draliman on life

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World.

What was one of your first moneymaking jobs (other than babysitting or newspaper delivery)?
My first moneymaking job was a summer job working for the council in their computer department. It was very much “the olden days” – mainframes and rows of big machines with tape reels spinning round. A lot of the time, I sat at the console waiting for the computer to tell me which tape it needed next, at which point I had to go and find it on the shelves and load it up.

It gave me a nice little “cache of cash” for starting university!

What is your favourite month of the year?
Most months have something going for them. The cold crispness and “winter smell” of December (plus Christmas of course!) and the warmth of July/August. Months which are not on my favourites list include

• January (back to work with a vengeance, a bit of a let down after Christmas)
• February (good job it’s short)
• March (could go either way)
• April (who knows what April will bring? A loose cannon, is April.)
• September (pretty pants)
• November (completely pointless)

Well, that’s half of them. Don’t even talk to me for half the year, apparently.

What three things in nature do you find most beautiful?
Lovely views (Tintagel, Cornwall).

Bubbling brooks (Golitha Falls, Cornwall).

Other-worldy peace and quiet (St. Nectan’s Glen, Cornwall).

List at least five of your favourite spices? (excluding salt and pepper)
Ha ha! I started Googling “difference between herbs and spices” and when I got as far as the “he” in herbs it auto-filled “difference between herpes and warts” 🙂

This is tricky – I’m more a “herb” person than “spice” person. I like all sorts of herbs – parsley, rosemary, thyme… spices not so much. Apparently chilli powder is a spice so that’s one. That’s got cumin in it, so I’ll have that one as well. I’ll also take curry powder which is “a blend of up to 20 spices” so that’s up to 22 total! What a cheat I am 🙂

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World. This is a special holiday edition as in America last Monday there was a holiday called “Memorial Day” in tribute to the men and women who have died serving in the armed forces.

We in the UK also had a holiday on that day, however it was late Spring bank holiday.

Every country in the world has lost men and women in some kind of Armed Forces. When does your country celebrate or mourn their deaths?
In the UK this day falls on the nearest Sunday to November 11th. This is also true of the British Commonwealth, which is apparently now called the “Commonwealth of Nations” (who knew it had changed its name?).

Also, on 11th November at 11am, the nation observes two minutes of silence (this includes media). At work, everyone who isn’t already on the phone switches to “do not disturb” and we use the silence on the radio to time it. The timing is due to the signing of the armistice at the end of the First World War (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month).

It is common for people to buy and wear little paper poppies, which I imagine are symbolic of the poppy fields of France (poppies grew over some of the biggest battlefields).

What is your favourite holiday or holidays?
Crizzmuzz! I don’t like the three month build-up – I’m fed up with it by the end of November – but I like the growing excitement, the day spent with my parents, wrapping presents and watching the traditional Christmas film “Die Hard” the night before.

My Christmas jumper, modelled by me!

My high quality 100 foot Christmas tree flown in specially from Norway

How do you celebrate that holiday?
I’ve pretty much covered this in the previous question. I should learn to read ahead!

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World.

What is your favourite go to beverage?  Water, coffee, tea, coke, soda (non-alcoholic)
Fizzy lemonade, Coke and fizzy water with lime cordial (all nicely chilled!).

Mmmm. Nearly no calories of tasty refreshment.

I just checked and I currently have over 30 litres of lemonade in the house. I wouldn’t want to run out.

Can you change a car tyre?
Well, probably. I had to do it a couple of times with a car I had years and years ago. The biggest mistake I make is jacking it up before loosening the wheel. I’d just have to find the tools – I assume they’re under the floor in the boot – and work out where the jack goes. Common with many cars these days, I have a “temporary spare” – a small, low-speed wheel designed to get you to a garage.

On the other hand, I might just call the AA (Automobile Association). I pay them enough and I haven’t called them out for well over a decade.

Are you a listener or talker?
Definitely a listener. I don’t do small talk, and I won’t talk in a group until I’ve at least got “the lay of the land” – evaluated personalities and so on.

Would you rather have no internet or no cell phone?
Whaaaat? Whaaaat? Noooo! I don’t like the sound of this situation at all. I guess if I choose “no internet” I won’t be able to get it on my mobile phone either, which would reduce it to “just a phone”. I rarely use that function!

So a choose… (drum roll)… no mobile phone!

