Weird, random or both together.

Jay from The Depp Effect has tagged me again.  I don't know what she has against me, I do so much for her! I found the Goodnight Kiwi cartoon, um, and the list would go on and on if I could think of any other things...  

Anyway, she wants to me to 'fess up seven random and/or weird facts about me.  I guess she imagines you all will be interested too.

Given you already probably know that I get headaches from chocolate,  live in an old house overlooking a river, like kayaking, teach every now and then as required at a tiny sole-charge private school, paint (paintings), paint (rooms), take photographs, enjoy listening to Tommy Emmanuel's guitar playing, hardly ever watch TV, but I do write a post a day here... So I guess you'll want something more ... quirky?

OK.  Here goes:

1.  I love movies and books.  I have (at the moment) 189 DVD's.  I love to own them.  I love watching them, and I love sharing them.  I am not going to count all my books for you, as they probably run to thousands.  Most are non-fiction, many of them are how-to manuals, and lots are art books.  Of the fiction, I have the complete set of all of Terry Pratchett's books.

2.  I  had braces on my teeth from age 24 until I was 27.  In those three years I only had one photo taken of me and here it is.  I think I'm saying "Don't you dare take a photo of me with my braces on!":

3.  Last summer I ate an earwig.  (No, not for a dare, it was accidently!).  Well, it was in the unwashed lettuce and I presume I ate it because its pinchers pinched me in my gum.  I'll repeat that.  I was pinched on the gum.  They (the pinchers) were left behind and I got them out with tweezers in front of the bathroom mirror.  A traumatic experience.  Then the next week for an encore I ate a stink bug.  Yes, I HAD washed the lettuce that time!  It was a worse experience.

4.  I've touched a famous painting.  When I was eleven a curator showed me the painted-out barrel (it's just to the right of the dog, in the water) on Constable's "The Hay Wain" in the National Gallery in London.  Not  realising it was totally unacceptable, I reached across the rope and put my finger on it, and said "Here?"  He said kindly, but firmly "Yes dear, but you mustn't touch it.  Think what would happen if everyone touched it.".  

5.  Before I was twelve I'd had gastroenteritis, mumps, measles, chickenpox, glandular fever, hepatitis, appendicitis, and had broken my little toe, broken my little finger, and had sprained both ankles twice.  

6.  The most I have ever sold a painting for was NZ$1,650.

7.  I once acquired a life-size cardboard cut-out of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in Lord of the Rings.  (He was part of a shop display for chocolates).  We had fun having him propped up in our lounge for a while before tiring of him. The deciding moment was getting up to go to the loo in the middle of the night and just about wetting the carpet when I saw what looked like a man lurking in the corner. I decided to put him on TradeMe, New Zealand's equivalent to Ebay.  So I tucked him up between my sheets and sold him using this photo:

So there you are.  Weird and/or random enough?

Now I tag David from Arcane Enigma, because he's so enigmatic about himself (no single-word answers allowed David!), YP from Yorkshire Pudding, because he's usually fun, but has been a bit boring recently, Sam from The Golden Hill,  Arthur, from Arthur Clewly's Diary, Dan from Mindful Heart and Val from Monkeys on the Roof, so I can get to know them better, likewise Debby from Pixie's Ponderings and also so she can tag Silverback, and Suga-lemon from Spill the Beans, because she needs help to kick start her new blog.

And here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2.  Share 7 facts about yourself - some random, some weird.

3.  Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4.  Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.