We’re coming up to my 8-year blogaversary and in that time I reckon I’ve shared all the beans by now. Let’s see…
1. I don’t have a driver’s license. Still. I’ve learnt to drive three times, and if you put me in a car right now I could drive the thing. But for some reason me and driving just hasn’t clicked long term. It’s something I regularly feel embarrassed about.
2. Having said that, there’s not much else that embarrasses me these days.
3. I let my bathroom sink get really limescaley before I give in and clean it. And every time I think “I should do this more often.”
4. I just hate doing housework.
5. I’m very tidy though. Bordering on obsessively so.
6. I know where everything is in my flat. It helps that I downsized when I moved back to London.
7. None of my crockery matches. My plates, bowls and mugs are a mishmash of colours and styles and it makes me happy. 80% are secondhand.
8. I’m always late. I’m sure it drives my friends mad. I just always think I have more time than I do.
9. I just had deja vu writing this list. I think I may have done this before. In fact, half the time my posts feel like a rehash of older posts. I worry I’m getting repetitive in my blogging old age ;-)
10. I never completed my A levels at school. 23 years on I can authoritatively report this has never mattered one bit.
11. I made a conscious decision to stop reading newspapers when the Tories got into power. Sometimes I feel I’m missing out on world news, but mostly I just feel a lot calmer.
12. My middle name is Catherine.
13. My next book for Chronicle is a photography book about London! On shelves spring 2016 (It would have been next year but our hideous winter meant we’ve had to put the deadline back.)
14. I own 5 pairs of boots, 2 pairs of trainers and lots of flip flops but no shoes.
15. I can’t walk in heels. At all.
16. I can do a good impression of being extroverted for about half an hour in a social setting but then I have to run away and recover somewhere quiet.
17. I have only ever dated extroverts. My three big loves were extroverts. Might be time to try something different.
18. I have no shoes, but I do have 150+ bottles of scent and perfume oil. Planning to write a post about that soon…
19. I like and will eat pretty much anything, but I will literally spit out fresh coriander/cilantro. Even the smell makes me gag.
20. As a teen my favourite band was Wham, but now I pretend it was Duran Duran. #80steenshame
21. I’m currently on week 13 of wearing my Invisalign braces. I’ve wished for straight teeth all my life but must admit it’s not the most fun I’ve ever had. Eight more months to go!
22. Moleskine notebooks turn me on. I’ve used them as my journal for the last 11 years and love the uniformity of my stack of 28 black Molies. No. 28 is the Hobbit special edition.
23. I have never read The Hobbit.
24. Speaking of… I once met Leo Sayer.
25. My biggest regret is that I didn’t say I love you more. But I am so grateful to be here now, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Got any beans you want to spill? I’m all ears!
Cilantro/coriander is the devil’s herb!! Tastes like dirt, and that is on a good day! x
EXACTLY! :D
something you may not know about me…?
I’m waiting on #18. srsly.
xx
Y
Ditto 4 and 5, maybe an Aquarian thing? Love cilantro though :) And Wham and I was not a teen anymore when they became popular!
Ahhhhh bathroom limescale. The endless torment. Mine is ‘putting away folded clean clothes’. I don’t know why it creates so much drama, but alas, it does.
Not reading the news is a huge thing. I try and keep away from it. It’s a strange world. I have tried to tell my lovely but very stressed out Gran. I can see how badly it can change her happiness levels. But it’s her thing, she must know EVERYTHING, good and bad.
Anyway, lovely post, I love feeling a little nosey :)
Lx
Cilantro—bleh! What’s its purpose other than to mess up the delicious taste of guac?
High heels…my feet aren’t made to wear them. :)
I wish I had spent more time with my Nanny-Gerri before she died. I also wished I hadn’t shushed her when she was trying to talk to me on her deathbed…I wanted her to rest and she wanted to tell me something. I wonder what she wanted to say???
Happy 8th! xxO
No beans of my own to spill. But I think I’ve been reading you here for probably 7 3/4 of those 8 years and have enjoyed all of it. I rarely comment, but wanted to take the opportunity to say “thank you” for continuing to share here.
Hope Noah had a fabulous 4th :)
wow, that’s a long time! I’m honoured you stuck around and didn’t get too sick of me blathering on :D thanks, honey! xxx
(i’m counting down the minutes till i get to give him his presents :)
ohh, love, that brought a little lump into my throat! love you, lady x
sorry…I love it….but just few leaves at a time
I’m totally #7. Most of my dishes, cookware and bakeware belonged to my grandmother, her mother and even her mother. The rest of it are various pieces my best friend has purchased for me over the years. All with much meaning :)
I also used to be a #3 but making my own toothpaste has stopped that, being that everything sticks to the coconut oil and makes it dirtier much quicker.
cilantro haters unite! I too can’t get near even the smell of it. so much so that my husband sent me this link just last week: http://ihatecilantro.com/
apparently we’re not alone :)
no high heels here neither, I used them when I was 15 though…
you HAVE to read The Hobbit
want to know more about perfumes!
I say “I love you” too often I think…
I have been reading you since the beginning and always love it!
xxoo
and…. I LOVE CILANTRO!!!!! (really, did you all ate it alone or something? gives extra taste to plenty of dishes)
I’m 48, can’t drive, won’t drive, not the least bit embarrassed, love this article from another non driver, I feel the same way!
http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2001/dec/30/features.magazine7?INTCMP=SRCH
I love this. I also have The Hobbit notebook, saved for later this year when I go on my own adventures.
12: How did I not know this : D ? And, Elizabeth.
