Seven Deadly Sins

I know it has been an age since I have blogged so long in fact that many of you will have forgotten who I am and the rest had perhaps presumed, nay hoped ,I had died or been arrested. But no matter no one forces you to read this drivel you know, you could go out and save the planet or do something useful instead.

Anyway, I digress, I am rather good at digressing,even if I do say it myself. I think I did it for A level although it may have been S level combined with Greek literature and advanced origami, it was a long long time ago and some things are best forgotten. As I was saying before I headed off on a dubious educational side track, as some sort of sadistic punishment for my long silence I have been hit heatedly about the head with a wet fish by Muddyboots. I think this may be an old Yorkshire custom instigated by the wives of trawler men from Hull. A similar habit was prevalent amongst the sardine gutters of Paimpol during the height of their popularity at the turn of the century. Here, therefore, we have dear and patient reader, seven incredibly boring and dull things you probably never felt the need to know about me, none of which will leave you any the wiser nor change your life , however any complaints please address to Pondside who tagged Muddyboots who tagged me in return….

1. As a child I had an impressive collection of tiger claws and teeth, Courtesy of a family friend who was a zoo and circus vet. I wonder what ever happened to them…the teeth and claws not the vet. I know what happened to the vet.

2. I was taught to ride horses by a very stout Bedouin called Magdi who did the stunt riding for, amongst other films, Gallipoli, hence he would have me racing at speed down sand dunes around the pyramids leaning forward in my saddle whist waving an imaginary sword and yelling loudly to the accompaniment of his singing various snatches of film theme music as loudly as his capacious lungs would let him. As a result I now ride one handed like and Arab with the constant soundtrack of his voice in my head.

3.I love skinny dipping, and have spent many a happy hour in various bits of various oceans about the world swimming about stark naked and cursing the idiot who has inevitably chosen ,out of miles of deserted beach, to perch on the one rock where my clothes and towel lie.

4. The New Zealand Ambassadors cricket team once performed a private Hakka for my friends and I on a fellucca on the Nile, much to the consternation of the local boatman and the annoyance of the British Ambassador for whom they had refused to perform the night before.

5. I grew up with a ghost and was surprised to discover that other people did not have ghosts at their houses nor did some people believe in them.

6. I have watched whirling Dervishes in action under the light of a full moon.

7. I once camped on a beach only to find in the morning it was mined. It was a great deal easier getting on the beach than it was getting off it I can tell you! It did not however put me off camping wild.

Now I suspect ,like transmitting some terribly anti social disease, I must pass on this little germ to seven other poor soul so if you have not been inoculated against this then Toady, Milla, Francis, Littlebrowndog,Faith, Camilla and Ivy please go ahead tell us your seven secrets…or you could just pretend to be deaf and sing very loudly then claim you never heard my call…. I promise I shall not let on!

The photograph is not alas of me but it is definitely Un Peu Loufoque Queen of the desert don’t you think and it alleviates the seven boring bits above a trifle!