Five things you didn't know about me(me)
Posted by kathryn in Blogging
Kate from Veggie Friendly has tagged me for the meme – five things you didn’t know about me – so here goes.
The last time I ate meat, it was . . .
Reindeer, yup, I ate Rudolph. I gave up meat in 1992, haven’t eaten fish for the last ten years, but back in 1996 I was travelling around Europe. I spent some time in Norway, visiting the fjords and gazing on the spectacular landscape. My travelling companion knew a family there, who invited us for lunch, but my friend forgot to mention I was vegetarian. When we turned up the family had gone out of their way to prepare a Norwegian speciality for their Australian visitors – Reindeer Burgers. They were beautiful and kind people, who showed us around town, took us up to the mountains and had invited us into their home, so it would have been churlish and rude to say no, so I ate reindeer.
Ever since I was little, I’ve loved old Hollywood films
Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Judy Garland, Fred and Ginger, Gregory Peck, James Stewart are all in my favourites category. I still love these old films now (in fact one of my Christmas presents was a copy of Notorious).
I’m originally from the UK
While I’ve lived in Australia for a long time and I’m a citizen, I was born just north of London in a place called Welwyn Garden City, but I grew up in Bournemouth, where my parents ran a small guest house. Back then it was quite a gentile place, full of elderly people, except in the summer when the town would fill up with foreign language students. Now Bournemouth is a big party town, full of pubs and clubs.
I hate making white sauces*
I find them fussy and annoying, so I never cook anything which requires a white sauce.
Eczema led me to natural therapies
I started getting eczema when I was about seven and at first I didn’t think twice about controlling it using cortisone creams. In my early 20s though, I started to get fed up with the irregular and unexplained flare-ups, with using creams of varying strength and of seemingly having no control over my skin. This gradually led me to natural therapies, as I tried out a tonne of things to treat it. For me, cleaning up my diet, balancing my life and managing my stress levels are the keys.
Now, I rarely get any eczema, but when I do, it’s my early warning system – a sign I’m doing too much and taking my life too seriously. It’s actually a good thing, because it reminds me to pull back, eat properly, have some early nights and sort out those things that are playing on my mind.
I tag:
Update : I’m changing the tagged blog links to the completed memes as they’re posted.
30 January, 2007
Comments
Hi Kathryn
Thanks for sharing these five things about yourself. Great to get to know you better and discover we have something else in common ( a love for Golden Era Hollywood movies – not eating reindeer!)
K
Hi Kathryn – I would have eaten the reindeer too! my choice to be vegetarian is partially in response to the disassocation that many people have between themselves and the food they eat. somehow, eating reindeer in Norway seems like a different story! It’s more about being in touch with your body/health – like you nicely explained with your eczema “therapy.”
Thanks for the tag!
Hi Kathryn – I seem to have randomly come across this post! It was interesting to read. I didn’t know you were originally from the UK..like me! Have you been back recently?
Hi there Melanie, haven’t been back for about three years now. I’ve lived in Australia for 19 years now, so the UK is a somewhat long and distant memory. I still have relatives over there and Richard is also from the UK. I thought you were in the UK?
Hi Kathryn
I just came across this in your archives. We share 2 random (and unusual) things in common.
I too have eaten a reindeer hamburger in Norway – although my experience was in the 1980’s.
I also suffered fom eczema as a child (related to asthma which I have had since birth). Once I hit my teen years the eczema disappeared never to return. Weird huh?
Leanne – a fellow reindeer eater eh? Eczema disappearing as you get a bit older is quite common. In fact the doctors always assured my parents that would happen to me. But no, it’s persisted into adulthood. However I have it very under control and hardly ever bothers me. Unless I’m stressed when it flares up – so I use it as my early warning system. A sign I need to calm down, take some time off and chill out.
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