I am ‘chuffed to bits’ to be nominated for this award and extremely grateful to Joycelin Leahy, the author of Tribalmysticstories, for doing so. I have followed Joycelin for a few months now and am so glad I found her. Her amazing blog is the most versatile one I’ve seen on WordPress so far. Such a variety of posts! I particularly love her memoirs of her life as a child and young woman, growing up in Papua New Guinea. She did a wonderful post about the importance of varying the type of blog posts you present, entitled ‘The Diet of Content’. It’s really interesting and informative – and definitely worth the read. Thank you so much, Tribalmystic!
Joycelin nominated me for this award a few weeks ago now and I’m seriously guilty of prevaricating over my response. As with many of us, its a question of, ‘so much to do but so little time to do it in’! Now, I think I’m ready to
So here are the Versatile Bloggers Award rules:
- Show the award on your blog.
- Thank the person who nominated you.
- Share seven facts about yourself.
- Nominate 15 blogs.
- Link your nominee’s blogs & let them know. You can click on each one mentioned to get to their blogs.
Here are seven facts (in my case, they’ve turned out to be paragraphs) about myself:
- I’m not in the least bit photogenic. I seriously hate every photo of me ever taken and growing older has just added to my dislike of them – especially close-ups. One of my daughters is a keen photographer, who spends a lot of the time snapping anything in sight. I hate going for walks with her when she’s armed with her blessed camera! She took my photo for Amazon – and what a palaver that was! She took well over a hundred snaps just to get one that was remotely suitable. I don’t like it one bit, but it was all I had to use at the time. The problem (so she tells me) is that I ‘pull a face like an alien’ when I pose for a photograph. I don’t smile nicely, it seems. I grimace. I keep telling her to move further back, but does she listen . . . ? She takes awesome pictures of everything else, though.
- I was a fitness / exercise freak for years. I jogged, went to the gym and swimming pool, and walked everywhere whenever possible. When the children were little I moderated accordingly, going jogging or swimming once my husband got back from school (yes, another teacher). Nowadays I just rely on long walks and swimming a few times a week.
- I love physical geography / geomorphology. The study of landforms, river systems, tectonic and sedimentary processes and so on fascinates me. I taught it for years and enjoyed every minute of it. I also love geology, particularly the palaeontology side of it. I have a large rock and fossil specimen collection, all nicely labelled. My husband made a really big wooden box, with a hinged lid, for me to house them and it’s really quite impressive.
- Although I write historical fiction, I adore crime novels and read a lot of them. I’d like to have a go at writing one myself some time. It would probably have a historical setting, although in which period I’ve yet to decide. Perhaps a little later than the 9th Century, this time!
- I do (or rather, used to do) a lot knitting and have made dozens of sweaters and other items over the years. I know it sounds like a ‘granny’ thing to do (and I am a granny!) but I was knitting away happily even when I was a child. My grandma taught me, and when we had lessons in Junior School (if you’re snorting derision at that, I just want to add that it is the 1950’s I’m talking about!) I could probably knit as well as the teacher. I find knitting a very relaxing thing to do, although I haven’t done any for a couple of years now. My writing has to come first. But I do still get the urge to ‘create’ something on my knitting needles now and then.
- I love children. That might sound obvious in view of the fact that I’ve got six of them and was a teacher for umpteen years. Although I taught older students (11-18) I love little ones, and I adore babies. Yes, I’m soppy, I know. I tried primary teaching for two years once, but realised it wasn’t for me. I love my teaching subjects – always science and geography, with history most years as well – and loved the depths to which I could explore them with the older ones, particularly the GCSE and ‘A’ level students. I miss teaching a lot, sometimes. I have lots of happy memories, though.
- My husband and I, and our children, are great bird lovers. We live in a tiny village, surrounded by farmland and woods and our house is next to a farm, with barns and other outbuildings. We have so many different bird species coming into our garden, or the ‘bullock field’ at the back of it. I won’t list them all, but they range from tiny wrens, tits and finches to different species of owls and woodpeckers and a pair of sparrowhawks. The latter (not together) sometimes fly in to attack the hundreds of sparrows nesting in our back hedge. My particular favourites are the blackbirds. They are so territorial, just watching the antics of the most dominant ones has me in stitches. But even the pretty little male robins can be little brutes with each other! Of course, we encourage the garden birds to visit us with nut and seed feeders, and fat-balls hanging from every possible place. We’re well rewarded in the spring by being woken at 2.30 a.m. by the most amazing dawn chorus. So much for trying sleep . . .
These are the blogs I’m nominating for this award:
Note: Amongst them are a couple that have already had this award but who, I noticed, have responded to nominations for the same award more than once.
3. The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally
4. Tony A Smith
1o. Mariella Hunt
11. Kindness Blog
12. Scribbley14
Millie Thom 
Congratulations on your award! It’s certainly well deserved!
Thank you, John. I’ll have to try to live up to the ‘well deserved’ part, I think! 🙂
Congrats Millie you really deserved it. Thank you so much for nominating me as well.
Thank you for the compliment! Your blog certainly deserves the award, too. If you have accepted (which I think you have) I’ll look forward to reading your responses later on.
Yes Millie I am accepting the award an I am honored. Ill be posting my response soon as my engineering desk cleared 🙂 ..and it would be this Saturday. I like your book. God bless..
Great! (The rules are on my post.)
Congratulations Millie! Thank you so much for your kind words. I love reading your blog too. I enjoy the variety you add to your history related posts; they are very fascinating.
