Quite a Few Things You Really Did Not Need To Know About Me

Quite some time ago, I was tagged by Andrew Jeppesen, a Language teacher from Sydney, Australia, Helena Butterfield and José Picardo, 2 other languages teachers from the UK and fellow bloggers, for the 7 Things meme.

Then, I found out that I had been tagged by more fellow languages teachers Isabelle Le Borgne-Pondaven, Amanda Salt, Alex Blagona and Helena Butterfield for the 25 random things meme on Facebook.

Why is it so difficult to talk about oneself as person without sounding unprofessional?
Anyway, I thought I would cheat and combine them all-I know, not what is expected but…
Here goes…

1. As a child, I was fascinated by my grand-parents who lived in the Pyrenees and could communicate in Catalan with people over the border. How cool… That is also why I would still like to be able to speak Catalan and write properly rather than just understand 95% of it.
2. I can play the flute-well, I could-and I took part in school productions like Oliver! in the past. Really miss it…
3. I love singing-in French, Spanish or English!!
4. I love strong accents and I first learnt my English with a Liverpool accent and my Spanish while being in Andalusia. I did not lose my French accent completely, although you may be fooled for a very short time, but acquired a wide range of other intonations and local expressions…
5. I got married in France and my husband insisted in taking his vows in French-my most challenging task as a teacher ever…
6. I love the film Amélie and I found the sound track deeply moving-not really sure why…
7. My best holiday ever was in Sicily: adored the food, the language, the people, the culture… still don’t know whether I would like to gamble it and go again…
8. I won 2 poetry competitions aged 6 and 15.
9. I once was on “Songs of Praises” (Special Christmas edition) with the school choir-not on my own, fortunately!
10. When I was 14, I won a history competition and a free one-week trip to Normandy to visit the landing beaches.
11. I am very short but loved to play basketball at school.
12. I love pasta and seriously think that I must have been Italian in a previous life.
13. I went to Montserrat, near Barcelona on my honeymoon, adapting the Catalan custom that a newly-wed husband should take his wife there. Even my totally un-religious husband loved the place-so special…
14. I do not particularly like large cities probably as I was brought up in a small town.
15. I am looking forward to my children having little cousins to play with-nobody is available at the moment!
16. I love cooking but I don’t get to cook very often…
17. I love Haribo Strawberries because my great-granddad used to buy them for me-and I still miss him…
18. I worked at Perpignan Tourist Office (France) when I was a student and loved helping out the Brits on holiday-They were the only ones to come back and say thank you!
19. I worked in a travel agency for several summers when I was a student. I ended up with a lot of Spanish customers after somebody found out that I could speak Spanish. My boss loved it!
20. I don’t get enough opportunities to practise my disco dancing these days…
21. I hardly drink alcohol at all these days. I stopped when I was expecting my sons and never really drank again…
22. I was really rubbish at sport at school but I could run as when I am determined to finish something, I always do.
23. I would love to go to Mexico and South America.
24. I am in awe of churches and old buildings in general.
25. I am convinced that nobody can improve professionally without developing personally-I am aiming for more wisdom, ambitious, eh?

As this 7 Things meme has been around for a while, I think I have nobody left to tag! I will suggest the following people but please accept my apologies if you have been tagged already ...
Kathleen Holton
Carla Arena
Sam McCoy
Michael stout
Marie-France Perkins