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World. Short and sweet this week :-).

When do you feel most connected with others?
Tricky one that. I’m not a “connecting” sort of person, as a rule. There was one memorable occasion a couple of years ago when Dad and I went on a little trip back to his roots. He showed me around the tiny village where he grew up (just a collection of cottages, really), and we had a lovely pub lunch.

What daily habit would you like to introduce to your life?
I’d like to introduce a bit of exercise. A little walk would be good. Maybe if I got up half an hour earlier…

What one mini-little-adventure would you like to have in the coming week?
Ooh, I don’t think I would like an sort of adventure, mini or otherwise. I’m a creature of habit, me.

List things or events that changed your Life: It could be as simple as a book or meeting a certain person?

• Going to university
• Working in Germany
• Starting a new life and career
• Buying my little house

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World.

You win a pet monkey but this isn’t just any old monkey. It can do one trick for you whenever you want from getting a pop out of the fridge to washing your hair. What would be the trick?
Ooh, ohh, a helper monkey! Here he is, ready for action.

Ready for action

I think maybe he should be tasked to the job of dusting, as this is the (negative) imprint he made on the shelf when I removed him for his photo op.

Monkey imprint

Or possibly he should be tasked to cooking after last week’s little accident. Note to self: never put eggs on to boil and then go off to play Fallout 4 on the PS4. Because after 3 hours they explode.

Oops

What caring thing are you going to do for yourself today?
Nothing,really. Just a normal Sunday.

What colour do you feel most comfortable wearing?
Blue. And while it’s not really a colour, rather the lack thereof, black. Very occasionally I’ll wear something with a splash of some other colour on it, usually if it’s a lovely sunny day.

Complete this sentence:  When I travel I love to…
… come home :-). It’s nice sometimes to visit somewhere new but it’s always nice to come home.

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World.

Who was your best friend in elementary school?
I met a lad way back in infants school (at around age 6, 7 maybe?) and we were friends all the way through secondary school. As is often the way, we began to grow apart, I went off to university and I haven’t seen him for nearly 30 years now.

On the other hand, a chap I “knew” as a baby (our dads were friends) who I lost touch with because he went to a different primary school, became my best friend in secondary school and we’re still close friends now.

What things could people do for you on a really bad day that would really help you?
What I want is to be left alone. If that’s the best thing for me, I don’t know. I don’t have many “really bad days” though :-).

If you could make a 15 second speech to the entire world, what would you say?
I’ve had it with you lot. I’m going back home to Tau Ceti 7. You’re all mad, mad I say!

Would you rather be an amazing dancer or an amazing singer?
Singer, I think.

Were you ever singing along to the car stereo, thinking you’re doing an awesome job, and then turned down the volume to bask in your own singing prowess? Don’t do it. It’s bad. It would be nice to do that and be singing in tune.

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World.

If you had to have your vision corrected would you rather: glasses or contacts?  Or what do you use if you need to have your vision corrected?
I’ve been wearing glasses since I was a little ‘un. I started off with the chunky free NHS glasses.

I’m on the right (1985), taken in Germany.
Photo copyright BBC I would assume.

Later I had some money and got better glasses, and later still I decided to try contact lenses. They were annoying, scratchy and a big hassle. And I kept falling asleep in lectures. They stuck to my eyeballs :-(. You do NOT want to fall asleep with contacts in.

I’m back to glasses now after a run-in with conjunctivitis in the 90s. And recently I got my first pair of varifocals. Because I’m old and so are my eyes.

If you had to describe your day as a traffic sign, what would it be?
Maybe, road works/under construction.

When I was little I used to think this was a bloke with an infeasibly large shovel, rather than a chap with a regular shovel stuck in a mound of dirt.

Was school easy or difficult for you? How so?
Well, I hated it. Whoever said “school days are the best days of your life” was a dirty rotten liar. I was quite good academically and it had its moments, but by and large I wouldn’t go through school again for anything.

Now university… that was a different kettle of fish entirely! Now, those really are the best days of your life 🙂

Would you rather take a 1 or 2 week vacation with an organized tour or take a cruise of your choice?
That’s a tricky one. On the one hand, the idea of having a holiday where everything is organised and I don’t have to worry about anything sounds quite appealing. On the other, I’ve never been on a cruise and it sounds quite fun. My parents go on cruises now they’re retired and thoroughly enjoy themselves, and cruises are pretty well organised too, so I think I’ll take the cruise, please!

