100 things you always wanted to know

These 100 things about me memes are so self indulgent but they can make for great reading. I apologise if mine doesn't make for great reading. Go right ahead and skip it if you want! I've read some great ones lately, notably, RoseRed's was insightful and funnier than she thought it was.

Feeling tempted to do you own? Have a go. It's not as hard to come up with 100 as you might think!

100 RANDOM THINGS ABOUT BELLS

1. My real name is Helen and I was named after my maternal grandmother who died when she was 39 years old.
2. I never met her.
3. My paternal grandmother, who I only met twice, was apparently a knitter with beautiful tension. I like to think I inherited that from her, although my mother’s tension is also very good.
4. My nickname – Bells – is what most of my family and my husband call me. I used to be called Hells Bells in my teens but when I got all religious, I made everyone drop that. Bells stuck.
5. I am short. Only 160cm (or 5ft1)
6. I have no sense of smell, but I can taste. I’m lucky.
7. I have been married to Sean for nearly 3 years but we’ve been together for 8.5 years.
8. We met when he held an open invitation BBQ and a friend of mine took me along. He was hoping one of his friends brought a nice girl on the day.
9. I wore a red wedding dress and little red slipper style shoes.
10. I have two sisters and a brother, all younger than me.
11. The sister closest in age is the best friend I could ask for.
12. On the days I don’t talk to my sister at least once on the phone (she lives three hours away) I feel something is not right with the world.
13. Sometimes we just giggle about things like poo. I don’t know why.
14. Sean says we are poo obsessed. My sister is toilet training her three year old and we talk about that a lot. So I think Sean might be right.
15. My three year old nephew is the cutest, most amazing little boy I’ve ever known. I adore him.
16. I work for the Government. It bores me but I like the conditions.
17. I’m not sure how much longer I can just live with good conditions.
18. Until I met Sean, I would have said I couldn’t cook. He took me out for my first Thai meal and for some reason I thought I could emulate it. I haven’t looked back.
19. I now cook to relax.
20. I might not always look relaxed, especially if I’m cooking for other people but I feel great afterwards.
21. The person I love to cook for most is Sean. I love to plan a meal I know he will love.
22. I once made a cake that was so awful, even my dog wouldn’t eat it and she was a garbage guts.
23. I won a hair modelling contest when I was 23. My hairdresser needed someone at the last minute. They put me in awful, trendy clothes that I hated and I had to walk around in a room in front of judges with tall, pretty, thin girls. I hated it. But I still won the colour section.
24. I always wanted to be famous. I’ve kind of given up on that but if people read my blog, I’m happy with that.
25. I have written 2.5 novels. None of them were published.
26. My first novel was terribly clichéd in that it was semi-autobiographical.
27. I gave up writing fiction because it depressed me.
28. That was when I took up knitting. I’m a results oriented person and knitting, like cooking, gives me almost immediate results and gratification.
29. My youngest sister and I busked in the London Underground in 1998. We sang Indigo Girls songs and made very little money. But at least we could say we did it.
30. I worked as a nanny for a wealthy family in the Cotswolds and lasted only five weeks. The woman I worked for was a neurotic bitch.
31. I have no trouble saying that about someone, because she was.
32. I later came runner up in a short fiction competition with the story I wrote all about the neurotic bitch.
33. The ending in that story was a lot better than the real life ending (ie the fictional me said and did things I only dreamed of saying and doing at the time).
34. My first ambition was to be a missionary in Samoa.
35. Then I wanted to be an English teacher.
36. After that a nurse.
37. Then I got all earnest and wanted to be a diplomat even though I didn’t know what that was.
38. All the while I really wanted to be a writer.
39. I think I'd like to learn about collecting mushrooms. Mushrooms fascinate me.
40. I made a fairly dramatic exit from Christianity when I was 22. I took my defection pretty seriously, citing theological reasons and vowing never to return.
41. I still stand by that but I’m still interested in religion as a fundamental human need. I just don’t want anything to do with the religious part.
42. I once snorted green jelly out of my nose when my brother made me laugh.
43. I also tend to wet my pants if I laugh too much.
44. My sister and I used to laugh so much in church that once we had to apologise to the Minister afterwards. He told us, kindly, that even God has a sense humour.
