draliman on life

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

What makes you smile at the drop of a hat?
Fluffy baby animals on BBC’s Animal Park.

What makes you angry?
Nasty things happening. Grr argh.

What saddens you?
The general state of the world today. I think that’s a pretty common answer.

What do you find most frustrating?
The amount of time it’s taking to convert the main road through the county into a dual carriageway. I know it’s a big job (ie years) but it’s messing up traffic everywhere.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

Do you prefer a sofa (aka couch, settee) or an armchair to relax in?
I like both, but I only have a sofa in my living room. I moved the armchair upstairs when I put a desk in the living room to work at during lockdown.

Do you prefer to sit at a table to eat your meals, or on a tray?
I definitely don’t sit on a tray to eat my meals 😉

I always prop myself up on one elbow and eat while watching TV. It’s probably very bad for my digestion!

Do you enjoy a glass of wine with your main meal?
No, I don’t drink. I have sugar-free lemonade or Coke Zero usually.

How do you like your chips (aka fries), with salt, sauce, mayo or something else?
I would like them with salt, but I can’t because of my blood pressure. Apart from that, it depends on what I’m eating the chips with, so it could be vinegar, Worcester Sauce, Tabasco sauce, brown sauce or whatever. As for “fries” i.e. the pseudo-chips you get from Burger King and the like, ketchup.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

How do you like your coffee/tea?
In a mug.

Oh. Black. Sometimes (good quality) instant and sometimes from my Nespresso machine. I’d like one of those “bean to cup” machines as they make amazing coffee but they tend to be quite bulky and cost hundreds of pounds.

Are you a dunker (of biscuits/cookies)?
I’m not a dunker. I don’t feel any real urge to be drinking coffee with globs of dissolved biscuit floating around in it.

What is your favourite biscuit/cookie?
Probably chocolate chip. Those ones which are a little bit soft are the best.

Have you ever baked your own biscuits/cookies?
No, biscuits are something I’ve never tried baking.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

Do you own your own home, rent, or something else?
I have owned my own home since 2014. I wanted to get out of renting, as having to pay rent when I retire will take up most of my monthly money. My mortgage is deliberately organised to be paid off just before state retirement age.

What is your favourite ‘go to’ food when you’re feeling under par?
Hmm. I’m not really sure. Since I started on tablets a couple of years ago for my previously-undiagnosed (very) high blood pressure, I’ve had no more than a hint of a headache. I’ve had no more than a hint of a cold for years and it never changed my eating habits.

It’s more a case of what I eat that makes me feel under par. If I eat half a tub of ice cream on a hot afternoon, I know I’ll be feeling a bit “off” in the evening. If I use a load of hot sauce for tea, I know I’ll likely have a bit of heartburn the next morning. Stuff like that.

Do you indulge in retail therapy?
Occasionally I buy myself something nice but that’s about it. Usually tech-related.

How many pairs of shoes do you own?
I’m sure there are various old pairs of trainers knocking around, but basically I have three pairs of trainers (a light air sole pair for walking, more rugged ones for general use and old ones for gardening), two pairs of black shoes (for when trainers aren’t appropriate and for special occasions) and a pair of walking shoes (for muddy walks and snow).

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

What colour are you wearing today?
Dark blue. I’m usually in blue, black and grey. I sometimes wear a white t-shirt as it came in a pack of three (the other two are dark blue and grey), but that’s as light as it gets.

Will you be cooking lunch today, having something cold, or going out to eat?
I never cook lunch. I always have a cheese and meat roll or similar and then maybe a cooked tea.

Does hot weather drain your strength or agree with you?
It drains me somewhat and I lose my appetite a bit too. Hot weather is very nice but it does have its drawbacks. Though with energy prices the way they are, hot is definitely better than having to decide whether or not to switch on the heating.

Do you have air conditioning in your property?
No. I don’t know anybody who has air conditioning in their house. It never gets hot enough for long enough where I live to make it worth the cost.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

If you could reinvent yourself, how would you like to be?
Rich and handsome with super-powers, obviously. Which super-powers, you ask? All of them. I would be all-powerful. The Universe would be my plaything.

Bwahahaha.

Would you like to be a pet in your household?
No. Because if I were a pet, there’d be no humans here to look after me 😮

How many house moves have you had as an adult?
Fifteen, I think. That’s more than it sounds, though, as I was at university for 8 years in total and that includes a lot of moving, even if only between rooms on campus. That number includes moves between two other countries (Germany and Ireland).

What was your favourite home?
My current one, I think. It’s a nice (very) little house in a lovely little village, and the only property I’ve owned.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

Are you happy in your neighbourhood?
Yes, it’s a nice, quiet place to live with lots of greenery.

Have you got good neighbours?
Yeah, they’re okay. Quite quiet, friendly enough.

Are your neighbours nosy or standoffish?
Neither, really. I don’t really know them that well but we smile, say “hi” and have a chat about the weather and what-not when we see each other.

Could you rely on your neighbour in an emergency?
Possibly. I guess it depends on the nature of the emergency. One neighbouring family has a roofing/general handyman business so they’d be able to perform some emergency repair if something of that nature happened. One of them popped across and helped me fix my garage door once when it got stuck, though I don’t think that really counts as an emergency.

And to finish, here’s a couple of photos I took on the “Enchanted Fairy Trail” in the neighbouring city of Truro, which I visited while waiting for my car to be serviced.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

Do you like to sunbathe on the beach or by a pool?
No. ‘Nuff said.

Have you ever used a fake tan or a sun bed?
No. ‘Nuff said.

Have you joined or wanted to join a gym?
God no. Definitely ’nuff said on that one too.

Good health permitting, would you prefer to go hiking or take a walk in the woods?
I’m not sure what the difference is. Maybe a “hike” is more or a big deal, like with “proper” hiking shoes/boots and one of those walking sticks. Plus a backpack of course.

If “good health permitted”, I’d quite like to go on a good long hike. For now, I’ll stick to walks around the local roads. Here’s a curious horse spotted on a recent such walk.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

If money was no object, what would be your ideal holiday?
Hobbits! Plus everything else New Zealand has to offer. I’d make sure I could pop back and forth whenever I wanted by hiring a team of scientists to solve the issues they’re currently having with quantum entanglement teleportation. After all, money’s no object 🙂

Do you save for a holiday or put it on plastic to pay off later?
I buy almost everything using a credit card, including any holiday. For a start, if anything goes wrong you get a huge amount of protection if you use a card – if the service is not delivered and the company can’t/won’t help, the credit card company will refund you. I’ve got cash to pay the card back straight away if I had to.

Have you ever been on a cruise?
No. I quite fancy it, though. My parents went on a cruise every year for ages and they loved it. A lot of places they visited are now in some way dangerous, occupied or a war zone though 😦

Do you send postcards or buy mementos?
I might buy a trinket or bookmark or something.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

Growing up, were you closer to your mother or father, or was it a balance of both depending on the circumstances?
A balance of both. Mum did the day-to-day sort of stuff (getting us ready for school etc), Dad played with us on Saturday mornings and so on.

What was your favourite toy as a child, and do you still have it?
Hmm, I did love my bike. I also loved my first ever computer, but that wasn’t so much of a toy.

Did you have any secrets?
Not at all, I was a completely open book! Apart from all the secrets…

What did you want to be when you grew up, and are you anywhere close?
I variously wanted to be a train driver or a football player (that’s actual football, not American football, which no-one had even heard of in those days). I’m not even remotely close to either of those. Though to be fair, there was no such thing as “IT” in those days.