Thank you, Joycelin. I’m sorry I’ve taken so long getting round to responding to your nomination. Hope you are all well out there in Brisbane.
It’s all good Millie, I don’t think any award can go stale, can it? I have not responded to one nomination for the Most Inspiring Blogger and fear it may be too late now, so don’t worry, you did well. I love your answers. You should write some crime novels. Nathan is back, we are getting your book, with Alex’s. I’m good and thank you for asking. Back to my boring day job. 🙂
It’s a pity you didn’t do that one, Joycelin. Your blog is as inspirational as it is versatile. I’m sure you’ll be nominated for it again before long. 🙂
Congratulations, Millie. Your garden – with all the bird visitors – sounds wonderful. 🙂
Thank you so much. It’s lovely to hear from you. We do have a lot of garden birds here. The dawn chorus in May is amazing – as long as you can cope with the sleep deprivation!
Woah, I, too, dislike getting myself clicked. I can’t explain it, but it makes me really self conscious because the whole affair seems kinda fake (smile 37% larger, look straight at the camera, angle your face to 53°). It’s tiring
.
Also, your house sounds like paradise! My Nana used to own a lot of farmland and I’ve spent most of my vacations staying in a barn and bathing in irrigation canals and traveling in bullock carts! That used to be such fun.
Anyway, congratulations to you, and I enjoyed reading about you.
Thank you so very much 😀
I’m glad someone understands my hatred of posing for photos! It is lovely living in the countryside – until the Internet goes off. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve lost the connection for days on end. Ah well . . . the birds and lovely trees make up for it. Holidays at your Nana’s sound brilliant. Just the sort I would like, even at my age! Thank you for your lovely comment. 🙂
Congratulations Millie! Very well deserved! Thanks a lot for the nomination 🙂
I wish I can learn knitting from you someday!
Knitting is so relaxing, Heena, and I always have a sense of achievement when I’ve finished a garment and it looks really good. Not to mention so much cheaper to make than buy in the shops. I have to force myself not to give in and go and buy some wool. My third book would never get finished if I did. I’m aready hooked on flash fiction, which takes time, too. I’m going to have to be much firmer with myself soon. I would gladly teach you to knit if you weren’t so far away!
Oh yea, I agree. My mom used to knit a lot. I used to love the sweaters, scarfs, socks and ponchos she used to make for me! I miss them a lot… 🙂
I hope you’ll be firmer in managing your time! Other things do come a lot in the way of writing! I guess I’ll also check out flash fiction, but I’m feeling like a stupid already, given that good writers like you participate in it. I’m actually quite scared of writing and specially of posting my stories on blog… not that I’ve written a lot, but the thought alone scares me.
I guess I’ll have to get over this fear, as it’s really holding me from improving my writing skills… 😦
Not everyone who does the flash fiction has written books. More are people just wanting to practice their writing skills and get some feedback. There are always a few who have written books – but don’t let that daunt you. The comments are all nice and focus on what you have done that is good or funny etc. in the post. It takes a while when you first see the picture prompt to decide what to write, but it comes as you mull it over. I love it that there are so many different interpretations of the prompts. Lots of fun! Go for it!
(I’m almost ready to post this WOW, so I’d better get back to it. I don’t know whether what I’ve done is all right. I used your title box as a heading, as we do in the flash fiction . I hope that’s OK.)
You’ve just motivated the hell out of me! Thanks Millie 🙂
I’m gonna do it just for you… thanks for inspiring me 😀
And yea, it’s totally fine! That’s what everyone does for all the prompts… lol!
I’m looking forward to read your WOW post 🙂
If I’ve not done the WOW post properly just let me know and I’ll be a good girl next time!
Heheh! Sure… 😉
Congratulations sweetie Millie! ❤ I wish I had half of your knitting skills 😀 I tried knitting a scarf in the past, but I always found there were a few holes in the scarf after finishing knitting lol 😛 I also love how active you are even until now. It's really good for health so keep it up 😉
Thank you for your very kind words, Khloe. It’s a pity I can’t help you with your holey knitting! I’d love to see that scarf! It’s not hard to knit, once you’ve been shown how to do it properly. It’s a very relaxing pastime. It gives your mind time to unwind or wander at leisure. Now I do sound like an old granny! Keep well. 🙂
You’re welcome Millie 🙂 I was just speaking the truth 😉 hahahaha it’s ok….I guess I’m not really into knitting and that was why I couldn’t knit well lol 😛 I’m sure it is a great and relaxing pastime as I’ve seen many friends of mine enjoyed doing it a lot! haha no, you don’t sound like an old granny. You just told me what you feel about it 😉 Keep well too! 🙂
Congrats on your award! Your facts were interesting too- not exactly rocks and fossils, but I love collecting shells from all over the place that I have dotted around my room. They’re so beautiful, and it’s so amazing because people trample all over them on the beach and swim over them in the sea and scarcely notice them! Afraid I’m a human geography girl at heart, though I love knitting too ☺
Thank you! I don’t dislike human geography – I’ve taught it as long as I have the physical side. But the land has always held an appeal to me. I suppose it’s the sheer beauty of it. Enough of that – I’ll send you to sleep! Knitting has come back in fashion. It ‘went out’ for years and was just seen as a granny pastime. I’m glad people recognise it’s value again.
Shells are a great thing to collect. They are definitely beautiful, too. 🙂