It's all MeMe Me.....

So, Bevchen (http://confuzzledom.wordpress.com) has tagged me with a meme which has given me another sleepless night as I plot my answers. The idea is simple in theory - take the alphabet and make it all about me! So here goes:

A is for: Apples - the loyal hound has started picking the apples off the trees and then running round at high speed with them. Highly amusing for me but less so for my parents whose apple crop he is decimating!

A is also for Alaska and the Aurora Borealis: I really want to go there and see the Northern Lights. Apparently, if you go to the middle of nowhere and have a radio microphone you can actually listen to the Northern Lights singing. How fantastic is that.

B is for: Books. It has to be. I love them and can't have enough. I go into a panic if I am in a house without any. I re-read them, heap them round me and wake up in the middle of the night with a sudden urge to dive into a remembered plot and remind myself of how it went. Every room in the house is littered with books to cater for sudden panic attacks where I need a book instantly. Even my car has books in it in case I have ten minutes spare before a meeting and could read something.....

B has to also be for Bedlinen; I really love a beautifully made up bed with an excess of down pillows, crisply ironed Egyptian cotton (or irish linen) sheets with a thread count so high it needs a route number. The best duvet ever and a blanket to pull up if you want to. I'm not sure there are many things better.

C is for: Chocolate and cake, or chocolate cake, or cake with chocolate on it. There seems to be a theme here. I will break most moral and ethical codes for the Lindt red truffles and have never worked out how to manage ladylike restraint when there is cake in the room.....

C is also for cloud. I quite literally spend some of my time living with my head in the clouds, today being a good example when I can't see my house from the office because the cloud has dropped so low.

C also is for Courtesy and Charm; I don't understand when they became something to be ashamed of? Whenever somebody is courteous or charming to me I blush like a schoolgirl and feel like a million pounds. Why therefore is it considered better to scowl / swear / spit at somebody rather than be charming, or courteous. Both are free.

D is for: Diets. I don't believe in them, unless they involve eating only cake. Diets make you miserable and I'd rather be fat and happy. So yah boo sucks to everyone torturing themselves with only a photo of a lettuce leaf for lunch; I'm having omelette with mushrooms and grated cheese and I don't care about my cholestrol!

D is also for Desert Island Discs: If I ever become famous I shall start panicking about what to put on my desert island discs list. There's so much music to choose from and I don't know that I can whittle it down enough. Then again, I'd quite like a year on a desert island to read all of shakespeares plays.

E is for: Women called Emma. I seem to have an awful lot of 'Emma's' in my life. I attract them like honey attracts bees. It's a thing.....

E is also for Eye Surgery which I had to correct my terrible eyesight. I love not wearing glasses but the whole thing was pretty traumatic and i wouldn't want to go through it again.

F is for: French. I'd really like to speak French but I can't. I get it mixed up with the token amount of Spanish and Italian that I know and end up speaking gibberish with an 'allo 'allo accent. Very disappointing.

G is for Good Films. I love a really good film. There's nothing better than getting swallowed up in a celluloid adventure and emerging slightly dazed at the other side. Then again there is nothing worse than a really bad film that you were looking forward to and then have to switch off after thirty minutes because it is so awful.

H is for: House. I really want one of my own and I can't find one. I've been looking for 3 1/2 years and haven't found one that I could afford and want to live in. I love the house I rent but can't escape the fact that I want one of my own. The only good thing about the credit crunch is that maybe houses will become more affordable.

I is for: I pod. I love it - it's one of the nicest technological advances in our lifetimes. How great to have every bit of music you have ever loved at your fingertips all the time.

J is for: Jam. Some of you may know I am obsessed with jam. I make it because I have a surplus of fruit and enter it in the local show every year where it is mocked, put in a corner and shunned by other jams. It's not fair - it's nice jam, it tastes good, it looks pretty and it's delicious on hot toast. Damn those jam judges who can't tell a good jam when it is right in front of them.

K is for Kissing: It's been an alarmingly long time since I kissed anyone. This is because every man I know is either married, a hundred year old hill farmer or a cyber man who lurks on the internet but never comes out to play. I'm not sure my lips would know what to do if they got some kissing action it's been so long.....

L is for Lollipops: I don't get them. Ice cream I can see the point of but Lollipops always have a weird flavour, are immeasurably sticky and unsatisfying. They are the food of the devil.

L is also for the Loyal Hound: There's nothing better than another being that firmy believes you are the beginning and end of all things and is also prepared to sleep on your feet to keep them warm. He'll also pick fruit! Now I just have to teach him to do the washing up and I'll be happy.

