Month: February 2010

…or maybe you do?

This post is response to one posted by Mr Uku at his blog, Will Write For Cake. If you don’t follow him on Twitter, you should, he’s great fun. If you’re not on Twitter, why not?! I will have to point you in the direction of my recent post, Ode To Twitter. Anyway, the point of the post is apparently to tell you things about myself you won’t know from reading my blog, or, I guess, from following me on Twitter. I’m not going to tag anyone to do this too, but please leave a comment with a few things about yourself or do your own post on your blog and I will read it!

Anyway, it sounds like a lot of fun, so here goes…

1. Hmm, this is trickier than I thought. How about on the outside I appear to be mild-mannered Englishwoman, born and bred, but inside am Irish Republican? I was born in UK but when I was about 12 my parents got me an Irish passport as my mother was Irish by nationality and my father was Irish by inclination. If you know my family it’s made even more confusing by the fact that my mother has a cut-glass English accent that almost puts the Queen to shame.
2. I live in a church. Not a conversion of a Victorian gothic building but a thriving church that doubles up during the week as a popular local conference centre. And very nice it is too. To cut a long story short, it used to be the caretaker’s flat, then was used by students and became available exactly when we needed a new place to live. Very handy on a Sunday, and to top it off during the week there’s a cafe downstairs which does lovely home-made cake and cheap cappuccinos.
3. I speak French and Spanish. Neither of them as well as when I did my A-levels ten, no, eleven, years ago, but enough that I could count them as ‘special skills’ on my CV. Look, the title of the post doesn’t say “10 Interesting Things You Don’t Know About Me”…
4. I am one in 4000. Yes, I know those who know and love me think I’m one in a million (don’t all rush at once to agree), but what I’m actually talking about is hypothyroidism. This is a condition where you don’t produce enough thyroid hormone. A lot of people have this (about 1 in 50 women and 1 in 1000 men) but develop it as adults, often in their twenties. I’m one of the freaky ones that’s had it since birth. It hasn’t been a problem until this pregnancy, but it’s fun (in a weird, twisted kind of way) watching a new doctor or nurse’s response when I tell them my dosage of thyroxine. This is usually 250 micrograms, but currently 350 because of the pregnancy. A normal adult dose is generally not more than 150 micrograms. A predictable reaction is to raise their eyebrows, go quiet for a moment to make sure they didn’t mishear, then say casually “That’s rather high, isn’t it?”. Heh, heh. Simple pleasures.
5. I can speed read? I do read pretty quickly so if you have something you want read in a hurry I’m your girl.
6. I play a couple of instruments, all fairly poorly but well enough to say I play. Strongest is probably the piano. But I do the best imitation of a dying cat on the violin that you will ever be privileged (is that the right word?) to hear. I thought about uploading an audio excerpt but didn’t fancy sending people’s speakers into meltdown.
7. I used to have a freakish memory for numbers. Telephone numbers, car registration plates, addresses and postcodes…I was a walking Yellow Pages. That talent seems to have been lost along with the other brain cells I’ve shed since becoming  a mum. What a loss to the world.
8. I have absolutely no spatial awareness whatsoever. Seriously. Do not throw things at me, do not expect me to park anywhere near the kerb, do not describe something to me as ‘half a metre’ and expect me to understand what kind of size you’re talking about. I can barely walk in a straight line, and that’s without any alcohol for seven months.
9. Nearly there. I have a teensy, weensy problem with apostrophes. I get ever-so-slightly worked up when people abuse them. I am by no means an expert on grammar (so please don’t rush to point out all of my mistakes in this blog!) but apostrophes do wind me up something rotten. I mean, it really isn’t that hard to get, people! Let’s take ‘it’s/its’. Its is when something belongs to it. It’s is when you are really saying it is. Ok? Ok. Deep breath, and move on to the last bit of Becca Trivia.
10. Which actually leads in quite nicely. Nothing ground-breaking, just a little quirk. I do not like being called Becky. It winds me up even more than the apostrophe thing. Well, maybe not, but close. I don’t mind Rebecca, but overall prefer Becca. Unless you’re going to give me a multi-million pound book deal, or just millions of pounds out of the goodness of your heart, in which case you can call me whatever you want.

And that concludes our fascinating programme for this evening, Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Me. We hope you enjoyed reading, and look forward to seeing you again next time. Please feel free to leave your ten things (or one, or twenty) in the comments, or just say hi!