Five things about me

Now, the moment you´ve all been waiting for. I´ve been tagged by Bea in the "Five things about me meme", and here goes. I take it that by now you know that I´m thirty-one, Spanish, live in Madrid, work as a freelance illustrator, don´t fry, have a loud and ever-present family and a sweet and patient husband, J, who puts up with everything except the lack of rainfall.

So I´ll go with other things. Like:

My favourite country in the world is the Kingdon of Tonga. I have what may be called a little obsession with this place, and my fondest dream would be to attend the coronation fesvitities of King Tupou V this summer. This is hard, as Tonga is exactly on the other side of the world, but who knows, I keep hoping.

I can´t stand little noises. At home, the door to the kitchen has to be shut at all times, or I´ll be annoyed by the buzzing of the fridge (it´s two rooms away). Before I go to sleep, all ticking watches have to be inside drawers or shoes, and I´ve been known to request nearest and dearest to take them off when we´re at the movies. It´s really quite amazing that I haven´t been strangled yet.

I love opera, the unintellectual kind, that is, Italian XIX century. Bellini would be my first choice, but in the kitchen, it has to be heart-on-sleeve Puccini. Catch me unawares and you may surprise me in the middle of Tosca, furiously chopping and stirring while I belt out all the parts. Tomato sauce on the ceiling is a likely hazard.

I hate taking exercise, and can become very irritable when confronted with the new Nazis, a.k.a. the health and fitness brigade of "oh, is that butter?". Gyms are my idea of hell. However, I´ve recently taken up swimming, which doesn´t feel like excercise at all, since I don´t sweat, puff , fall about or feel silly in front of mirrors. I love going to the pool, but even more, I love telling people about it. The looks of pure disbelief are a lot of fun.

I once had tea with Barbara Cartland. For the uninitiated, she wrote over six hundred romantic novels of the silliest kind, full of swooning heroines, dark, brooding heroes and improbable adventures in exotic locations or haunted castles or both. My mother has a collection of about three hundred, all in danger of falling apart, since we´ve read them a million times. In 1998 she wrote Dame Barbara a letter, and we were asked to tea. A pretty surreal experience, may I say, sitting with the Lady in Pink in a beautiful country house that used to belong to Beatrice Potter, of Peter Rabbit fame. The tea, by the way, was excellent, and could have come straight out of one of her books. Finger sandwiches, shortbread, and Ceylon tea from a huge silver teapot which the 96-year-old authoress poured without so much as a shaking hand. Happiest day of my life, and never mind my first communion.

I´ll tag these seven other bloggers. I´ve been reading them for a long time now, but I´d love to know more.
Rachel
Kickpleat
Luisa
Monkey Gland
Elise
Lydia
Pille