Abby tagged me for this one, I have my suspicions that it’s some kind of screening process - I’ve signed up for one of her classes later this year…

I will attempt to answer as fully and interestingly as possible and try not to repeat myself. Sadly though, I cannot, no matter how much I try, answer as fully as Abbey - she types faster than she spins.

The rules:

“The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.�

1. What was I doing ten years ago?

In 1998 I was in the first year of my postgraduate teaching degreee, having previously finished an arts degree majoring in German and Linguistics. Earlier in the year I had made plans to complete an honours year studying/comparing the linguistic history of German and Swedish, but I had one of those eleventh-hour freakouts, mostly over the thought of a fifteen thousand word thesis written in German, and partly over the sort of job prospects potentially on offer for someone who knew a whole lot, in detail, about the historical similarities and later linguistic diversions of Old Norse and Old German.

Teaching was the safe option, and it wasn’t too bad either. And I only occasionally bore people with ravings about linguistic history and migrations affecting languages and how this word in Old Norse is just like this one because of the vikings and… Oh, and I can still recite ‘The Little Red Hen’ in Viking speak. But that’s another story. There was spinning in all this by the way, I had a couple of clay drop spindles and a costume and I used to demonstrate with the Viking Club while the boys leapt around with swords. Totally fun, and lots of mead involved.

2.  What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

I am 2/3 of the way through the second bobbin of a 2-ply I have to get done today. Plied, finished and drying by lunchtime I hope. I have a couple of design ideas I could swatch for, and a new web template from my developer to look at. I could bring my accounts up to date, suffering since I was in Australia. I could knit a bit on my sock.

If I sound a bit blase, that would be a completely accurate impression. I’m still coming down from Magazine Day on Tuesday and really, today will probably be a bit of a lie-around-and-watch-movies-and-knit day. Actually, I think I might finally cast on for Venezia :-)

3. Snacks I enjoy: 

Chocolate. All the way. Apart from that, I’m not a big snacker. At a party or something I’ll eat corn-chips or carrot sticks and hummus, the lately-discovered mushroom pate from Borough Market is To Die For, and I won’t say no to a bit of baguette-and-brie. But mostly it’s just the chocolate (minimum yarn stickiness).

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: 

Buy a flat with a balcony in each of Paris, London, New York and somewhere near the Rockies. And flit between them flying first class. (And Melbourne, but we already own a house there).

I’d love to have a B&B craft retreat centre. The close friend I used to dream about this with has passed away but the idea is still there at the back of my mind. Maybe one day, in the mountains somewhere.

Buy a boat for Neil - which gives me more spinning time while he sails around.

There’s probably still a whole lot left of my billion dollars, I’ll keep enough to live on and send the rest to charity. Probably cancer research and 3rd world health-care.

5. Places I have lived:

A teeny farm with sheep on it, not far from Bairnsdale, which is 3 hours from Melbourne.

A rather bigger farm with more sheep on it, a bit closer to Bairnsdale.

Melbourne. Which was a bit of a leap from the small sheep farm, but I adjusted to having 3 million people around instead of woolly animals.

London. A bigger leap. Which totally freaked me out for a while, but now I just avoid the busy bits.

5. People I want to know more about:

This is tricky. It’s easy to tag all your pals for something like the book meme, but mostly I know the answer to all these questions from the usual suspects. So I’m going to go out on a limb here and pick some new people: Grit and Michaela (both of you together, or either, or whatever…), Amy, Maud and Justine. I was going to tag Emmms too, but she’s already done this one here.

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