Tricky questions

My friend Sue nominated this dog/yarn/gibbering blog to the above award, and I am truly grateful! However, this involves hard work too; I have to answer ten questions, which I will try to do, more or less truthfully.

1. why do you blog?

I wish I had a great and noble answer to this, that I wanted to change the world in some respect, make it a little better. Or that I wanted to improve my writing ability. Or search my mind, and find answers to the eternal questions. However, the prosaic truth is that in the Summer of 2009 I wanted a laptop of my own, so I bought a new MacBook, just for me! After having stared admiringly at it for a little while I realised that I had absolutely no idea what to do with it; so I started a blog. And since then I have not been able to stop.

If I am to be completely honest, this is still about all that I am using the laptop for; blogging and managing my photos. However, it is not so very new anymore, and even this modest workload has begun to make it grumble a bit, to shut down when it's not asked to. It wants updates. Perhaps even a new operating system. To sum it up, it wants me to do something. My response to this has so far been to say "oh do be quiet!" and give it the evil eye, but I am beginning to realise that something really has to be done, which perhaps involves leaving my laptop into the hands of Those Who Know What They Are Doing Computerwise. And that probably means some time without blogging.

2. what is your greatest ambition?
I do not think that I am an ambitious person. OK, I have imagined myself singing on (in?) Metropolitan. Getting a Nobel prize in literature. Travelling to faraway countries and helping people. Being a really fast athlete and winning in the Olympics. But then it really would help if you a) sang, or b) wrote something (apart from a blog), c) travelled to faraway countries with other ambitions than drinking good wine and d) at least trained and preferably was a bit atlethic, which I am far from.
So I think I will have to answer that my greatest ambition is to be a good person, so that when I leave this world I will not have to regret being a total pain-in-the-ass, that I have done my best to be happy and loving and considerate. And ok, if I did get a Nobel prize, it wouldn't exactly hurt.

3. who inspires you?
I am easily inspired; I read things, find inspiration in blogs, meet lovely people, so that's is a hard one to answer.

4. if you could swap places with anyone, who would it be?
I would really like to be able to feel how to is to be really strong, perseverant and really fast so I think that I would like to swap places with a cross-country skier. Not perhaps in a competition (OK, I would like to win Tour de Ski, going uphill and win that last horrible race. Preferably without drooling spit all over me), but I would like to know what it's like to be able to make your body endure. But NOT down-hill!!

5. if the world was set to blow up three weeks on Tuesday, what would you want to do with your remaining time?
Spend time with family and friends. Eat a lot of chocolate and drink Afternoon tea with all that this involves, down to the last piece of scones with clotted cream. I'd like to go back to Britain and visit many beautiful places. Spend time in my garden. Walk by the sea.

6. what is your greatest fear?
That something bad happens to my family.

But I am also afraid of spiders, boats and fire. Every time my husband stands on a ladder I make a complete fool of myself (having seen him fallen off a ladder once and badly  hurt his knee). The combination of my husband, a ladder and me is not a pretty sight.

Violence in any form, but especially unprovoked violence, really scares me.

7. which five people (alive now or magically brought back to life) would you choose to join you for afternoon tea at the Ritz?
This is really hard! My husband really likes afternoon tea, so he had to be there. Then I would really like to meet Jane Austen, so she would be invited.

Actually, I feel a bit hesitant about this one; I would really like to answer that I would like the company of five brilliant, intelligent, knowledgeable famous people, to discuss literature, art, politics, world affairs... But then I'm afraid that I would feel a little out of place, a bit like a fraud and quite uncomfortable. So I think I'd rather have tea with my husband, Sue (and then I would really like to have Mark there, even if he is more of a savoury kind-of-guy), my very special friend Maria, and it would also be great if Lori and Annie could join us.  (Now, I have to point out that although I have not met all of these peope, I am quite sure that all of them are brilliant, knowledgeable and intelligent - but I don't think they would make me feel intimidated!).

8. what advice would you give your younger self?
Not to take life too seriously! Not to think all the time that everything has to be perfect, sometimes "good enough" is just that; good enough. To believe in yourself, something which has taken me many years to be able to do. To dare try new things (when I was a girl my mother used to complain that I didn't want to try new things, because I didn't know how to to them beforehand. No matter how hard she tried to explain that the reason for attending classes, learning to do something was about just that, to learn. I did not believe her. I had to know everything first, and if I did not, I wouldn't go).

9. what do you want to be doing this time next year?
I want to work a little less, have more "me-time". But apart from that, I do believe that I want to do about the same things as now, I like my life.

10. what is you favourite food?
Apart from cardamom buns, scones with clotted cream and home made jam and shortbread you mean? Well, I love salmon in just about any form, and I am very partial to lamb as well. A lamb steak slowly cooked in the oven with cinnamon, orange, thyme, garlic and olive oil makes me very happy!

And now I am supposed to nominate ten other blogs with fewer than 200 followers and ask them 10 questions. Those who know me know that I rarely do what I am told!

I don't read that many blogs, and I have previously nominated most of them in similar awards. However, I think that if you have not yet had the time to visit these blogs, you might find it worthwhile to do so, they are equally lovely!

Foxs Lane
Knitsofacto
Lori times five

And the question I would most like to ask is

How does your life benefit from your blogging?

and perhaps

- if you have (or wanted to have) a dog, what kind of breed would that be?