything seems full of promise and I find it impossible to hold on to any negative left-overs from the day before. In other words I'm a total nightmare for those who are not morning people
2. I love the smell of coffee, but I don't like the taste very much and dislike the effects of it even more. It makes me feel all jittery and nervous. But I have been known to throw caution to the wind at times and have a decaf cappuccino - but only on special occasions you understand...
3. In my opinion patience is an overrated virtue, although since I started meditating and focusing more on living in the moment, I'm learning to be calmer and less impatient
4. I love cats, and our cat Nar shares my pillow with me every night, and with her body pressed against my head my whole brain vibrates with her incessant purring. It's the best therapy in the world
5. I love travelling by train and if I was ridiculously wealthy I'd forgo the ubiquitous private jet in an instant for my own train. Not quite sure how it would work out from a practical point of view (after all there aren't that many intact, disused railway tracks around), but if the Queen of England can have her own Royal train I see no reason why this, or any other logistical problems, couldn't be sorted out
   

I'm unsure of what to do next, but I'm guessing it's my turn to tag... so here goes. I pass the baton to La Cubana Gringa, Nicole and Sharon.

100 things about me

1. I’m Swedish, but I’m not blonde
2. and my favourite music is not Abba
3. My most depressing memory is when I was about 10 years old and the boy I had a crush on (and we’re talking major crush here, in fact I’m quite convinced that if I saw him now I’d still be tongue-tied) asked why I had mushroom hair. I did have mushroom hair (think exceptionally big and fluffy), but I was gutted nevertheless, and part of me still has not recovered
4. I’m determined to one day be able to do the splits
5. and so I practise pilates
6. and yoga
7. But I can still only just touch my toes with straight legs
8. I would like to change careers and become a shiatsu practitioner
9. and a pilates instructor
10. One of my greatest disappointments is that I didn’t realise that I wanted to be a dancer until I was in my late 20s
11. Italian ice cream is the best
12. No, that’s not true – Turkish ice cream is far superior
13. I want to write Mills & Boon novels and get paid to dream up unbelievable story lines set in exotic destination, where the men are tall, dark and handsome, and the women’s bosoms heavy as they struggle with their feelings
14. I have two cats, one Abyssinian called Heinz and one Tonkinese called Nar
15. I love typewriters
16. My favourite flower is the lilac, closely followed by lily of the valley. I also love cowslips and coltsfoot
17. I used to have a big crush on Anthony Andrews in Ivanhoe (swoon)
18. I love train journeys and once travelled across Canada on a train
19. One of my favourite foods is split belly aubergine
20. but I also love good old-fashioned Swedish food, pickled herring, new potatoes, chives and soured cream… yum
21. I still think I look 21, until I see myself in the mirror and realise I’m actually getting old
22. that’s depressing…
23. Katharine Hepburn is my all-time heroine, she had it all, independence, style, attitude, plus of course she was beautiful
24. One of my other heroines is Vanda Scaravelli. In my opinion she proved that it’s never too late
25. My favourite drink is water with lots of freshly squeezed lemon
26. but I also like champagne…
27. I once saw Cate Blanchett in my local super market. I nearly died. I’m still swooning in fact
28. I love Cate Blanchett
29. Montezuma’s chocolates are the best
30. My parents had me 14 years after my “youngest” sister
31. My oldest sister had a daughter when I was only nine months old
32. One of my favourite films is How to Steal a Million with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole
33. The greatest experience of my life was to be present when my best friend gave birth to my godson
34. I love surprises
35. I don’t like heights
36. I have a phobia of snakes and even worms; anything that wriggles brings me out in a cold sweat and paralyses me
37. I’m very afraid of big dams – can’t bear to even look at them on TV
38. I think customs and traditions are really important, especially in our detached society. I love the rituals surrounding different holidays, and enjoy preparing festive foods, bringing people together. I’m particularly interested in customs that tie in with different seasons, and those we no longer pay attention to
39. My ex boyfriend gave me light bulbs for Christmas one year (and nothing else, no wait, he also gave me a pack of three empty video cassettes)
40. I ended the relationship because of the light bulbs, and I’ve been celebrating every day since
41. We’re still friends though, and call and wish each other happy light bulb every Christmas
42. When my mother was diagnosed with kidney cancer last spring I spent three weeks looking after her following her operation. It was the most amazing thing to help her through such a difficult time, not only were the roles reversed, but it was like we finally got to know each other. My relationship with my father also became much closer during this time
43. My mother made a complete recovery
