Pick n Mix

Responding to having been tagged, here are eight things about me you may not know or have suspected! What do they reveal, if anything? Made me think a bit and go down some routes I haven't been for a while.

1. My favourite sweet is cola cubes. These can be sourced from a brilliant website www.aquarterof.co.uk dedicated to all the yummy sweets you used to be able to buy from the old fashioned confectioners, one ¼ lb at a time. Pineapple chunks, cherry lips, sherbet dabs..they’re all here! What's your favourite?

2. So sorry to all those who keep chickens (fascinating birds) but my least favourite food is eggs: scrambled, hard boiled, soft boiled, fried, any way is yucky, just too eggy. There’s something about the consistency of a cooked egg white…..shudder. Used to love a soft boiled egg mashed up in a cup with butter when I was a little girl, and can’t remember when or how the volte face came about. About tolerable when incorporated into chocolate cake though. If it hadn’t been for Suzie who helps me with the children, the boys would never have experienced a boiled egg and soldiers!

3. I met my husband when I worked as a ski rep and guide for a season in Verbier, Switzerland. He was quite simply the best looking client we’d had out all season and he could ski like a dream too. A few weeks later the season ended, and back at the vet’s, slaving over a hot cat spay, my dear friend the nurse and I would put the world to rights. “I’m going to marry him,” I predicted. It only took him another 4 years to come round to my way of thinking but it was well worth the wait!

4. The bit of my body I like the best is my wrists; they are slim, elegant, fragile. The rest of me is not.Which is perhaps why of all jewellery, I like bracelets the best. And my current favourite is the little gold snaffle bit bracelet my husband gave me for my 40th birthday.

5. Just after we were married, I lived in the States with my husband, for nearly five years; first of all, just outside San Francisco and then in Newport Beach, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles. At first it was tough financially as husband’s business took a while to take off and I had to re-qualify to work over there. But it gradually got much better and we then took every opportunity to travel when we could. Denver, Vancouver, Seattle (loved it, loved the rain after dry predictable California), Kauai, Hong Kong for the rugby sevens..just all fantastic experiences!

6. One of my favourite smells is Ambre Solaire suntan oil (you know the stuff with virtually no sun protection in it - my mum used to baste herself in it and it always reminds me of summer…and her.)

7.As a little nine-year old girl, I danced on the stage of the King’s Theatre, Glasgow, the very same stage danced upon by the great Margot Fonteyn herself. What a thrill ! My ballet school was providing some of the woodland creatures for an opera and my Mum and Auntie had to sit through the entire opera performance (not their thing I can assure you) just to see my rabbit dance which lasted for all of about 3 minutes! Backstage, my thoughtful mum sent me my first grown-up bouquet of flowers, confirming me as the little diva I thought myself!

8. Sorry to say this, but I could manage to give up chocolate but NEVER strong mature Scottish (Isle of Bute) cheddar. On oatcakes with chutney there is NO better taste!

Okay, your turn now!