I am flattered to have been tagged by Fiona of The Cottage Smallholder — if I’d had to choose who to be tagged by for the first time ever, it would be her, because her blog is the first I read every morning. If you haven’t discovered it, you are missing out on a lot of things! Anyway, here are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
So here we go; it took me ages to write this post, because I’m not used to writing posts that aren’t recipes.
1. My favourite subject at school was Latin. I was the only person in my year who wanted to take it at A-Level, so for two years I had a teacher all to myself and got an A in the exam, resulting in my being thought an insufferable swot. At that point I was learning four languages simultaneously (French, Latin, German, Russian) but nowadays I speak two fluently (English and French) and one haltingly (Spanish). Time and lack of practice have done away with the rest. But I still think Latin is an invaluable foundation for all sorts of things, including spelling, learning other languages, computer programming, crossword puzzles, and general all-round cleverness 
2. Taking a leaf from Fiona’s book, 99.9% of cats like me. Well, maybe not 99.9%, since cats are aloof and discerning creatures, but the vast majority do. When I was a moody teenager, my cat Margo was my best friend, and ever since cats have been very special to me — not just pets but intelligent, interesting, and sometimes baffling companions. I would hate to live without at least one, and I always stop to talk to cats I meet in the street. Dogs on the other hand: some people have a natural authority with dogs, but I’m not one of them.
3. When I was nine, I almost died of peritonitis, and still remember the family doctor telling my mother I was just malingering to get out of school. I was too ill to appreciate the glamour of being wrapped in a red blanket and carried downstairs by an ambulance man before nee-nahing to the hospital in an ambulance for emergency surgery, but my sisters thought it was exciting. And I did get about three months off school, plus an excuse not to join in games lessons.
4. I didn’t learn to ride a bike till I was 25, and I’m still not very good at it. Not to be trusted on public highways. Luckily I took to driving a car better, even if I didn’t pass my test till I was 28, at the third attempt.
5. Music is as essential to life as cats. I love singing, but only with other people, not on my own; I like the feeling of creating harmonies and resonances together, and especially the intertwining threads of baroque music. I’d love to be able to play the piano, but my lessons aged about seven were a miserable failure.
6. I’m addicted to books and have been ever since I learned to read. My mother claims I once walked into a lamp-post on my way home from the library, already absorbed in a book. Fed up of the overflowing bookshelves and piles of books around the house, my husband covered an entire wall from floor to ceiling with shelves, and is surprised I haven’t filled it yet. Another set of shelves is crammed with cookbooks, which I read for pleasure. Since I discovered BookMooch, my habit has found a nice equilibrium: give books away and receive more in the post!
And I’m tagging, in no particular order:
- Ivy of Little Ivy Cakes
- Loulou of Chez Loulou
- Betty of Cuisine Quotidienne, And So Forth, and La France Profonde
- Nicole of For the Love of Food
- Stephanie of Fun Foods on a Budget
- Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen
OK, so they have something obvious in common — their blogs have a lot to do with food But they’re all bloggers that I’ve been reading and enjoying for a while and would like to know more about.
