Tagged

I can’t believe three weeks have passed by, since one of my very dear wordpressing friends tagged me for the blogathon. Aurora HSP is a beautiful, creative, brave and honest person, who fights valiantly for what is right and good in life.

http://auroramorealist.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/what-is-a-blogathon-you-might-well-ask-lol/

Thank you for tagging me, Aurora HSP, and for your wonderfully kind words. I hope you’ll forgive me for opting out of the full race and designing a mini version of the blogathon.

So here it is below

Here are the rules:

1. Each person tagged must post 5 things about themselves.
2. They must also answer the 5 questions the ‘tagger’ has set for them.
3. They must create 5 more questions to ask bloggers they have decided to tag.
4. They must then choose 5 bloggers and tag them in their post.
5. These lucky bloggers must then be told.
6. There are no tag backs.

Five things about me:

1. I collect ornaments of strange birds.

2. I love the impressive architecture of trees.

3. The best novel I’ve read this year is ‘Music and Silence‘ by Rose Tremain, which won the Whitbread Novel Award in 1999, and is set in 17th century Denmark. You can read a review at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6167.Music_and_Silence

4. My favourite television drama of the year is ‘The Paradise’, which the BBC describes as “An intoxicating love story set in England’s first department store in the 1870s”. The story is based on the classic French novel Au Bonheur des Dames by Émile Zola.

5. I refuse to engage with the commercialism and materialism of Christmas–especially glittery decorations and false expectations of a magical outcome. Such can lead to family arguments, disappointment, debt, and even mental illness, as well as being an unacceptable drain on the world’s resources. I would rather go outside and contemplate a holly tree.

My answers to the tagger’s questions:

For this part of the blogathon I’ve gone for the full eleven questions, as I couldn’t choose which five I wanted to answer the most. Aurora HSP must have loved these particular questions set by her tagger (http://evilnymphstuff.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/the-tag-blogathon/) as she passed them on to me, rather than posing some questions of her own 😉

1. All right, so you’re on a cloud up in the sky. You look down. What do you see?
My feet being enveloped by cloud.

2. What is that one thing that triggers your admiration for someone?
Unconditional positive regard for others.

3. What is the purpose of your blog?
Creative engagement with people from around the World.

4. What is your dream job?
A published novelist.

5. What is the song that you just can’t stop listening too at the moment?
Birdsong.

6. How would you spend your very last day on Earth?
Scared.

7. It’s my birthday. What gift do you send to me?
For you, dear Aurora HSP — healing and happiness enfolded in blue light
http://www.psychicguild.com/colour/primary.htm

8. What are you most afraid of?
War fuelled by ideological extremism.

9. Computer/laptop or smartphone?
Computer.

10. Tell me what you eat for breakfast.
Porridge oats made with goat’s milk and sprinkled with ground nuts.

11. And finally, give me a nickname!
“Takchawee” — Sioux Indian for doe, in all her beauty and gentleness.

My questions for my “taggees”:

1. What’s your favourite opening sentence to a novel or short story?

2. Have you ever read a self-published novel, and enjoyed it?

3. What’s your favourite quote of all time?

4. When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see?

5. Do you believe extraterrestrials have visited our world?

The lucky bloggers tagged (well, I hope you think you’re lucky!):

Tea with a Pirate at http://managuagunntoday.wordpress.com/ is an errant gypsy who roams the seven seas searching for a home to call his own.

Gloria the Poet at http://lovelifeandpoetry.com/ is a hopeless romantic poet who can’t help but be in love.

Patrick Latter at http://hikingphoto.com/ likes hiking and photography.

Phil at http://up2randomthoughts.wordpress.com/ is master of the random and eccentric.

Ralphie at http://ralphiesportal.me/ is the proprietor of a home to the zany and whacky dodo.

On an earlier occasion, while fired up with exceptional mental energy, I did run the full blogathon. You can check this out by sprinting over to https://sarahpotterwrites.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/tagged/.

If any of my five taggees of today would rather go for the long haul, please feel free to answer the eleven questions I asked of my “victims “on that earlier occasion. Of course, there is no obligation to take part in either the blogathon or the mini blogathon, but, if you do, I would very much appreciate you copying and pasting the relevant emblem into your post.

I’ve been tagged by randomreasoning, so here I am, rising to the challenge. Do go and check out her honest and humorous blog, which she describes as being her “journey into the daunting and exciting world of the empty nester” and as giving “a little insight into how (she’s) learning to define (her) life without children underfoot”.

The rules of tagging are:

you must post the rules
answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post
create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged
tag eleven people with a link to your post
let them know you tagged them

The questions I must answer are:

1. What happened on the best day of your life?

A whole day? This isn’t paradise. You know what families are like – if you choose a best day and they weren’t a part of it, they’ll sulk and be jealous of the people you have mentioned. So I’ll say, the day we brought our Labrador puppy home, as she made everyone happy.

2. What is your greatest talent?

That’s for others to judge.

3. What have you done in your life that makes you the most proud?

Instilled a love of reading in my children.

4. What do you believe in that others might doubt the reality of?

That UFO and alien sightings are psychic projections into our own world’s future.

5. If you could travel in time, where would you go?

Jerusalem 31-33 AD. I’d especially like to shadow Doubting Thomas, and have concrete proof of Christ’s resurrection.

6. What’s your favourite holiday and why?

I’ve not had many holidays, but my ideal holiday doesn’t involve airports, traffic jams, or crowds, but is about beautiful countryside, long walks, and not having to do any cooking.

7. Any time in your life that you’d like to have a ‘do-over’? Explain if you can.

I try not to go down that route, if possible. I once apologised to someone in my family for a choice I’d made ten year’s back that I perceived as hurting them, and their reply was, ‘yes, but if you’d done things differently, I would never have met the people who are my friends now’.

8. What’s your favourite movie and why?

Dances with Wolves. I love seeing a man transformed, as he becomes absorbed into a culture he once regarded as the enemy.

9. If you could spend one day doing anything you wanted, what would it be?

I’d like to spend it in the company of someone who could one-hundred percent prove that a loving God existed and that Hell was a figment of human imagination, but only so long as the proof didn’t involve it being my last day on earth.

10. What are your views on social media?

It saves on travel fares. It can distract the undisciplined from work. Great for recluses. Not good, if it becomes an addiction, or prevents you from social interaction with your real-life friends and family.

11. Have you ever broken the law and what did you do? You needn’t answer if it will get you thrown in the pokey?

When I was fifteen, I tried to fare dodge by whizzing past the ticket barrier with my finger over the place-name on my student railcard.

And my eleven questions are:

1. What’s the naughtiest thing you did at school, and did you get caught?

2. What’s the worst grade you got in an exam, and was it your fault or someone else’s?

3. Have you ever farted at a really embarrassing moment?

4. What do you feel about writing Christmas cards?

5. Do you sleep on your back, front, left side, right side, curled up in a ball, straight out, recovery position, or upside down?

6. What percentage of books on your bookshelves have you read?

7. If your computer is running slow, or your internet is down when you’re in a hurry, how do you react?

8. Have you ever been to a party and wish you’d behaved differently?

9. If someone you know and like has written a totally crap story, poem, or song and says they’re going to try to get it published, do you tell them it’s crap or leave them to learn the hard way?

10. If you won or inherited a vast sum of money, would you feel happy or burdened by it?

11. Is there an occasion when you spoke up about something and wish you hadn’t, or didn’t speak up about something and wish you had?

Time to tag the others:

GraphiteBunny

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