BEHOLD: MY SUNSHINE AWARD!

So … the miscreantic soon-to-be-debut novelist LS Murphy nom’d me for this award. And because I’m (occasionally) a good sport, I’m going to play along.

What’s it all about? See below:

Now, the way the award works is this: you copy the award picture into a post and link back to the person who gave you the award. You then must either answer ten random questions or give seven random facts about yourself. Then spread the award along to ten other bloggers by tagging them!

Okay, because I’ve answered HEAPS of questions lately for my upcoming Eternal tour in July, I decided to swing toward the 7 random facts about myself.

BE WARNED: If you don’t wish to view me as even odder than you already do, you should probably click away from this post whilst you still can.

You still here? Cool, then here are my 7 random facts:

1) This year, I shall turn 40. 40 is a state of mind. My body might realise it’s 40 but my head doesn’t believe it. When I was 20, I thought 40-year-olds were the elderly and living on pensions. Now I’m almost 40, I have a little more respect for 40-year-olds.

2) When I was a teenager, our entire house (bar the bathroom and stairs) was decorated in Artex and painted either white or magnolia. So I decorated my too-bland bedroom walls with posters I found in magazines of the faces of Matt Dillon, Michael J Fox, Limahl (for his cool hair), Jon Bon Jovi, Paul Young (I listened to Wherever I Lay My Hat on repeat, and played it over and over until my mum screamed at me to change the record), and *CRINGE* Shakin’ Stevens.

3) I first met Mr B when I was 15 at a Valentine disco. ‘Tis true. And he only ended up being there at all because my best friend’s boyfriend brought him so he’d have someone to talk to. That was around 24 years ago.

Who’d have thought Stevie Wonder, Chris de Burgh, a slow dance and a snog could inflict such a sentence?

4) The first fictional stories I wrote were for children. The first one was a story dedicated to my son, because I’d recently had the Mini-Me and he still wanted to sleep in our bed, but, dude, there just wasn’t room, ya know? So I decorated his bedroom for him and made it special. And when that didn’t work, I wrote him his own story. It was called Neill’s New Room. The second one was called The Rabbit With Terrible Habits (see dodgy image from a page of homemade book =>>). The third one was called Which Pet is Best?

5) My and Mr B’s marriage proposal was about the least romantic occurrence you could possibly imagine:

Sat on the sofa together, and Mr B says: I think we should get married. What do you think?

Me: *shrug* I suppose. Yeah.

Mr B: *nods* When shall we do it?

Me: Hang on, let me check my diary. *goes and grabs diary and skims through the pages* I have a week booked off from work in February. How about then?

Mr B: That’s three months time?

Me: Yeah.

Both sit staring at the diary for minutes.

Mr B: Spose we better tell me mum then.

And that’s pretty much how the conversation went.

HOWEVER, I would not change this for the world. To me, the naturalness of the conversation, as though our wedding was just another day out we were planning, symbolised just how comfortable we were with one another, and the normalness of it meant to me that it was the right thing to do. We’re still married 17 years later. Friends who did the whole shebang the same year we got married and spent thousands of pounds on their weddings were divorced six months later.

A marriage proposal and the wedding should be about how you feel on the inside, not about how it looks on the exterior.

6) Sometimes when I’m in the middle of a dream, I’ll suddenly decide I must hunt for a toilet. But every toilet I come across, there’s a reason I can’t/won’t use it. Like the door is only about a foot in height and everyone can see in. Or it’s a communal toileting room with about 50 s***y-looking Bakelite-moulded pans, and they’re pretty much all occupied, and when I finally manage to barge myself forward as one becomes available, the seat ain’t something I’d contemplate contacting with my butt anyway. When I eventually give up and wake, I’m usually in bad need of the loo. Yeah, it’s weird.

7) When my daughter was born, we were so convinced we were having a boy, that when the nurses lifted the baby to take her for weighing and cleaning and Mr B and I saw ‘she’ had some ‘bits’ missing, we both looked at each other in alarm then at the nurse and blurted out: “What is it?”

And that’s me all wrapped up in 7 random facts.

So, who to nominate for this award …

Well, as there are SO many blog awards that require people carry it along, and so my of my blogging friends have already been nominated for stuff when I know they have so little time, I’m going to make this an open nomination. If you fancy playing along for a little fun, then go for it. I certainly had a hoot writing my post. 

So I nominate:

YOU!

Hehehehe, thanks for stopping by.