A little more about me

Since it is my birth-week,

I am going to indulge in the pleasure

of talking about myself!

Did anyone else have this book as a child?

I think that blogging must be

the grown-up equivalent.

Blogger Interviews have been making the rounds this week. Two of my favorite bloggers, Willow and Elizabeth, have both participated . . . and so I have slightly deviated from the rules of the game by asking them both for a few questions.

Willow's Interview

Elizabeth's Interview

We all drop bits and pieces of ourselves into our writing . . . and it is interesting to find out what blanks someone else might want us to fill in.

How did you manage to end up in the UK from deep in the heart of Texas?

In the spring of 1992, I was a graduate student at Rice University in Houston. With some misgivings, I allowed myself to be set up on a blind date with a “charming English man.” I had three pieces of information about him: he was a great cook, he wore old-fashioned pajamas and he had a “cute accent.” (Two of the three turned out to be true.) Not only was Sigmund witty, charming, thoughtful, intelligent and gainfully employed, but he also wined and dined me. The first year we were dating, he took me skiing, to Paris and the Loire Valley, and all over California. It was heady stuff. By the end of 1994, I was married, pregnant and living near Reading.

Tell me about the lovely barn, pictured on your sidebar.
The Barn is your typical two-hundred-year-old Money Pit. Although it was originally a barn, it is quite unlike most dwellings of that former usage. More than one person has described it as a “Tardis.” It has always been lovely from the outside, but it was hideous and dated on the inside when we bought it. We had two very small children at the time and I really, really didn’t want to take on a fixer-upper, but luckily Sigmund persisted. (At the time, he thought it was great value for money. However, we have lavished so much money on it that I’m not sure that is still the case.) We renovated it for a year, lived in it for a year, and rented it out for five years while we lived in Houston. When we moved back to England in 2005, we started renovating it again. In fact, I spent two hours this afternoon meeting with the people who are going to replace about half of the old wooden windows. (That should be fun!)

The first 12 years of my oldest daughter’s life we moved almost every year – the one exception being the three years we spent in Trinidad. We are planning on putting down some roots here now, mostly for the children’s sake. It is a good house for childhood. The walls are thick, there are lots of bedrooms (seven) and strange little cupboards, and it has an eccentric floor plan.

Which three books do you think have affected your life most?
This is probably the most difficult question to answer, as I have read so many books!

Inevitably, I turned to childhood and adolescence for the answer – mostly because that was the time in which my tastes started to form. First of all, I am going to nominate Helen Corbitt’s Cookbook. I developed a taste for cookbook reading at approximately the age of 10, and this book was my favorite. Corbitt was a larger-than-life character who worked at the Houston Country Club, the Driskill Hotel in Austin, and Neiman Marcus in Dallas. She liked food to be lavish, wholesome and beautiful. Her recipes were accompanied by all sorts of colorful anecdotes, and her writing had a very specific, very charming “voice.” (Later, when I was 23, I discovered Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking and it had that same combination of food and memoir, except with less of the former and more of the latter.) Cookbooks are the bridge between my two greatest loves – cooking and reading.

My second book has to be Charlotte Brontë ’s Jane Eyre. I did a book report on it in the fourth grade – (How did I even know about this book? Where did I get it from?) – and I clearly remember my teacher telling me it was an “inappropriate” book for a 10 year old. I’ve read it so many times that I cannot properly recall that first-time readerly impression – but I do know that it kicked off my lifelong love affair with English literature, not to mention my keen interest in inappropriate books!

After much hesitation, I’m going to pick Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 as my third book. I read this one when I was a senior in high school, and unlike all of my other “favorites,” I haven’t reread it. I would describe it as influential, though, in the sense that it opened up my brain to a whole new world of narrative possibilities. It took the linear plot structure and reliable narrator that I was familiar with and turned them on their heads. And speaking of heads, it examined all sorts of big questions whilst still having emotional and psychological acuity in terms of the protagonist. I also remember this book for its mordant humor – something that I particularly enjoyed in The Confederacy of Dunces, a favorite from the same reading era. (I keep trying to sneak in other favorites!)


Apart from your loved ones, what is your most treasured tangible possession? I’m not very good at choosing just one thing! I have three most treasured things, really: my sapphire and diamond engagement ring (which I was given), my diamond drop necklace (which I inherited) and my desk (which I bought for myself). They are all so special to me, in different ways, but the desk is a kind of promise to myself.

What skill/ability/characteristic would you love to have? I have always wanted to be a jazz singer. I think that being able to express your emotions in that way would be the biggest kick. (Before blogging, what, if any, was your main mode of personal expression?) I’ve never thought of myself as a creative person, and I actually think that I lacked a meaningful mode of personal expression. Blogging has allowed me to express myself with writing, and it has also exposed me to so many creative people – and that in itself is most infectious!

If anyone else is interested in being interviewed, here are the rules for the game.
Instructions:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the
questions).
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview
someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Interviews:

Audrey at Multitude

Su at Travels with Charlie

Anne at Beyond Ramen