44. My dream holiday is to take the train all the way from London to Istanbul and stop in Paris, Vienna and Budapest on the way (I would also love to go on the Transsiberian railway all the way to China)
45. I have met Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and spoke to him in Turkish. It made him smile
46. My partner has had dinner with another Nobel prize winner (John Nash)
47. When I was a waitress in Toronto I once served Huey Lewis
48. he didn’t leave a tip
49. I also served Annie Lennox, I don’t remember if she left a tip, but her beauty and grace more than made up for it anyway
50. I love the soundtrack from Monsoon Wedding
51. I was once married to a vegan chef; I had dreadlocks and was barefoot at our wedding. An ex boyfriend was my man of honour. He slept on the sofa on the wedding night. I think the marriage was doomed to fail
52. I’m definitely a cup half full person
53. I used to work as a freelance journalist
54. Sometimes I feel stuck without a language. I have lost a lot of Swedish, but I don’t feel I will ever be able to fully grasp or master English in the way I would like to. It’s one of my biggest frustrations
55. I visit an elderly lady every Saturday as part of the local neighbourhood care scheme
56. I think it’s really important that we don’t just spend time with our own generation. The elderly have so much to teach us, and they have the most wonderful stories to tell if only we are willing to listen
57. I don’t like metal. Wet metal is even worse (don’t ask)
58. I love beautiful notebooks, but I have a slight fear of writing in them (I’m working on it)
59. I meditate every morning
60. I love walking, fast
61. I detest diet products and would never knowingly touch anything containing artificial sweetener
62. I’m trying to love my body and my face as it approaches 40. It’s not easy
63. I’m not too keen on flying
64. Part of me wants to lead a very simple life; live in the countryside, grow most of my own food; but the other part of me wants decadence. I’m struggling to find the right balance
65. I used to hate my nose, but now I actually REALLY like it
66. I used to hate my hair, I still do, mostly
67. I dress mainly in black
68. I like really big sunglasses (and please note that I always have, not just since they became fashionable again)
69. The most expensive piece of clothing I own is a gorgeous full-length asymmetrical dress by Diane von Furstenberg. It’s black with huge white polka dots and wild splashes of red and blue. Totally not me and ridiculously expensive, but I feel beautiful in it
70. I love playing Settlers of Catan
71. The most delicious thing I know is wild strawberries
72. closely followed by warm cloudberries with vanilla ice cream
73. I am agnostic
74. I love snow
75. I left Sweden when I was 19. I lived in Toronto for four years. Then I moved back to Sweden for one year. Then I lived in the Netherlands for one year. Then I moved to Vancouver Island for four years. Now I’ve lived in the UK for eight years
76. I love the smell of freshly mowed grass
77. I love cherries, mangoes, blueberries, raspberries, plums and of course wild strawberries… I just love fruit and berries I guess
78. My favourite cocktail is the Bellini
79. I love to read, mainly novels
80. I live with my partner, we have been together for three years
81. He is my best friend
82. I used to suffer from panic attacks. I don’t any longer, and it is wonderful to be able to say that it’s in the past
83. I love Italy and have recently started learning Italian
84. I was always told I was useless at maths, and I believed that to be the truth, until I did an access course in maths and came top of my class. It felt like one of my life’s greatest achievements
85. I did a degree in herbal medicine, only to realise at the end, after 500 clinic hours, that I didn’t want to be a herbalist
86. I love seahorses
87. I don’t know much about art, not yet. But I love spending time in museums, looking at the paintings, feeling them
88. I think I may be slightly synestetic
89. I try to be mindful, to live in the moment as much as possible. I try to pay attention to the fact that this moment will never come back. I don’t believe in heaven or an afterlife, and I want to make this life count as much as possible. It's not always very easy
90. My mother grew up in Germany during the war, and once saw Hitler as he passed through the town in a car. All the children were lined up on the streets, standing to attention
91. My mother wanted to move to Sweden because there hadn’t been a war there for many years. She met my father through a dating service
92. Our cat Heinz is named after cybernetician and radical constructivist Heinz von Foerster
93. Our cat Nar is named after author Karen Armstrong (kare NAR mstrong), but her name also means pomegranate in Turkish
94. Although I try to eat healthy I love to PIG OUT occasionally. My aim is to eat well 80% of the time, and allow some indulgences the remaining 20% (sometimes these numbers are inverted)
95. I've started reading poetry in recent years. One of my favourite poets is Gerard Manley Hopkins
96. I speak Swedish, English and a fair bit of Dutch. I'm working on the Italian, and Turkish to some extent
97. I guess my strongest feature are my legs
98. I love baking and cooking
99. I'm a little bit afraid of dogs (except whippets) even though we had a dog when I was growing up (a collie, she looked just like Lassie)
    
