Yay!  I've been given an award!  

And, as the only other award I can remember receiving  was the 'Hostess' award when I was in the Brownies, it is really rather special!

So first a great big

Thank You

to Sophie, of 'Fading Grace',

a blog filled with vintage gorgeousness, sweet memories and special projects.

If you haven't already visited her blog do nip over and admire the eiderdowns and pretty fabrics, the family photographs (and the stories that accompany them) and her amazing display cabinet revamp, amongst many other things!

I looked up the 'rules' and here's what I am to do...

1. Thank and link back to who gave you the award - check!
2. Share 7 random things about yourself - oh golly...
3. Pass it along to 7-15 blogs you've recently discovered and enjoy - what fun!  An excuse for blog-hopping if ever I heard one.
4. Leave your recipient a note, telling them about the award

So, here we go...

Seven random things about me

1.My name is Alexandra, but nobody ever uses the full version, needless to say.  Probably just as well as it used to drive me bananas when people called me Alexander!  I've even heard well-known TV presenters call a certain X-Factor winner Alexander Burke!  I spell Alix with an 'i' - it was my act of teenage rebellion...

2.  My birthday is 31st August, which here in the UK is the last day of the school year, so I was always the baby of the school year.  Every year in primary school my report always used to start 'Although the youngest in the school year...' or something along those lines.

3.  I was once kissed by Shane Richie.  I'd gone with colleagues to see 'Boogie Nights' and he was playing the lead.  At one point in the singing, he came out into the audience and chose to plant a smacker on me!  Everyone else was very jealous!

4.  Were it not for a cruel twist of fate, I might have been a famous musician. 

In the first year of junior school (age 7) the teachers of each class in my school had to test their pupils for musical potential and chose a girl and a boy from each class to receive free violin lessons.  Mrs Marks (my amazing and most-favourite-ever teacher) liked the way I sang (she'd chosen me to play the part of Mary in a Nativity play that never got put on, mostly based on the way I shaped my mouth in a little 'o' when singing a lullaby, apparently) so I got chosen, along with a boy called David.

Lessons began, with us trudging down the school drive to the village library each Friday morning.  The 'lessons' consisted of going into a small side room and listening to the teacher play notes and tunes and answering questions.  I never even got to touch an actual violin, though I think I once got to hold the bow...

After about six weeks, the lessons of all but two of the 24 chosen children were terminated (me and my sister included).  My musical career was ended, before I'd even held a beautiful violin!

The boy chosen with me was one of the two selected for the actual lessons.  The fact that he is now regularly credited at the end of TV programmes for either composing, playing or leading the band makes me feel ever so slightly better about this cruel rejection...

Smiling bravely through the pain of thwarted dreams...

5.  If I had to chose one record to take with me to a desert island, I think it would have to be 'Teenage Kicks' by the Undertones.

6. At ten, I had my arm broken by one of my classmates dive-bombing onto it during an exciting PE game.  It wasn't a complete fracture, just the green-stick variety, leaving my arm bent into two near-right angles, like a step.  
 Quite dramatic. 
The Royal Berks hospital declared on my notes it was one of the most spectacular they'd ever seen.  Beat that...

Lightweight...

(I remember looking my arm and thinking, 'They'll never be able to sort that out!'  I was pretty calm considering I really did think they'd chop it off!)

7. The most spectacular place I've ever been to are the Iguazu Falls on the Argentine/Brazilian border.  

And now the really tricky bit (because there are so many to chose from)...


I would like to pass the Versatile Blogger Award on, 
to (in alphabetical order)...

Colette Moscrop

Fifi and Hugo Go to France

Life in the Bubble

Lovely Grey Day

Picket Fence Fancy

Shortbread and Ginger

Two Bones and a Bagle

Vintage Sunday

All lovely blogs, do hop over and have a read!