Tagged 6 odd things

sky over the North Sea at Gullane

Finally a response to the tag by Susan at Art Esprit to tell 6 odd things about myself. It was quite hard cause most of them are written on my blog already but here are a few I may have missed...

1. I can fit my entire fist in my mouth.
My hands are not small, so this was a good party piece in my teens and early 20's. Not done it for years now. Someone once saw me pop an entire Belgian honey waffle in my mouth (you know, the big round hard ones with the honey centres, mmmmm). He said I looked like Joni Mitchell and got me to sing the 'Parking Lot' song with the waffle intact.

2. I have an area on my leg, near the ankle called a Maureen.
It's named after a neighbour* I had years ago. Long silly story, but it will be forever called my Maureen. It is a very tender spot that seems to trigger some sort of emotional trauma and I sometimes instantly and uncontrollably wail if anyone presses it, like for a massage (as I discovered during some Shiatsu).

3. I used to shut myself inside a hospital cupboard.
It was the cupboard at the Eye hospital where they kept the stick on eye patches, I loved the smell of them (similar to plasters/band aids) and so, to keep me happy during checkups or before operations they LOVELY lady Doctor used to let me get in the cupboard. This was doubley nice for me as I was super shy and liked to hide under tables so no-one would notice me. I also had a Pirate patch for a short time. It was just another example of my loving all things Piratey. I didn't know then that I'd actually been named after a Pirate Radio station (Cally is only my nickname).

4. I have 4 finger tips like an amazonian tree frog.
They are kind of spatulate, you know, like little pads. I rather like them but it is only on the 2 middle fingers of each hand. I doubt if it is in anyway connected to the fact that as a baby I spent 2 years in Navy wives housing which, it transpired, had been built over toxic land. Luckily we'd moved before I was of an age to play about on the land around the housing blocks.

5. I have 3 kinds of dried animal/bird poo in my spare room.
I have sheep, cow and owl. I know this sounds strange but the cow and sheep poo's are really just grass and are amazing colours. I;d actually like to make a necklace from the sheep poo 'beads' to hang in a frame with an illustration of the area I found it. Owl poo is interesting because when you open them up they often have dozens of tiny tiny bones inside them. Not had time to look yet.

6. I often dream in Turkish.
I learned to speak basic Turkish, in part, from daily trips into the mountains in the South of Turkey with my boyfriend's mother when I was 24. We would take the goats up to graze on prickly bushes each day when he was at work. She spoke no English so we communicated with signs, gestures and doodles in my sketchbook.

We had a lot of laughs and I massively widened my vocabulary. Books and the boyfriend (biggest love of my life) helped with the actual grammar. and though I can't recall much in waking life, it is all still there when I have Turkish dreams and I wake up remember lots of words for a few hours.

* that neighbour, Maureen, was appropriately called 'HOVIS' at school. HOVIS is a brand of sliced bread which used to be small, brown and firm - just like her (she is a big fan of putting on too much fake tan on her already olivey skin).