An alien voice under a duvet of dreams.

I’ve been meme tagged by Dadwhowrites. Eeks! I feel all a bit Field of Dreams now – tag them and they will come and the like! So, here goes. The rules (nicked from Dadwhowrites blog):

OK, the rules of this award are that I now have to say 10 honest things about myself, and then tag 7 bloggy friends who I think are honest and true with what they have to say.  Sigh.  The hard part.  OK, first things first.  10 honest things.  This might be difficult, because I think you all know everything already.  I mean, isn’t that what the award is about, being honest and spilling my guts?

Now, what haven’t I said before? There may be some repetition here, I mean, you know it all already, right?

1. I am very self-depracating. I try to keep it out of the blog, but I’m sure it sometimes escapes its bindings.
2. This is the first time I’ve admitted this anywhere, but I suffered with post-partum depression for the first three years of Princi’s life. OK, I know it’s only post-partum for some of that time and then it’s just plain old depression, but there really was no distinction between the two phases. I have never told anyone about this and spent many a night crippled with doubt and self-loathing for feeling useless, and crying myself to sleep.
3. A reason I never spoke about it was due to the gut-wrenching fear of being told I was too unstable to take care of my Princi. (EDIT! I think I should clarify here, I should have said the gut-wrenching fear that I MIGHT be told that I was too unstable. )
4. I have an all-encompassing fear of failure.
5. I can’t drive because a) I have an irrational fear of roundabouts, b) there are too many idiots on the roads, and c) I never want to be judged as a stupid, incompetent, woman driver. (If I did learn to drive I would not be one of these, but big-headed men who think they know how to drive would still call me this because I am female.)
6. Evil toys and dead horses. Sometimes I wonder if I scare Princi with some of the things I tell her (even though sometimes they are true things.) Case in point 1 – Evil toys. She kicked off at lunch on Sunday when she didn’t win a toy at one of those stupid grabby machines. I told her she didn’t want to take one of those toys home because they are evil and would wake up in the night and take the stuffing out of her other toys. She stopped crying and was quite happy not to win an evil toy! Case in point 2 – Dead horses. One day, when she was creating art, she started putting the PVA glue in her mouth. I told her to stop because she was eating dead horses. She stopped and hasn’t tried to eat glue since. (I think listening to Neil Gaiman stories has prepared her for things like this, and she has given some of her teddies cannabalistic tendencies!)
7. I wish I could play the guitar competently, but I just don’t have the patience for practice.
8. I wonder if I am doing the right thing taking this Children’s Literature course. It seems a little out of my comfort and knowledge zone and I am petrified of making a mess of it and buggering up my degree.
9. I am afraid of wind – if I get blown over I am crushed by embarrassment because I can’t stand up without help.
10. I think Princi has made me a better person. I used to get extremely angry with myself when I fell over, punching my legs for failing me. Now I have to ‘grin and bear it’ (as Princi quite happily told me, out of the blue, the other day) so that I don’t upset Princi. And at least being on the floor means that Princi and I can play games we don’t usually get to play!

So that is that. Hmph. Should I really be saying some of these things? Who knows. And now to the tagging… Oh, and the reasons? Just because.

Skippy

Dazed and confused

John

Nudul

Isabella Black

Lemoncraft

And I know its a cop-out and you’ve already done this, Dadwhowrites.

So. French Open. It’s always on in the background around this time of year, just so I can have a peek at what’s going on. Of course, more attention is paid to the TV when Murray, or any British player, is playing. Like today, for example. Murray played Marin Cilic, so it was a must-see match. And yay! He won 7-5, 7-6 (7-4), 6-1. But that news was slightly less shiny than the news that Robin Soderling had taken a set from Rafa Nadal. ‘Yeah,’ I thought, ‘but that doesn’t mean he’s going to win.’ How wrong could I be? Soderling was relentless, and it was one of the most aggressive tennis matches I have ever watched! I’d usually expect Rafa to pile on the pressure, but he looked normal in comparison to Soderling’s destructive game play, with Soderling winning 6-2, 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 7-6 (7-2). It has opened up the tournament in a big way. Federer must be wetting himself in anticipation! I am so looking forward to next week.

One thing I am not so happy about is the delay in receiving my TMA mark. This is the second time it’s happened and predictably I am one of the final few left waiting. I suppose that’s what happens when you submit work early. First in, last to be marked. This is me, seriously irked. Grrrr!

At least the  course is done with. I have a fun day to look forward to tomorrow. Grandand is taking Princi and I to Knowsley Safari Park. Yay! I can see the argument of whether or not to drive through the monkey enclosure happening. I love going through there, but those little buggers can be so destructive! Still, I’ll enjoy the trip anyway.

Well, late dinner today. And I am starving!