Sunday Social

We are taking it back to the beginning and giving you another chance to introduce yourself and your blogs!

1. What is the name of your blog? How long have you been blogging?

I've been blogging since 2005, which is a pretty good long stretch.  My blog is called Country Mouse Claire and/or The Country Mouse Tales.

2. Why do you blog?

I blog for a variety of reasons...I blog because I love to write, first and foremost.  The words on the page, the ebb and flow of language, that's the main motivator.  Part of that is recording, too, communicating.  I love sharing about my life, my passions and the people and things I love.  I love meeting people and discussing the matters of the day.

3. What is the first blog you ever followed?

That's a very tough question!  I followed a fair few blogs before I signed up to use GFC at all, so I'd be guessing at best.  However, I do know I've read Christielli, Riot Kitty and Wiwille's blogs since I first started out and I still love them all now!

4. What is your favorite post you wrote in 2012?

I'd probably plump for the post that kicked off my New Year's Ambitions....because that was quite the ride! It also inspired 32 in 32, which I'm really enjoying.  

5. What are your blogging goals for 2013?

First and foremost, to write often, write well, and to engage with the people nice enough to read along!  I'd also love to continue to see my blog grow - it was such fun last year to gain some new followers and write a few guest or sponsored posts.  Writing has always been something I very much enjoy, so this growth and the fact that people like to read what I have to say has been a lovely thing to see!

6. Top 3 favorite blogs to follow?

Haha, I couldn't possibly choose!  I will say that any of the lovely people in my blog list are well worth a gander - such a combination of characters and voices, but a group that never fail to inspire, entertain, or make me think!

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Sunday Social

1. Favorite New Years eve you’ve had before

Ah, New Year's Eve!  As a Scot I used to love Hogmanay and really had some very fun ones as a teen and twenty-something.  In Scotland it's all about a big party, congregating with most of your town at about 11.45pm, hipflasks, pipes and drums at midnight, first footing and a big meal with loved ones on January 1st.

My absolute favourite was probably 1999 into 2000 - standing on a flower stand by the Mercat Cross in Forres with some lovely folk, watching the start of a new millennium.

2. Are you doing anything for NYE this year and if so what?

As I've gotten older (and especially since moving to London, where organised events charge INSANE amounts to listen to music you don't like in a place you can't afford a taxi back from....) NYE has lost a little of its lustre.  This year should be different, however - out lovely friends James and Laura are having a party, so I'm looking forward to dressing up, popping some bubbles, and toasting a very exciting year!

3. Name a book we should all read come January?

Probably Gone Girl.  I read it for my book group and found it chilling and fascinating in equal measure!  A real treat.

4. What are your new years resolutions?

The main one is to lose weight.  I am going to focus a lot of time and energy into this, and hope that after eleventy million false starts this will be my year.  Because it has to be, frankly.  I'm miserable at the size I am and am so sick of hating my reflection.  I'm looking forward to making some grown up choices and rocking the Weight Watchers as hard as I can!  I've lost a little weight in 2012, but now it is my time to really commit.  If you see me eating more than the occasional cookie or skipping more than one workout, feel free to tell me off - I'm hoping to be able to turn to y'all for moral support.

I also have a whole range of things I'm working on for my 32 in 32 challenge too.

I hope you all have a wonderful Hogmanay and a very, very happy 2013!

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Sunday Social: Childhood

PS Details of my latest giveaway (for a parcel of fun!), can be found here.  Do feel free to join in - I love a good giveaway! 

Linking up once again with Neely for Sunday Social!  This week the focus is our childhoods.

1. What do you miss most about being a kid?

I miss the silliness, the energy, the possibilities. I was a total tomboy who loved to swim and run and cycle and climb trees.  I had a wild imagination and loved to write stories and poems and read books.  I still love to do all of those things, but life definitely gets in the way...

2. Did you have a nickname growing up? What was it?

Not really.  Claire-bear cropped up from time to time when I was very small, but never really stuck.  When I went to boarding school, age 11, we had a terrifying but very good music teacher called, well, let's just call her Miss C. She had a tradition of giving you a nickname in her very first lesson, a nickname which would be yours until you left the school.  I was a little afraid - what would mine possibly be?  She looked me up and down, looked at my name on the register and then said "Thornley....well, your nickname will have to be Prickles."  The hedgehog became one of my favourite animal shortly after, and the nickname stuck throughout my five years at that school.  I got off lightly compared to some of the other nicknames given!

3. What was your favorite thing to do at recess?

Play games with my friends, run, or read.

4. What did you want to be when you grew up?

A teacher, a writer, a singer, a newcaster, or a mummy.

5. What was your favorite toy?

I loved Lego (my parents still have tonnes of our old Lego at home!), was devoted to my teddy, Jockey Bear, was a very good adoptive mama to my Cabbage Patch Kid, Janet, and was never happier than when reading a book.

6. What is the funniest thing you did as a kid that your parents still remind you about?

Probably the cauliflower story.  When I was wee, my mummy took me shopping up the street.  While she was chatting in the greengrocers, I evidently decided that I was hungry, and started to reach out of my pushchair for a snack.  Did I snaffle an apple?  Some cherries?  No.

I picked up a cauliflower and merrily started munching away (I've always loved veggies!).  My mum glanced down to see her dainty wee dot of a toddler chowing down on a big, raw cauliflower.  When I grew up I had my first proper job in that same greengrocers - auld wifies would come in the shop who remembered my antics!

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Sunday Social: Loves & Ambitions

 Linking up once again for Sunday Social - love these fun posts and 'meeting' so many fun bloggers through it.  Thanks for curating, Ashley and Neely!

1. 5 items you can't live without on a daily basis(water, food, shelter, and clothes don't count)
Well,  I'm quite good at going without some of these things for a day or so....but they really do make life so much nicer when they're there!

• Books, and time to read
• Cuddles (with people, with kittehs, with babies....a hug's a hug!)
•  A decent cup of tea
• The internet, sad as that may be (it's just so darn useful!)
• Music

2. All time favorite book? Why?

 The reigning top three are Gone With The Wind, Little Women and Pride and Prejudice, and there's no way I can narrow them down further.  GWTW is an epic tome, and every time I read it I feel a little braver and ballsier and kinder....the combo of Scarlett and Melly is a great influence on me!  Little Women I must have read 25 times or more....that book is part of who I am.  And P&P is just amazing - there are few crises in my life that reading about Mr Darcy can't solve!

3. Something you'd like to accomplish before the end of 2012

My 'read 52 books' challenge.  I'm on course but can't afford to slack off now!

4. If you could go back and relive any year of your life which year would it be?

I think I'd want to be seventeen again - busy and learning and happy and having a whale of a time.  That said, 31's pretty awesome too :).

5. What do you wish people knew about you without you having to tell them?

I really don't know!  Maybe that I have some of the maddest hair in the world, so they wouldn't get terrified in humid weather?

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