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World.

Name one thing not many people know about you.
Ooh. Potentially if I mention something not many people now about me on here, 6 billion people will know it. Not that I have the many followers.

Yet (bwahahaha).

Okay then. In my mid-teens I had both big toenails permanently removed as they were massively in-growing and infected. I’ll spare you the gory details, but as it turns out big toenails are optional. So that’s one thing you really did not want to know about me.

If a distant uncle dies and you were always his favourite and leaves you $50,000 (any currency) in his will, what would you do?

Copyright some music company probably

It would be nice to say “pay off my mortgage” but I’d need more than a fifth of that inheritance to pay off even 1 year :-(. So let’s go cray-cray with it!

Let’s have a Ford Focus RS for starters. And that’s pretty much it. Turns out $50,000 isn’t that much after all. Though owning a car outright would give me £300 a month more disposable income, so the car’s an investment really :-).  I’ll use the rest for a little holiday to New Zealand to see the Hobbits.

Where do you hide junk when people come over?
In my bedroom of course. Unfortunately when my parents came over the other week they wanted to see my new bed and I ended up with a minor ear-bashing regarding “piles of stuff everywhere”. Remember the Golden Rule – mothers go everywhere.

Complete this sentence:  I want to learn more about…
Me! Who am I really? What makes me tick? What do I really want under the surface?

I know. It’s a can of worms.

Here are my answers to Cee’s questions for her Share Your World series.

If you could hire someone to help you, would it be with cleaning, cooking, or yard work?
I don’t really need a cook, it’s the just the one of me :-(. I’ve never been exactly sure what “yard work” is, but I’m thinking it’s what we call “gardening”? If so, I only have a dinky garden so no help needed there either (though it’s never really particularly trim and tidy to be honest).

So I’ll have a cleaner, please. It would be nice if someone could dig out the vacuum cleaner from under whatever pile of stuff it’s buried in :-).

Ooh, ooh, there it is!

What makes you laugh the most?
Either comedy TV or over-the-top gory TV/video games. I re-watched “Resident Evil – Afterlife” last night and I did enjoy watching zombie brains explode. “Planet Terror” is a real laugh-a-thon. And yesterday afternoon I was playing Fallout 4 and got caught underground with a bunch of ghouls and my automatic combat shotgun. You can imagine how that went heh heh 🙂

What was your favourite food when you were a child?
The only thing I can remember is chocolate, if that counts as a food. I ate loads. I was huge.

List at least five favourite flowers or plants.
Five? I don’t know many flower or plant names. Here goes.

• The big bush with the sort of clumps of little petals. I want to say rhododendron. Or hydrangea.
• That tree which is all big and has loads of green stuff on. You know the one.
• Lavender.
• Gorse in bloom. I love seeing it all over the moors and whatnot.
• Those little blue flowers. That look like bells. Can’t think of the name. Bell blues?

That’s all for this week!

Here we are again for Cee’s Share Your World.

Are you left or right handed?
I’m right handed. Very right handed. My left hand can do stuff but it needs to be trained.

This is the main reason I’m glad we drive on the left hand side of the road over here. I don’t like to take my right hand off the wheel, and since the wheel is on the right hand side of the car I don’t have to as I change gear with my left hand. If I ever rent a car abroad I’d be tempted to rent an automatic. They’re not as rare as they used to be so I expect most companies would have one!

If you had only one TV, would you prefer the TV in the living room or another room?
I do only have one TV (which is plugged in)! It’s in the living room. When did I last use it as a TV? Um, never. Everything I watch is recorded, catch-up or streamed. Here it is!

Entertainment Corner

Have you ever participated in a distance walking, swimming, running, or biking event? Tell your story.
Ha, no! It would place an unnecessary strain on the emergency services, having to airlift me to hospital after the first 2 miles.

Complete this sentence: Love is…
I’ve sat here for a while thinking about this. And I still have nothing to say. Love just is.

And with that cop-out of an answer I’ll leave you with this exciting discovery – it’s impossible to over-boil a hard-boiled egg! Last week I popped two eggs on to boil and went off to play Fallout 4. Two hours later I went back into the kitchen and saw to my horror the eggs still boiling away in the remaining two centimetres of water. They taste fine :-).