Honest Scrap

Christy has awarded me the 'Honest Scrap' award (thanks, Christy) which means I'm supposed to tell you ten honest and interesting things about myself. I'm also supposed to pass the award on to seven other bloggers, but Christy knows I'm a bit of a killjoy where these things are concerned and don't like chain-letter type events, so I'm sure she will forgive me if I don't do that. Anyway, I don't think I know seven people who haven't already had it! If you're reading this and you haven't yet received the Honest Scrap Award - consider it presented.

Now, ten honest and interesting things about myself. Honest is easy, but interesting? Much more difficult. Here goes...

1. When I was 8 months old, my mother was hit by a car whilst pushing me in the pram. Miraculously the pram wasn’t hit and nor were my two sisters who were walking with her, but Mum ended up in hospital for months. The driver didn’t stop and he was never found.

2. I have an Honours degree in Anthropology with an emphasis on Australian archaeology...but I’ve never actually worked as an archaeologist. I was far more interested in European archaeology than I was in Australian.

3. I once played a French air hostess called ‘Jacqueline’ in the play ‘Boeing Boeing’ on stage. It was only an amateur dramatics performance, but it was terrifying and exciting at the same time. I had to have my hair done in the ‘beehive’ style of the sixties. The kids I taught at school thought it was hilarious.

4. When I was fourteen, I won the ‘Goethe Award’ for my skills in German at school. I’ve never read the book I won though, because it’s in German and I don’t understand it! (Makes mental note: I should go back and study German again).

5. I have an allergy to tetanus toxoid and horse serum which means I can’t have tetanus injections or anti-venin for snake or spider bites. When we first came to Australia I ripped my foot open on a rusty nail and had to have a tetanus injection. The next week is a total blank in my memory. I once thought I might become a vet, but was advised against it because of my allergy. So I became a farmer’s wife instead.

6. I once shook hands with Princess Margaret. She was Patron of the Girl Guides Association and I was a Girl Guide when she visited our town.

7. I had melanoma when I was in my twenties. I’d been ignoring a small brown freckle that seemed to be growing on my leg for a few months, when I was asked to do relief for a teacher who was dying from skin cancer. Her story scared me into going to see the doctor and I was in hospital within 2 days. Fortunately it was in the very early stages and has never recurred.

8. I believe in miracles. I have three of them living with me to prove that they do happen.

9. I still have the diaries I wrote as an angst-ridden teenager. Occasionally I get them out to read. It really surprises me how normal all those terrible feelings were. At the time I thought I must be the only person in the world to feel that way.

10. I have a condition called ‘Hypermobility Syndrome’ which means that some of my joints are looser than most people’s, so I tend to strain them more easily. For instance, I can easily put my left thumb in and out of joint ( great party trick!) and at 48 I can still bend down and put my hands flat on the floor without bending my knees...but I don’t do that too often! For some reason it also means that local anaesthetics don’t work as well as they should, which makes going to the dentist a real trauma. I didn’t discover I had it until I was in my forties and went to see a rheumatologist about pains in my fingers. Until then, I had thought I was just a klutz and all dentists were sadistic liars.