M is for Mothers: all my friends now seem to be mothers. It's intriguing seeing what kind of mothers they become; the wildest of them is the most paranoid and protective parent whilst the most anal one is by far the most relaxed of all the mothers I know. I also find motherhood a frustration. What I don't like is that all the mothers seem to stick together - they have this bond of lunacy / exhaustion / miracle of life thing that means you don't get a look in. It changes your friendships for ever.

M is also for Mountains: I don't like living somewhere with no mountains in view. I like to look up at them and wonder what is on the other side. My bedroom window as a child looked onto mountains and every night I would make up entire worlds that existed on just the other side of the peaks that watched over me.

N is for Nothing Days: you know, those days where you achieve nothing at all despite your best intentions and then you are cross and frustrated at the wasted time. Because you were supposed to be doing stuff all day you don't even get the satisfaction of refusing to get out of your pyjamas and reading books all day. You just move from one thing to another, somehow achieving absolutely NOTHING. I hate days like that. They make me miserable.

O is for the Olympics: I am torn about them. I like the idea of nations coming together without politics to compete but I don't like the idea of countries bankrupting themselves to hold the games. I am also worried that we will embarrass ourselves in London by not having anything finished. I spoke to a builder the other day who delivered some stuff to the olympic site. He said the foundations aren't even in yet.

P is for Physics: I am a secret physics nerd and love the way physics effects everything every day. It's amazing.

P is also for Pain au Chocolat from Gail's on Portobello Road. These are the best pain au chocolat in the world - seriously. They are crumbly and crisp, they are the kind of thing that make the world grind to a halt when you eat them because you have to savour every moment. If you ever are in london and near them go and buy one and you will see what I mean.

P is also for Poetry: I have a great weakness for poetry, particularly WH Auden and Dylan Thomas. They would be on my desert Island discs book list.

Q is for Quality Street: the most disappointing chocolates - too many weird flavours and not enough fudge and toffee and that's my final answer.

R is for Roses. I love full blown scented English Roses. A big bowl of them spilling petals has to be one of the great luxuries of life. When I finally have a house I shall have enough roses growing that I can pick them every day.

S is for Shakespeare: I love shakespeare. I read Antony and Cleopatra for A level and was mesmerised by the sheer genius of it. You could set the whole relationship today and it would ring true. Forget Freud and Neitsche - Shakespeare had the best understanding of people and how they tick. The man was a bona fide genius.

S is also for smoking: I know, I shouldn't but I do. I want to give up for all the reasons that you should give up smoking, but I still enjoy it. I wish I had never smoked that first cigarette then I wouldn't know what I was missing. I think the smoking ban is a good thing.

T is for Tea: I used to be a coffee drinker and then I moved to Scotland for a while. I don't know whether it is the water up there but the coffee was disgusting and I became and avid tea drinker. I'm a builders tea girl with the odd foray into Earl Grey or Peppermint but I think fruit teas are the drink of the devil. They taste of nothing and smell of too much.

U is for Urugauy. It is one of those countries that I can never quite place on the map - I mean I know it is South America but not quite where in South America. I should like to go to all those countries that I can't quite place.

V is for Stolen Vegetables. I have tried to get over the great carrot theft of 2008, but I may have to ring Victim Support to get closure!

V is also for Vegans: I don't understand vegans - I get vegetarians but veganism is a step too far for my pea like brain.

W is for Wales: Wales for me is home, it always has been. Wherever I go in the world, there is something in me that unwinds like a cat in front of the fire when I cross the border and am home again. I know it is wet, and hilly and has no shops but somehow it is still the place to which I belong.

X is for X factor: I'm not a big reality television person but when I do catch the end of this program I'm constantly amazed by two things. 1) how many people desperately long to be famous and to escape their own lives 2) how many people seem completely oblivious to their own astonishing lack of talent.

Y is for Youth: I don't know when it happened but I don't think I can say I am young anymore. I'm not old, and I don't feel middle aged but there is definitely more than one generation out there who are younger than me. Not feeling young anymore is depressing. I think the definition of youth is the belief that you can do anything you want to when you want to. The definition of losing your youth is knowing that you have already missed the opportunity for some of those things and that others you will never achieve. I have had to give up my dream of becoming a trapeze artist.....

Z is for Zen Gardens: I don't see the great calming beauty in a zen garden. Why are a bunch of pebbles, some clipped hedges and some raked sand the ultimate in mental calm? I'm getting quite stressed just thinking about them.

So, there you go - my meme. It's not earthshattering and it was harder than I thought in some bits. However it successfully enabled me to avoid work for a good hour so I count it as time well spent!