100. My man just told me that I have a laugh that makes him feel happy all over that we're together. It doesn't get much better than that
     

Where were you?

I have never done a meme before, in all honesty I'm so new to blogging I'm still not entirely sure what it is, but I'm very keen to try new blog-related things, and this one did bring back some interesting memories for me, so I thought I'd give it a go. Since I spotted this meme on two of the blogs I regularly visit I'm not sure what the protocol is, should I only leave a comment on the blog where it was mentioned first, or on both? Well, I'm going to do both. Hello Vivi, hello Sognatrice.

Here we go...

1) Where were you when Armstrong first walked on the Moon?
I was three months and nine days old, and considering it was in the middle of the night I was probably (hopefully) sleeping. I can’t say I have any strong memories of this one.

2) Where were you when you heard Princess Di had died?
Working as a waitress in Canada with a very flamboyant guy who had been her number one fan for years. He was inconsolable and somehow the rest of us were all caught up in his grief. He never could forgive my then-husband for uttering the blasphemous words “Di Hard” (my ex had a very borderline sense of humour).

3) Where were you on New Year’s Eve of 1999/2000?
There was soo much anxiety surrounding this date, I mean New Year’s Eve is always full of expectations and inevitable let-downs, but this one was just too much. I considered going on a silent meditation retreat, but since I had never meditated before that seemed a bit extreme. In the end I spent it with my ex-husband at his parents’ house, watching The African Queen. It was a let-down (not the film of course, I adore Katharine Hepburn).

4) Where were you on Sept.11, 2001?
Strange enough I was at the local airfield with my then boyfriend, who was half-way through getting a pilot’s license. We arrived only to be told he would not be allowed to fly that day because a plane had crashed into the World Trade Centre. It seemed very strange at the time that even a small two-seater Cessna at a small airport in England would be grounded, but it took a while for the enormity of the situation to really filter through. We went back to my place and spent the rest of the day in front of the TV.

5) Where were you when you first heard about the big 2004 Tsunami?
This one was very uncomfortable. My man and I had just returned from a walk down by the sea and we had been talking about storm surges and tsunamis. I have an intense fear of big bodies of water (my relationship with dams is bordering on phobic) and for some reason I have a great urge to talk about things that really scare me (like snakes). I couldn’t help but feel that our conversation had somehow made the tragedy happen.

6) Where were you when you first heard that Madonna would go on tour last year?
I have no idea, but then I couldn’t really care less. I remember sitting at work when someone told me how much the tickets would cost.