45. I was pretty seriously bullied at school. I spent most of Year 8 and 9 hiding behind the library. I wasn’t a cool enough nerd to hang in the library. I was outside the library. No one could find me there.
46. I like to drink, but mainly only beer or wine/champagne.
47. I don’t like to get very drunk, but I love a good buzz – a bit of mood enhancement never hurts.
48. I talk a lot more when I’ve been drinking.
49. (Apparently) I snore like a fog horn.
50. I am a Cancerian.
51. Apparently this means I am motherly, a homebody and deeply sentimental. Sean says this is true.
52. He also says my deep and abiding love of cardigans is a dead giveaway that I am a Cancer.
53. I am acutely self critical.
54. It’s probably why I won’t ever be a successful writer. I agonise too much.
55. I can’t go past a fairy floss stall. It turns me into a five year old.
56. I enjoy being a five year old.
57. All my favourite literary heroines are from Victorian (or earlier) novels, like Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet, Dorothea Brooke. I love them so much.
58. My other literary heroine is Anne of Green Gables. I think I’ve always wanted to be her.
59. I have loved the Bronte sisters since I was seven years old and I saw the video for Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights. My mum told me the story and I read the Brontes a little later on.
60. Going to the Bronte Parsonage in England was one of the most intensely happy days of my life.
61. I walked across the Yorkshire Moors by myself and got very scared that I was lost.
62. I have no sense of direction.
63. I get lost in my own suburb.
64. I often can’t remember where I parked the car.
65. I have ended up in emergency because I cut my finger showing off with a knife.
66. My knife skills are good, but not as good as I like to think.
67. I will eat almost anything except bananas. The thought of eating a banana makes me gag.
68. I’m not keen on raw tomato either. But I’ll eat just about anything else.
69. I look crap in pastel shades, especially mauve.
70. I have 60% grey hair.
71. I get depressed about the effort and expense of dyeing it all the time but I’m not ready to be grey.
72. I have no sense of rhythm so people laugh when I dance.
73. I don’t dance (unless I am quite drunk but even then only when I really like the music).
    I take music really seriously.
74. I’ve been passionate about music since I was three and I developed an enormous obsession with Abba.
75. I used to think Abba lived in my cassette player.
76. Singing along to Abba in the car was the only thing that stopped my chronic car sickness.
77. I still love singing in the car. I’m not sure Sean loves me singing in the car.
78. I’m obsessed with Tori Amos. Have been since 1991.
79. I’ve seen Tori three times – the best show was at the Sydney Opera House. Second best was the Royal Albert Hall in London.
80. I like cold days better than hot days.
81. I am obsessed with peanut butter. I try not to have it in the house much because it’s the first thing I want to eat when I walk in the door, and lots of it.
82. I can’t believe I left this bit til so late in the list, but I adore lipstick. Can’t get enough of it. Feel just plain wrong without it.
83. I wish I had thinner thighs and a flatter stomach. Don’t we all?
84. I don’t like working. I’d give it up tomorrow if I could.
85. Being organised makes me feel in control and happy.
86. I’m not often organised to my preferred standard.
87. Crying over a movie is one of the best, most cathartic things I can do.
88. I will often re-watch movies that make me cry so I can let everything out.
89. If I could have any magic power it would be to travel through time.
90. I can spend ages daydreaming about which time I would travel to.
91. Then I will feel sad that I couldn’t time travel to be in a Victorian novel like Middlemarch or Wuthering Heights.
92. I’m not so interested in travelling into the future. I think this is why I’m not futuristic sci-fi geek.
93. I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
94. I used to sneer at Buffy until I heard the guys from REM say they’d like to play at the Bronze on the show. Then I started watching it and figured out how damn clever it is.
95. I am obsessed with getting and sending emails. That little ping that tells me there’s new mail is music to my ears.
96. I am extroverted but only to a point. I can happily be by myself for ages and am probably a nicer person when I have enough alone time.
97. I hate housework. I do just enough to get by and not a scrap more, unless people are coming over.
98. I like making my own facial treatments out of kitchen items like eggs, sugar, olive oil or honey. I have no idea if they work!
99. I don't like to sleep in. If my body wakes me up at 6am, I'm cool with that. I just don't like to be forced to wake up then.
100. I’m a bit sad this list has finished so soon. I kinda liked doing it!