If you like making love at midnight

There's a few topics swirling around in my mind, but this THIRD French lockdown - not the partial two we've had where kids were still going to school but a real 'WE REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME' lockdown after a year of never being completely free from any form of lockdown but this has resulted in the writing thoughts trying to emerge coherently out of my brain and onto the screen being about as successful as an egg staying whole when dropped on the kitchen floor.

Thus, to keep the brain (or at least one segment of it) distracted, here's my quick Q and A via the questions provided by blogger goddess Bev at Sunday Stealing  

1. What’s your favorite kind of cake?

Homemade.  Hummingbird - a jazzier carrot cake that essentially has crushed pineapple in it but still has that cream cheese icing that is God's own cloud nine lining.

2. What’s your favorite cocktail?

A GnT is a regular and faithful standby, but a) if they're affordable, b) I'm on holiday; and c) in the mood, I do love a Pina Colada or pretty well anything with fruit, multi-coloured layers of god-knows-what liqueurs and a paper umbrella in it.  A tacky party in a large glass, if you will.  Otherwise, champers or prosecco with Aperol is beautiful in summer.

3. If you are alone for the evening, what do you fix yourself for dinner?

Firstly, I'd be hoping for leftovers.  Easy!

If none were to be found and no 'just heat and eat' options available, I'd probably do an egg on toast or make a very basic spaghetti with herbs and veges stirred through it.

Then again, in the pre-Covid days when Dean sometimes had to travel, 'dinner' has been a bag of corn chips or a block of chocolate followed by an orange or berries.  That's one of my sad little lies I tell myself - the fruit cancels out the kitkat!

4. What make was your first car?

A 1971 poo brown Renault 16TS bought in 1989.  Referred to fondly - and rather optimistically - as 'the flying turd' as it was rarely able to go faster than 80km per hour, even downhill.

5. What is your height?

I honestly keep forgetting. I think I'm five foot seven, but growing up in a decimal country, that might be around 167cm?  Reasonably tall for a woman.

6. What was your least favorite toy as a child?

Barbie dolls. Dolls in general, actually.  What were you supposed to do with them after taking their clothes off and putting them back on again? Barbie's stupid little shoes kept falling off, she couldn't stand up on her own and did NOT fit into the lego, mechano, or wooden block cities I'd help build with my brothers.

What am I supposed to do with her?

7. What’s your favorite cartoon character?

Daffy Duck.  I liked the little white ring pattern around his neck and how he'd rush off and yell WOO HOO! every time he was excited.

8. What’s your dream car?

This is going to sound strange but I'm some kind of savant with a completely useless skill that enables me to tell what make a car is more easily than most people. I don't know why because I have no mechanical interest or watch the Grand Prix or dream of driving anything fancy, but I can spot a car and guess correctly that, 'yup, that's a Skoda,' or 'there's a mazda.'

As for my own dream car, just a comfortable and reliable one would be fine.  Oh and one that can be easily located in a crowded car park when you're overloaded and stressed.  If I see someone in a Porsche or Bentley I never feel envy, I just think 'too much money' or 'show off.'

9. What’s your favorite pizza topping?

Let's start with the obvious, first: tomato base and cheese.  Then add slices of chorizo, chunks of freshly cut PINEAPPLE, a drizzle of BBQ sauce and more cheese.  This is MY favourite pizza and no further correspondence on the matter will be entered into.

10. What’s your favorite sports team?

As a South Australian, I'll say 'The Adelaide Crows' Australian Rules Football team.  My husband follows them avidly and pays to watch the games from here in France.  Put it this way: I never manage to sit through an entire match but I'm happy if/when Dean tells me they won.

11. What’s your favorite TV show?

Frasier, Seinfeld, Parks and Recreation, Better Call Saul, The Ozarks and anything on British TV that features a panel of comedians talking about current events.

12. What is your favorite ice cream?

I'm not a big ice-cream eater at home and we rarely have it in the freezer, but there's something about a day out or being on holiday and I'm the first one at the freezer window, selecting my (usually three - OINK) flavours and opting for them to be put in a cup instead of a cone.  Dark chocolate, rum and raisin, mango, caramel anything, pineapple...... anything but strawberry which is always a disappointment.

13. What is your favorite song?

This is impossible to answer because it depends on how you're feeling at the time, how old you where when you first heard it and what where you going through at the time.....  But hey, if you're talking about the common song to buzz around inside my head when going on long walks with Felix (note I said 'most common,' NOT 'favourite') it seems to be the theme to Bob the Builder.  Suggestions on how to eliminate this unwanted ear worm are most welcome.

14. What’s your least favorite chore?

Vacuuming.  Hate it. HATE it.  HATE IT!  With a dog in the house, it is never clean even after you've used all your poxy attachments, bent double chasing dust bunnies under the sofa or affixed the brush thingy used for dusting or the biggest sucky do-dad for the rugs..... when the chamber is emptied, it always resembles the torso of the dog.  It's an exhausting and futile task that is never allowed to be enjoyed as completed for a moment because as soon as you put the vacuum away, you notice the shreds of chew toy on the living room mat you didn't see earlier; the flour dust by the pantry door and, with a happy flap of his ears, a brand new dusting of Felix fur.

15. What was your first job?

At school - babysitting. Money to exhaust the kids, put 'em to bed and get paid to do your homework and eat their chocolate biscuits.

At uni - apricot cutting. Very hot and hard work standing on a cement floor under a tin shed slicing apricots in half and placing them on trays to be dried in the sun.  Local radio 5MU on ALL DAY with a collection of possibly only 25 records.  Even now if Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl' is heard I am instantly transported to stench of warm apricot juice stinging my cut fingers, the appearance of my first varicose vein and the fear of finding a huntsman spider amongst the fruit boxes...

After uni - ANZ bank.  Boy was I a bad choice.  They originally selected me to join their HR team but when I arrived I was placed in the 'graduate program' for future bank managers and urged to study accounting part time.  If I had wanted to study accounting, I would have a done it instead of history and english! The depression of being relatively low paid but having to pay the non-student rate for everything plus having to buy the corporate uniform (overpriced Maggie Tabberer navy blue and grey blazers and skirts) and having to man the tellers at lunchtime all sucked butt.  I lasted two years before quitting and heading to the UK on a two-year under-27-years-of-age work visa.