Meme -Eight Random Facts

Wendy over at House of Purpleworms challenged me to this meme ages ago (back at the end of May ) and I ever since I have been racking my brains to think about any weird things that have happened to me that might just keep you reading. I have led a very mundane life really so while I am having a last ponder here are the rules:

The rules:
-Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

-People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

-At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

-Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

So ignoring the rules I am NOT going to tag anyone so you can relax and just read; however should anyone feel the urge to divulge some facts about themselves please let me know and I will be over to read!!!!


HERE ARE EIGHT RANDOM THINGS ABOUT ME my family and pets (written small you might not realise I'm not folowing the rules):

1 I think a few of my regular reader may have picked up the fact that until a couple of years ago I was a very keen tennis player and I encouraged Sam and Beccy to play when they were children. Sadly Sam, no longer plays, although she was quite good. Beccy plays very regularly and is every bit as competative as me but she is a better looser than I ever was (if I didn't tell you this she would be commenting about it I'm sure- actually that could be a random thing-but I won't count it unless I run out things before I get to eight!). Embee reminded me there was a time when we played six times a week.
One of the tournaments I used to enter was a ' Bristol Parks Tournament'. Although we belonged to tennis clubs, this particular tournament was for non-county players to promote tennis in public parks and we have a lot of these facilities around Bristol. I regularly entered this tournament and was thrilled when I managed to win the ladies doubles in 1985 with Sam and then again the next year, 1986, with Beccy. I had to go and find the dusty trophies to confirm the dates.

2 I love Cornwall and we used to regularly holiday there when the girls were young and we continued this tradition for a few years with my grand children. One of the things we always did was to take our bikes and ride part of the Camel trail. The 17 mile trail (an old railway track) runs through some beautiful countryside and we used to ride it in 3 stages on different days. When the grand children were young, we hired a carriage and then as they got older they had tagalongs but from quite an early age they managed to ride independently. I like to think this helped give my eldest grandson his love of cycling.

3 You will have seen the picture of my dog (Tamsie collie/labrador cross ) in Fun Mon post.
Oh I've just thought of something else so I'm making this two facts. We have a family tradition that all our pets have names beginning with 'T', you have met tortoises Topsy, Tog and Tom and Beccy once had a guinea pig called Timmie, (I think she might have had 2 but will have to leave her to remind me if that's correct and the name).

4 Back to Tamsie, we had her from a puppy and she was always my baby, from the day we brought her home. At the time I was on night duty so decided to sleep on the settee so that she could sleep with me for comfort having left her mum and siblings. As she got older she didn't need this but every single time I sat down she was used to jump up on my knee and as she got bigger and heavier she would curl up behind my legs or keep my feet warm (before you say it I know she shouldn't have been on the furniture but I did not want her upstairs or to leave her crying so I couldn't sleep!)

5 Now another Tamsie story- I'm not sure how old she was when this happened but quite young. I was going out (probably either to work or play tennis) and I had put Embee's meal on the table. He came to the door to see me off (he used to do nice things like that once upon a time) and I expect you've guessed it he was only gone a couple of minutes but Tamsie had climbed onto the chair and eaten his meal. I believe she was given a good spanking- not sure what embee had to eat that evening!!
I could go on telling you amusing stories about Tamsie but I'd better move on; however, before I do I will just say she loved water and was never happier than just lying in water with her legs splayed out, it was quite amusing to watch

6 When I was nursing in the early 60's one of my patients was a little known disc jockey called Tony Prince- I remember at the time I thought he was spinning me a line when he said he was a DJ. He then gave me a signed photo- I was still not impressed and he did not get any preferential treatment. I googled him and found he presented an early pop TV programme called 'Discs-a-gogo' which must have been around the time he was in hospital (if you use this link you will need to scoll down to find the entry) and he's still in the music business. Damn I think I missed out on getting free tickets!!

7 I never had the opportunity of air travel until Beccy went to live in Dublin. This was the first flight I ever took all by myself and I don't particularly like heights. Back in those days they had armed police patrolling Dublin airport and handbags were checked going in and out. Flying has never really worried me even after 9/11, I took my mother to San Fransisco in the November of that year. We both decided that the security would be so good there was no need to worry. I recall the fight was half empty and there were no problems except that my mother's metal knees set off the scan alarm and she was pounced on and was handled a bit roughly as she was searched.
The other incident involving heights that I could NOT cope with was when the girls were young and we were on one of our regular Sunday walks along the Avon Gorge with Tamsie. We decided to climb some rocks and find another shorter way back to the car, what we didn't know was that this would involve jumping across a gap with a huge drop. Embee did it, Tamsie did it and the girls managed it. Wimpy here froze and could not do it. I was practically **** scared so had to climb all the way down (that wasn't easy either) and re-trace my footsteps. This was a hell of a walk I can tell you but my faithful hound jumped back and came with me. When I met up with family they, of course, had found a very quick route back to the car.

8 At school I was always getting into trouble because I would always champion the underdog. If I felt anyone was being unfairly treated I would always chip in my four penneth and this usually got me into trouble. On occasions I even got given detentions because I argued with teachers if I thought someone was being blamed for something they didn't do. I suppose I had a strong sense of justice, but I learnt to my cost it doesn't always pay (cynical maybe but true).

So here endeth my eight random ramblings!!