Sugar and spice, and all things nice.

I’m back with some more images from the Jinkyart Weekend Retreat. Look at all these gorgeous girls! As you can see, I’m really enjoying black and white at the moment. Having some breathing room to process all my workshop photos has really helped me find my groove, it’s been quite enlightening. 

Also, I’ve been tagged by the very talented Robyn Geering. (And I believe this is my first tag since I started blogging!)

1. Post the rules on your blog.
2. Write 7 random things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post.
4. Pass on the tag.

1. I have had a weakness for chocolate coated licorice for about as long as I can remember. Give me a bag of licorice bullets and I’m happy as a pig in mud. Just don’t expect me to share.

2. I’m extremely proud of my European heritage and my family history and as an adult I visited the birth places (not the exact places, of course) of both my parents: Rotterdam and Budapest. I’m sad to say that I speak neither Dutch or Hungarian, but I wish so much that I did.

3. I used to be a complete technophobe and didn’t learn to use a computer until I was 21 years old (yes I made it through my first stretch at uni without ever sitting down at a computer!), I even remember writing an essay at high school about how much I hated the fact that computers were taking over the world! Now I’m a graphic/web designing, post processing, internet-mad, computer geek who sits at a computer for hours every day! I’m not sure exactly how I ended up here, but it feels right.

4. Sadly I don’t have time for reading these days, but as a child, I was an avid reader and always had several books on the go at once. I was besotted with Anne of Green Gables and read the whole series several times over before I hit my teens, but the best book I ever read was The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. I loved that book so much I read the entire thing in the space of 48 hours, and was so devastated when I finished it that I opened the front cover and started again.

5. I lived and worked in the UK for a year when I was in my early twenties. One of the three jobs I had during that time was a chef in a traditional English pub just outside the city of Oxford. I lived and worked in the pub with a big bunch of other backpackers from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. It was one of the best years of my life, and I think it’s something that everyone should do before they ‘grow up and settle down’ (not the chef part specifically, just the living and working overseas thing!).

6. It’s no secret to those who know me that I’m a bit of a wuss about a few things. For starters, I’ve always had a fear of deep water and didn’t learn to swim until I was fifteen. To this day I have never jumped off a diving board. However, I think it’s important to face your fears, (or at least try), so I’ve been snorkelling several times in Thailand and Bali. I’ve had a few hairy experiences, including one where I totally freaked out and thought the movie Open Water was about to become my life, but on the whole, I’ve loved it. Snorkelling is amazing, and all the beautiful fish and coral is a wonderful distraction from something that seems so unnatural to me. I do draw the line at snorkelling in Australia though–I’m scared of sharks!!!

7. I am obsessive about recording life. I have kept a diary for most of my life. I have never thrown away a card or a letter and I save most of my emails. I have several boxes full of small sentimental objects. I have drawers full of negatives and prints and hundreds of gigabytes of digital photographs. I keep notes of every little thing my son does and when. I just can’t help myself.

I’m tagging Naomi, Penny, Lana, Mel, Suse, Cass and Sophie.