10 Things You Don't Know About Me....Or Possibly Do....

As you can see, I'm still having trouble getting back into daily blogging after the school hols.

Luckily, my bloggy mate Jayne of Mum's The Word (and featured blogger on iVillage) has helped me out by tagging me in a 10 Things You Don't Know About Me meme.

At first I thought "but everybody knows everything about me, I'm an open book". I think I've probably blogged about every little interesting thing in my life at some time or another. But then I thought, you might be someone who's only just started reading my blogs or started following my tweets, so here's 10 things you might not know about me, but if you do, sorry :P

1. I'm partial to dressing up as a Dalek when bored. My costume is from one of my burlesque acts but I've been known to wear it to the supermarket and to the cinema (to watch Black Swan....long story). I'm also partial to glueing my fake Abraham Lincoln beard to my face and going out shopping too. It's an interesting experience. Here's me in beard with my two great great grandmothers....long story ;)  

    

   
   
   

2. Despite having dyscalculia, being told by my primary school teacher that I would NEVER be good at maths, being atrocious at telling the time and mental arithmetic (I have to have a calculator and triple check everything), I qualified and worked for nearly a decade as a chartered accountant.

3. Once when working in the PR department at Darlington Civic Theatre I stood in for Lord Charles and was used as a dummy by ventriloqist Ray Allan. Just to avoid confusion, this is actually Lord Charles in this clip, not me....I know the similarities are quite astounding:

    

    

4. I TOTALLY failed my German 'O' level. I got an 'Unclassified' in it. My excuse is it was my very last exam that year and my period had just started. Not enjoying German or being very good at languages probably contributed too. I do however have a grade C in 'O' level Latin and Grade 1 CSE in German. Go figure.

5. Not knowing the words to songs has never ever stopped me from singing said songs, and usually very, very loudly with additional pogoing much to the amusement of my daughters. I do stunning versions of Come On Eileen, La Bamba, Should I Stay Or Should I Go and Life On Mars? with a 'getting any of the words right' success rate of about 12% per song.

6. I once ran in a relay race with 2 others against sports television personality John Inverdale over the Shropshire Iron Bridge (in Ironbridge unsurprisingly) to raise interest in taking part in Sport Relief. John beat us all soundly. I was representing BBC Radio Shropshire where I worked at the time. I'm so, so sorry Shropshire, I let you down. John is incredibly fit though. And very tall. I was quite surprised at how tall he is when first met him.

7. I used to run a knitting charity, in fact I quit my job to run it. I took in spare wool and needles from people who didn't need them and passed them on to others who would knit baby clothes, trauma teddies, squares for blankets, or whole blankets for several charities I hooked up with who needed them in mainly in South Africa and Pakistan (just after the huge earthquakes). I also taught hundreds of people and children to knit at this time through schools, Brownie groups, roadshows etc. and eventually got paid to teach adults to knit at a local adult education centre (though I re-invested this money in the charity). The whole enterprise was however a victim of its own success (I had a lovely interactive website with patterns and pictures from knitters who joined in from around the world - from Japan to the USA, Spain, France, Denmark, hundreds across the UK, and even India). It worked very well whilst I was in the hyper stage of my cyclothymia (which lasted over 2 years, probably the longest top up I've ever had) but when the depression crash end came I couldn't cope with all the work I'd generated through it and very sadly had to gradually shut the scheme down. I still think it was worth it though - I got loads of thanks from older knitters feeling they were doing something useful for others, I got wool and needles into the hands of people who would use them instead of perhaps being thrown out, I taught tons of people to knit and hopefully they'll pass on this skill, and together we made a huge quantity of blankets, baby clothes etc for people in desperate need of them.

    

   
   

    

8. In 2007, I auditioned to be on Big Brother. I may have happened to take my top off. I didn't get through to the next round :) This was part of the queue waiting for auditions with me in Birmingham:

    

   

    

9. In 1986 I started a Bachelor of Education degree specialising in Secondary School Theology and Comparative Religions. I finished university with a Bachelor of Arts 2:1 in English Literature and Theology. 'Obviously' with this qualification I went on to be an accountant, as you do. I've been back to university twice to qualify as a chartered accountant and later a broadcast journalist. I've worked for, amongst others, the NHS, local government, the voluntary sector, run my own charity, run my own business desining websites and publicity literature, been a housewife, taught myself to sew costumes & build props and, am now a burlesque performer in the United States of America...................and yet at school they told us that we had to make the right decisions NOW choosing subjects for 'O' levels because they would determine the path for the rest of our lives - rubbish. You can be whoever you want to be, you can do whatever you want to do, there is nothing you can't do, just things you haven't done yet.....it might might take time, money and effort but the world is your oyster!

10. I play the drums, but very badly. This doesn't stop me. Drumming is superb for relieving stress and causing laughter. Luckily Mr Devyne and Melchett are both drummers so I have two kits to practice on.

OK, there you go. 10 things you might know about me or might not. For more interesting '10 things you don't know about me' and other posts check out:

Mrs Teepot

DummyMummy

THIS is Mommyhood

Badger Mad

and of course Mum's the Word herself - Thank you!