Versatile Blogger Award

The lovely Mary at Over 40 and a Mum to One nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award. Hot on the heels of a nomination for the Liebster Award, I’m feeling quite pleased with myself at the moment :) Thank you very much Mary, and huge apologies for being so tardy in responding!

So, what does this award entail?!

Firstly, I can nominate up to 15 blogs for the award?! Having recently published my Liebster Award post (along with nominations) and the All About Me meme (again with nominations) and knowing that there a few more memes doing the rounds at the moment, I have stuck to just five bloggers that write versatile, interesting and enjoyable blogs. These are blogs that I love to read – and I would love for you to check them out too!

1. Jess at Catch a Single Thought

2. Jocelyn at The Reading Residence

3. Denise at listenwatchreadshare

4. Sarah at apartyofseven

5. Lou at Lou’s Lake Views

So, having tagged a few people, I now need to tell you seven things about myself. At the risk of boring you all senseless, having given you 11 facts in my Liebster post and answered the About Me questions, I’ve decided to go with stories for this one instead…

1. Accidents happen…
When I was about 12 or 13, we had spent the day on my dad’s boat. It was nearing time to go home, so my dad sent my sister and I off in the dinghy to row over to the jetty and pop some stuff in the car. We rowed across, secured the dinghy, reached over to step out of the boat… And dropped the car keys into the harbour! They were the only keys we had. My dad had just enough coins in his pocket to make up the bus fares, I can remember counting with him thinking, please be enough!

2. Oddest birthday present…
My husband taught me to roller blade for my 29th birthday… It was his first ever birthday present to me! We’d been together for eight months, and he told me to pack a bag but refused to tell me where we were going (I was less than impressed with the non-help in packing my bag!). He’d booked an ApartHotel in central London, and in the afternoon we went to Hyde Park, rented roller blades and he taught me to skate :)

3. Proposal…
My husband proposed, with champagne, outside a tent! We were at one of our favourite campsites, just outside Cambridge, for the weekend. Considering that we had already bought my engagement ring (I’m that much of a control freak!) it shouldn’t have a come as a surprise to me when he got down on one knee, bit it did and I went into nervous babble mode! My husband still teases me about it :)

4. When we were six…
We moved house not long before my sixth birthday. We had a party at the new house, and being the beginning of September it was a lovely sunny day (I can think of a handful of birthdays in my 40 years where the sun has not shone on my birthday!). So, the party moved between the garden and the house. We all know how mischievous six year old boys can be, and the afternoon did include one of my friends teaching me to eat two chocolate fingers at the same time so that I looked like I had fangs (my very polite mother was appalled!). But, the best moment was when two of my friends (one of them the chocolate fangs culprit) locked my mother out of the house…

5. Films that make me cry…
I am a bit of sucker for romantic comedies, that make me cry. I have a particular weakness for ones that have Andrew McCarthy or Jon Cusack in them… favourites include Pretty in Pink, St Elmos Fire, The Sure Thing and Say Anything (am I showing my age?!). However, my go to film; when I’ve had a bad day, or a good day, need a good cry or a bit of a lift; is Never Been Kissed, and I’m not ashamed to admit it :)

6. A slight obsession…
I have a bit of a thing for Robbie Williams. I’ve seen him in concert several times, most recently at Hampden, when Take That toured together again. I was at Knebworth! Although that concert, while brilliant, goes down as one of my least favourite nights, after it took us three hours to get out of the car park at the end of the concert!

7. Famous for 15 minutes…
In my days as an engineer I was lucky enough to appear in a couple of magazine articles and educational TV programmes. My real 15 minutes of fame comes from a programme in the Snapshots series, filmed about 10 years ago now, which was shown in the BBC Open University, middle of the night, television for insomniacs slot… I still occasionally have people ask me if they really saw me on television last night…!? I couldn’t resist googling, and you can still watch it online here :)

I look forward to learning a bit more about my nominated bloggers soon… But, as always – no pressure! Let’s just think of it as a bit of Blog Love :)