Ten Things You Don’t Know About Me

I have been tagged in this linky by Mum2babyinsomniac and Jayne at Mum’s The Word.  Thanks, ladies, it’s probably the most difficult meme I’ve been tagged in so far.  I’ll try to get to ten without boring you (or myself)…

1. My extended family is big.  Huge, in fact.  My dad is one of twelve children and my mum one of eight.  My sister and I have 34 cousins, and I actually have no idea of how many second cousins I have.  My Mama, my dad’s mum, is the only grandparent still alive, and at 90 years old, she’s still going strong.  She is single-handedly keeping Hallmark cards in business.
2. I used to be very musical.  I could play 5 types of recorder (sopranino, descant, treble, tenor and bass, since you ask) and had to stand on a chair to play the bass recorder as I was too short to lift it off the ground at 9 years old.  I also played clarinet, flute and I taught myself the piano.  I attempted to teach myself how to play the guitar, which was a massive failure, and so I settled for the bass guitar.  It’s sitting in the loft, untouched for over a year, but I have every intention of going back to it one day.
3. The first time I went abroad was to Normandy on a ferry in the first year of high school.  The first time I travelled by plane was when I was 17.  When we were little, family holidays were always spent in Wales.  This was for two reasons.  One, my aunty and uncle always holidayed with us (my mum’s second-eldest sister married my dad’s elder brother, which made us pretty close; they were like second parents to my sister and I) so holidays abroad for 6 would have been expensive, and Two, my uncle was scared of flying.  So Wales it was, every year.
4. I am phobic of wasps.
5. I am phobic of fire.
6. My earliest memory is hearing Golden Brown by The Stranglers being played on the radio at my parents’ house.  I was about 18 months old.
7. My favourite band in the world is Nirvana, but I haven’t been able to listen to their albums for years because it still upsets me that Kurt Cobain died.  Yes, I am that silly.
8. My favourite place in the world (not that I’ve seen that much of it) is California.  My cousin lives in Orange County and I’ve been over to stay with her about 5 times now, and I just love it.  I love the weather, I love the beaches, I love how friendly people are, I love the SUVs, I love the Starbucks drive-thrus, I love Huntington, I love Hollywood, I love the surfer-style, and I love that pop-punk started there.  One day I’d like to call California my home.
9. I am paler than pale.  I am so pale I would be transparent were it not for the thousands of freckles that adorn my arms and legs.
10. The place that I’ve loved living the most is the flat I rented with an old school friend on Royal Victoria Dock.  It was a first floor flat, and it looked out over the dock towards Excel.  We would very often spend evenings sitting on the sofa, wine in hand, looking out at the lights reflecting on the black water, thinking about how far we had come.  My friend is still in London, in Greenwich now, and I had to come back oop North due to a severe lack of money or any way of making any, but I still miss living there and I wish I had been able to stay longer.

So there are my revelations.  Earth-shattering, non?  And now I tag

Emily at Babyrambles

Fran at O Mammy

Jules at I Need Curtains For The Window in My Head

Michelle at Femme N Grist