6 Random Things

I've been tagged, which hasn't happened for a fair few years. See what happens when you start posting again. Anyway, for those unfamiliar with the practice, someone else with a blog (who has also been tagged) then passes on the tag to 6 other people. It's a bit like toxic debt only less likely to bring the banking system to its knees. In this case my tagger was none other than Gadjo Dilo, who like me is a Brit living in Transylvania, though he is in the fancy cosmopolitan metropolis of Cluj rather than small town Hungaroworld.

Anyway, I'm charged with revealing 6 random things about myself. No idea where this will take me, but here goes...

1. I knew JK Rowling when she was at her lowest ebb. I was living in Porto, Portugal and teaching English - as was Joanne (as I knew her). There's a long story in here involving an abusive husband, her daughter and a desperate need to get some papers together to leave Portugal and move back to Scotland, but I won't bore you with the details. Except to say that the story of how somebody at what must have been more or less rock bottom could bounce back and become the richest woman in Britain is a reassuring one.

2. I once had to fly across the Pacific changing planes three times with a broken leg. At each stop (in Guam, Hawaii, and Los Angeles), I was met by a member of airport staff with a wheelchair to take me to my next gate. in each case the person meeting me was from the Phillipines.

3. I don't like cheese. Really. I know many people find that hard to imagine, but there it is. Can't stand the stuff - smell, taste, texture. Makes me want to vomit. As I like to say, oh so humorously, "all cheese is sajt".

4. I didn't attend a wedding until I was about 21, and the first (and only) funeral I went to was about ten years ago. I'm not sure what this says about me, possibly that I have no friends, and a very small family.

5. I once spent the night in a police cell in Bruges, but not because I'd done anything wrong, but because I'd been locked out of my hotel and the police felt sorry for me, and let me sleep there. (At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it)

6. I was a vegan for 6 years and in that time I didn't have a single illness, not even a cold or a minor snuffle. Nothing. I suspect the two things are related, though I can't prove it scientifically.

I don't actually know 6 people I can tag, because I am antisocial and not really a very active member of the world of blogs, but I will endeavour to sneeze this blogovirus in the general direction of Rob at A New Habit, Marshall at Marshall Arts, Spangly Princess, and her man, The Liquidator (a fellow cheese hater), Julie, and ... well I really can't do anyone else, because it's just too unBritish to start prodding people who you don't know very well (I only really know- in the traditional pre-internet sense - two of those 5 people), and I am already feeling very resistant to the whole concept, and desperately worried that I'm going to start annoying people with this tag ("Errr, terribly sorry to bother you, but, errm, I've been tagged and the rules are that I'm supposed to tag someone in return, and, well, I don't really know you, but well, would you errmm, y'know, be tagged by me?")

The following are the rules, which I am contractually obliged to share with you, like the list of side effects at the end of a medicine advert. You need read no further, unless you feel compelled to read to the end of any document you have started.

Link to the person who tagged you. Post the rules on your blog. Write 6 random things about yourself. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them. Let each person you have tagged know by leaving a comment on their blog. Let the tagger know when your entry is posted.