Award 7: Liebster and other crustaceans

© Bruce Goodman 1 August 2015

I have been nominated for the Leibster Award, which I accept with delight and humble gratitude. The nominator was A Person a World. This is apparently someone fairly new to blogging and she/he is described as an Altruist, an Adventurer, a Tech Enthusiast, a Muser. It’s always a delight to support fresh-from-the-digs bloggers and I do so gladly!

Although a quick search reveals badges to go with the award, I notice that this particular nomination didn’t come with a badge as such, so I have made one up myself:

I must nominate further bloggers, and ask them 10 questions – which are the same as the ones below. I’m not going to nominate or ask. If a blogger I FOLLOW wants the award, genuinely research it and accept it. Awards can become annoying things, but they’re also a way of attracting bees (and wasps) to the flower.

I have been asked 10 questions:

1. If you could choose to be any other creature, what would it be and why?
I would be a dog, as I wish to be pampered, patted, and petted. I would not, however, wish to be de-knackered. And I won’t bark needlessly, I promise.

This is my dog, Rusty, when I lived in Quebec

2. Which natural phenomenon scares you the most?
New Zealand is known as “The Shakey Isles” and I hate earthquakes. The problem is you never know how long one will last, and if it is getting stronger or weaker. Is another one about to strike?

This is the view from the house of one of my brothers of a mountain range slipped into the sea over millions of years!

3. Which natural phenomenon do you love to witness the most?
I love thunderstorms, especially during the day time. The crash of thunder and the lightning! Especially do I love the quality of light that seems to transform the sky between flashes.

Ok – so it’s not lightning, but it’s my hen-house in an eerie light!

4. What has influenced you the most in your growing up years?
I had a mother and a father and have 2 sisters and 3 brothers. Family was the most formative thing – for better or worse. The fact too that we were reared on a farm is something perhaps to do with my retiring disposition.

Me in front on right – 1954

5. Which was the first poem you liked as a child?
“The Ballad of Dick Turpin” by Alfred Noyes is very long, and we were made to learn it off by heart and recite it when I was 6. I can still recite it from beginning to end!

The daylight moon looked quietly down
Through the gathering dusk on London town…

There was also “The Kingfisher” by William Henry Davies:

It was the rainbow gave thee birth…

From my back door when I lived in Palmerston North, New Zealand

6. Which author do you love to read?
I have a well-worn (extremely well-worn) copy of the Brothers Grimm. I prefer the Brothers Grimm greatly over Hans Christian Anderson. I’m addicted to all fairy stories, but the Brothers Grimm are aptly named.

I reckoned I once saw a fairy here

7. Where is your favourite place in your home?
I love the shower! I stand in it on one leg and think! I tuck the concave sole of my right foot into the convex side of my left knee cap, and think! I can stand there one-footed for a long time – picture those African hunters in the National Geographic of the 1950s. It’s where most of my daily stories get invented.

Not actually of me in the shower but the stance (and possibly physique) is not dissimilar

8. Have you had a hobby of making Pen friends /Epals?
WordPress is my sole tool for communicating with the ethereal (in-reality-non-existent) world. And even then I don’t know much about those I chat with – their families, jobs, their exact whereabouts… And, no, it is not a hobby, it is an obsession.

No emails, no comments, no likes, no friends. Humph.

9. Do you plan to write a book in future?
I never plan! If fewer people wrote books and more practiced writing, the world would be better off. Apparently, last November, over half a million novels were written. I’ve never heard of anything so stupid in my whole life.

Hopefully last November’s literary contribution to humankind

10. What made you want to write a blog?
I once offered to edit a friend’s business website. The site used WordPress. The best way to learn how to do something is to do it; that’s a bit like learning how to… how to… how to… do everything.

Snap! It’s a selfie!