Also 10: me too/neither. X
i look forward to your perfume/scent post…. :) there is nothing more heavenly than a scent that triggers a beautiful memory. a treasure beyond words.
Susannah,
I think we’ve been bloggers together for the past 8 years, or close to. One of the first things we did together was a meme; 8 things you didn’t know about me.
All these years I thought we were compatible and only now am I finding out that you dislike cilantro. Darn!! I like it, particularly in Costa Rican cooking, like gallo pinto (black beans and rice).
You did turn me on to Moleskins. :-)
Someone recently told me that coriander aversion (if it tastes of SOAP) is a actually genetic thing. hm
It taste like detergent to me!
Susannah, I loved this!!
I’m a fairly new *regular* reader of your blog and I just want to say thanks for all you share here. I’m so inspired by today’s post I was wondering how you would feel if I followed suit … i.e. copied you, with a “25 things” post on my own blog? Such a swell way to just put some stuff out there. You ok with that?
If not, no worries at all !
Thanks for all the inspiration here ;>]
Christi
I have my drivers license (after I failed the first test when I was 17), but I *hate* driving on the highway. It gives me fits. I think it’s just too fast & nobody lets me merge & it makes me spaz out.
I sleepwalk. I woke up one morning wondering why my leg hurt. I flung off the blankets & yanked up the pj pants to discover a giant purple bruise – brand new that wasn’t there when I went to bed. It slowly came back to me that I had woken up in the front hall in the middle of the night. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing there, felt cold & went back to bed. I had smashed my leg into the bench I had just put there that afternoon after painting it. I almost walked out of the apartment in the middle of the night in my pj’s! Yikes.
Love you too…
xxO
Hmmm….
1. I have three tattoos – one around each ankle, one on my lower back – but I HATE needles.
2. I have an odd sense of humor. (Thank you grandma). Random phrases just pop out of my mouth, go over friends’ heads, and then hit them.
FOR EXAMPLE:
-“If you have one leg in the past, and the other in the future, you are peeing on the present. Live in the now.”
-“You can’t avoid life if you stick your head in the sand because your ass is still hanging in the air.”
-“Well, that went over like a fart at High Mass.”
3. I surprisingly like housework; in a way, it is almost meditative. But I avoid the bathroom at all costs.
I’m very tidy, and I also hate housework.
Susannah – Loved your “List” — Just a question for you — What are “A Levels”? — Just has me wondering … Love your posts!
~Kristine
I just got rid of 4 pairs of high heels….
I’m with you on #16. I’m an introvert and crave some alone time even when I’m with lots of people. How can you have never read the Hobbit? I think I’ve read it about 20 times since I was an early teen. Congratulations on blogging for 8 years. I’ve done it a few times, lately I’m at about six months.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCE_Advanced_Level
Of course, love, go for it! xx
You Make Me Feel Like Dancing is one of the best songs EVER! :D
Having grown up in New York City, my Dad never learned to drive. He moved to San Francisco so of course he never had to drive there either. So until the day of his death, he too never owned a driver’s license nor did he ever regret it!
I used to wear heels in high school, but I would fall right on my butt if I tried these days. I don’t ever miss them!
Love, love your blog and books-happy anniversary to you and here’s to many more wonderful years!!!
I love this list! As I was reading, I kept thinking ‘me too!’ It’s fun to have stuff in common with someone you admire so much. :-) I don’t drive either…I CAN but don’t. If I could only ever drive on country roads with few other cars around, I’d probably be good lol. Luckily you live in a town where you can probably walk everywhere or take the tube or other public transit, and I’m the same. When people look at me funny and ask why I don’t drive, I tell them I don’t NEED to (even though I wish I could just tell them it’s none of their business and stop looking at me like I have three heads).
I was going through your Instagram pics the other day (I just joined and went through all your pics in a very stalkery way #sorrynotsorry) and you have the most beautiful smile but I thought ‘she always smiles with her mouth closed, like me’ and then I remembered you had Invisalign and wondered how it was going. I have straight teeth but major gaps, which have always made me super self-conscious when I talk or smile.
Oh, and one more thing (sorry). When you were talking about your journals, it made me think of my Grama…she kept a diary from the time she was in her 20s (I think) until she died at age 99. She didn’t journal the way you do, she just talked about things she did that day or things happening around her (she had a lot of those old 5-year journals with only a few spaces for each day) but my god what treasures. In a few of them she even wrote down the prices of things (bread and other staples) at the time, which is really fun to see now.
Anyway, fun list! I might do something similar if you don’t mind. I can’t wait to see your photography book about London. xx
hi lovie! The invisalign have taken a while to get used to… still not loving them, but I know it will be worth it in the end. I’ve always smiled with my mouth closed in photos so it’s going to take a while to get used to not feeling I have to do that. We’ll see how it goes ;-)
i LOVE hearing that about your dad!! :)
#1. Yep, same here. I now think of it as quirky.
#13. Exciting!
#16. Yep, same here. And every time I pat myself for trying.
Thanks for sharing. Great list.
I’m 21 and still don’t have my drivers license, so don’t worry. My two aunts who are 46 and 57 also don’t have one.
YES to bathroom basins and coriander! {Tastes like soap.}
I completely agree. My daughter loves it. I can’t understand why…
#16 especially resonated with me. Most people who meet me in social situations would describe me as an extrovert. What they don’t know is that it takes me about a day to recover from putting myself out there. I’m an introvert living in an extroverts’ world.
1. I’m a big fan of your blog, so I’m thrilled to know your middle name is Catherine. :)
2. I love the smell of my pillow. And books. I’m an obsessive book sniffer.