Fabulous Blog Award

Having got over the shock of receiving this little widget, I shall now abide by the rules that come attached to it:

My five obsessions:

First would have to be books. I am a book beast (book 'nuts' being amuch more gentle breed). I trawl charity shops and car-boot sales in hunt of my prey, before scurrying home to hoard them with my other victims. Children are not allowed to breathe on them or even near them - in fact. I don't even let them talk to my books through the key hole. By far my favourite genre is Naval History fiction. This started two years ago with good old Captain Hornblower and, at the time, gave rise to the best family joke we have ever come across. My husband had become somewhat disgruntled upon being told that I took 'Captain Hornblower' to bed with me every night. Delicacy demands that I say no more than he had presumed that the dear Captain required batteries!! In terms of moral and behaviour, I am a happy prude, so the fact that he didn't know better made it even funnier, giving rise to all sorts of asides, such as: What happens when the Captain gets promoted? Will the Admiral require an air-compressor!?

Since then, I have devoured everything ever written by Patrick O'Brian (from whom I stole my user name), Alexander Kent (aka Douglas Reeman), Dudley Pope, Julian Stockwin and am now trawling for Dewey Lambdin's. My personal collection must now number well over 500, but the sales stock from my private 'dealership' has just topped 1,000. Books are everywhere and if I moved into a larger property, I would simply add more!!

My second obsession is humour, in any shape or form. Laughter is not just the best medicine to me, it is a weapon of mass destruction. You can knock down any language or social barrier with it and never have a butchers' bill at the end. Great stuff. Don't like Blue-blue humour, but silliness on any subject is fine by me.

My third obsession is animals. Any kind, any shape, any size, any breed. I love those photo's of animals caught in funny poses or situations, but most of all, I love wildlife photography - the kind that simply take your breath away. The particular animal love of my life was 'Mr George Mook' or just George. He was a Deerhound/Greyhound cross and he passed away 15th November 2007 (largely from prostate cancer) and would have been 21 on 18th May 2008. My one great regret about leaving my husband was that I couldn't bring George with me (as I moved into a flat and he'd been used to 6 acres to run around in), so I couldn't be there when he died. Quite alien to his breed, George was positively sappy with other smaller animals (and adored kittens and would nurse them), but no J-cloth was safe around him - we could walk out to a veritable blizzard of little blue/white snow across the lawns in evidence of this. We also found to our cost that doggie bean-beds were viewed as entertainment, rather than furniture. Again with the indoor blizzards.

My fourth obsession would be car-boot sales. My daughter, 27, (who lives in a local Mencap Sheltered Housing unit) comes to stay with me every weekend and we love to trawl around our local car-boot sale on a Sunday morning, where we also frequently meet up with my eldest son and his little brood. I hunt for books and tools (although I have been better lately), whereas Katie has been an avid collector of Care Bears since her childhood.

My fifth obsession is tools. I am dreadful! If I were asked to concoct the perfect shopping trip, it would be Screwfix, B&Q Trade Centre, Multiquip - followed by the compulsory No 1 Coffee shop (my 6th obsession). This goes far deeper than a need for professional caprentry tools, I would happily buy another set of chisels when I already have three perfectly good sets at home!

My five nominees:

Although I don't know many people in blogland, I'm very happy to nominate the following:

1. Mad Aunt Bernard - she's as dippy as the day is long and if I didn't know her better (she also being my favouritistest little sister in the whole wide world) I'd say she was on drugs. Lots of them!! Where her ideas come from I have no idea, but as long as they keep coming, I'm happy!

2.Ragged Old Blogger - The words "why can't I do things like that?" are never far from my mind when I see her blog. She's artistic, creative, original and - of course - a closet lunatic (which helps immeasurably). Oh, and she also forgot to switch on the remote detonator around her yellow courgettes last week - that get's my vote (and supper) alone.

3.Will Hames (Will the Poit - Half Poet - Half Wit). Will's blog was the first blog I ever visited and remains my favourite of all times. His style of humour and writing is similar (albeit much better) than my own and rhythm and flow are superb. I'd love to see his work published, but I know he's got his hands full at the moment, but hopefully he'll be able to find time to write some more before too long.

4.Lord EEjit - what can I say? Anyone who hasn't seen TFE's blog should be shot immediately and their entrails poked out and fed to carnivorous hamsters to gorge upon. Totalfeckineejit does what it says on the tin. The man's completely barmy and we love him!

5. Last, but by no means least, (I don't know if I'm allowed to do this), I'm going to nominate Professor A.B. Yaffle. He would have been one of my first choices, had my own award come from a different source, so I don't see why that should alter things - although I hope he'll be excused from finding another 5 obsessions, etc, on account of this. I love his blog for so many reasons, but the main ones are that his photography is superb and he has a wonderfully dippy sense of humour - why didn't we get teachers like that!?

Right then! That's all folks! You'll be pleased to hear that I've finished, so if you winners would kindly come and collect your awards - if I could work out how to do it, I'm sure anyone can - then I'll sod off and leave you all in peace.