Miss Otis regrets...

[shewhomust]

lil_shepherd tagged me (in a f-locked post; oops) with a meme; she says, very civilly, "so feel free to ignore...". Well, I'm not ignoring, but I'm not going to do it.

It's the "eight things about me" meme; list eight random facts about yourself. And I've seriously considered it - because I don't mind talking about me, this journal is all about me, and it's sort of flattering to be asked. So I tried to list eight random facts about myself, and discovered that I couldn't do it.

I could think of plenty of boring facts - date of birth, shoe size, age, rank and co-op dividend number. But who wants to read a list of those?

I could think of a few not-so-boring facts, but they all wanted to be accompanied by explanation and disquisition, they wanted to be a post each, if not an essay. I don't suppose anyone wants to read a post of eight of those, either.

Any fact that didn't fall into one of those categories turned out, on closer examination, to be an opinion, often about something or someone other than me (i.e., it took the form "It is a fact that I think that...").

So, just for lil_shepherd, one bona fide fact: I think of myself as an Essex girl. I was born in London (West Ham) and I have lived all my adult life in Durham (came here as a student and never left), but for that critical period between the ages of nine and sixteen I lived in Essex (first in Theydon Bois, then on the fringes of Harlow New Town) and when people ask me where I'm from, that's where I think of.

Comments

[time-freak.livejournal.com]

I'm an Essex girl, Chelmsford born and bred. Nice to meet you.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Likewise. We are many...

Are you still in Essex?

[time-freak.livejournal.com]

Yes, I went to london for a couple of years but now I'm back in the home land!

Still Chelmsford. It has it's moments but if you look at it from an outside point of view it isn't too much of a bad place to live.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Would dearly love to travel over there and discover what the difference between Essex and Durham is.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Oh, I would love to show you around.

Essex was once - and still is, in places - a pleasant agricultural county in the south-east. But it borders the east of London, not London's most affluent sector; to be an Essex girl is akin to being trailer trash.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

One's enough. I was born in Yorkshire but live in Essex - and there are parts of that county I love dearly. My post is merely friends-locked because I didn't think it contained anything of any interest to anyone outside my flist.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Oh, I found your list entertaining. But the "oops" was for my mistake: I simply hadn't noticed I'd linked to a locked post until durham_rambler pointed it out!