The challenge

Write 7 interesting things about myself, and pass on the meme, chain letter stylee.

So here are 7 facts about me, my family and my life. Interesting-ness is in the eye of the beholder. I suspect its largely self-indulgent twaddle.

1. I got married over the anvil (actually an anvil, not the anvil – a wedding in the Blacksmith’s is much more expensive) in Gretna Green, and we had paid the only guests (2 witnesses) to be there.

We had been engaged for nearly 2 ½ years, with no hope of being able to afford a ‘proper’ wedding in the forseeable future. We had joked about eloping, like I guess many long-term engaged couples do, but suddenly we took ourselves seriously. We wanted to be married, the sooner the better, and this actually seemed like the most realistic way of making that happen.
In the spirit of the way we seem to approach life, we jumped in feet first. About a week later, everything was arranged, from the ceremony itself to the honeymoon, via the flowers. We took a train to Gretna on the 4th June 2006, without telling any family what we were doing, and were married the next day by a friendly registrar in front of 2 hired witnesses in Anvil Hall, Gretna. We flew to Fuertaventura on the 7th, posting Gretna Green postcards to all our family before we left. Looking back, I still wouldn’t want to do it any other way, it was the perfect day.

2. My paternal Grandfather was a PoW in WWII, and was forced on ‘The March’ away from the advancing Eastern Front at the end of the war.

I don’t know enough about the details. He didn’t talk about it, at least not with me. But he did write about it. My father has his war diaries, and is slowly transcribing them.

3. Mendelian Genetics made me want to be a scientist.

My first school lessons about genetics when I was around 13, I guess, fired the passion for Biology in me. On a subsequent school visit to Nottingham University we were given a list of all the degrees you could study there, and asked to mark those we would consider. I marked a number of science subjects, and put a double asterisk next to ‘Biochemistry and Genetics’. I then forgot about this list, and rediscovered it years later when chucking stuff out at home, having just completed my Biochemistry and Genetics degree at Nottingham Univerisity.



http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Park_Guell_Terrace.JPG

4. (Stealing an idea from Dan for this one) My favourite place in the world is Parc Guell in Barcelona.

Sitting on the Serpentine benches early on a spring morning, eating a delicious breakfast from a Gràcia district bakery, and enjoying how deserted the place was at that time of the morning. Listening to the parrots nesting in the palm trees. Looking out over most of Barcelona spread out below, picking out the sights, la Sagrada in particular. The place is my favourite piece of Antoni Gaudi genius in a city that is full of it, and I could walk round there for hours.

5. I finally got together with my wife when she vomited down my back in a club.

I’m not sure this story needs much elaboration.

6. During university holidays, I had a job washing up in a seafront kitchen in Great Yarmouth.

Prior to the introduction of the minimum wage, this job involved working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 110 pounds. That’s £1.31/hour. In an un-airconditioned kitchen. In summer.

7. When my son was born, one of my first thoughts was ‘He’s got no nipples’…

A newborn’s nipples are often very small and pale. They were practically invisible, I was slightly high on adrenaline. Luckily I did not vocalise this thought at the time. I think the midwives would not have been kind. Odd, the things that go through your mind at times like that. Also note I said one of my first thoughts, it wasn’t my very first thought.

Could you tell I was struggling for things by the end? I think I covered that up quite well…
I don’t know 7 bloggers personally who I can pass this on to, as Dan already tagged them all. So if you fancy taking part in the meme, and haven’t been prodded by anyone you know yet, feel free to claim your place in the comments (maybe I’ll get some comments… maybe not).