Life Is Good Award

Firstly, I congratulate you, TechnoBabe, on your award and I loved your answers (and your questions).

I am highly honoured to receive this reward - many thanks my new 'bloggy' friend whom I am very pleased to have met recently. I agree that this is a great way of getting to know bloggers and what makes them tick.

I am going to enjoy answering some questions for a change - I normally ask questions on my Sunday Roast column, as you well know, 'Teccie'. And I will have to dream up 10 new questions for my chosen Life Is Good Academy Award choices. And you inquistive lot will wonder, who will they be? No cheating and sneaking and looking at the bottom of my post just yet!! Curb your curiosity! You'll have to wait until I answer all the questions! LOL

(Nice little award - like the rainbow - and it makes you feel good just looking at it)

I am privileged to share this award with all these beautiful people who I do not know at present and whom I shall be visiting when time permits. So I hereby accept gratefully one sixth of the award which will clone itself into a complete picture and be nailed ceremoniously to my sidebar, with great pride.

Award Recipients:
Eddie Bluelights at Clouds and Silver Linings
Mami at Unknown Mami
Gappy at Single Parenthood
lisleman at A Few Clowns Short
Jeanie at Living Consciously . . . . . . andSassy Pants Freckle Face

Notice how graciously I accept awards compared to my arch rival and friendly adversary, Jim Suldog. He really puts us through it when we give him awards so send him one if you dare!! I will, as you will see! LOL.

I am sure this award has a great pedigree stretching all the way back to 1485. I know a lass called Sarah, at Cottage Garden Studios presented it to TechnoBabe recently but I have not researched it's genealogy much further back.

Right!! TechnoBabe, you asked me some questions so here are my answers.

1. If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing it that way; if you are not anonymous do you wish you had started out anonymously so you could be anonymous now?
I decided to blog anonymously right from the start. When I began blogging I was active in the ambulance service and I immediately thought of the name Eddie Bluelights. One or two people actually thought this was my real name because I am always referring to Mrs Bluelights. My very closest friends know my real name but I do think we all have to be careful regarding hiding our identities on line. There are some awful people out there. I decided quite early to gradually introduce my photographs which I think is quite safe to do. Did you know I have a blogging sister? She is also anonymous and calls herself Maggie May of Nuts In May.

2. Describe one incident that shows your inner stubborn side.
It was Mrs Bluelights and my first serious argument, about 3 years into our marriage (now 37 years, crumbs is it that long?). I do not know what it was about! Something stupid I expect. I stormed out of the house and walked and walked. Problem was it started raining and I did not take a coat with me, nor an umbrella. I got absolutely soaked and got furious!! Being a young buck I had not yet learned the art of 'suffering in silence!" LOL I arrived back, drenched and was greeted by gales of laughter! I had to smile and I started laughing too - we ended up in hysterics. Since then I do what it says in the Bible. "Let not the sun go down on your anger", meaning always make up before you go to bed . . . . and it works!

3. What do you see when you really look at yourself in the face in the mirror?I am never good in the mornings - it takes me until 10am for me to get into second gear! First thing in the morning I see a bleary eyed figure with loads of stubble on his face, staring at me, saying "God did I really grow all that last night?" The figure glares at me in disbelief sometimes; he is wise old sod but he is probably hoping there is an imperfection in the mirror because surely he is much, much younger than this! I sometimes look and ask myself, "Where has my youth gone - I feel exactly the same as I did 30 years ago except I creak at the joints a bit more!" All the ladies look young! All the men look young! Woe is me! As the day progresses I come slowly alive and my reflection improves a bit. In winter my reflection and I both consider it is much safer to hibernate!

4. What is your favorite summer cold drink?

I read somewhere that on very hot summer days somehow it is much more cooling to drink HOT drinks, would you believe. The article went on to discuss that Indian folk like hot curry and this actually cools them in hot weather. But to answer your question, cool Cranberry Juice - wonderful stuff.

5. When you take time for yourself, what do you do?
I have not had a lot of time for myself recently with all this work Mrs Bluelights is giving me on her endless 'do lists' LOL. However, when time permits I love to play the piano. Now I am retired I aim to re-learn all my previous party pieces, Scott Joplin to classical composers.

6. Is there something you still want to accomplish in your life? What is it?

Golly! It's a bit late to tell you I want to be a brain surgeon! However, I would like to enter a healing ministry to lay hands on the sick and make them well for the great creator in the sky. Just imagine the pleasure anyone would have making people well again and actually helping people to overcome cancer even.

7. When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the class shy person, or always ditching school? Describe who you were if not one of these.

None of these! I was the practical joker! I lit fireworks which went bang - we call them bangers!! I used to put string fuses in them and place them in the toilets next to some poor innocent doing what comes naturally. The bang put the fear of God in him (them) and usually a master sprinted towards to toilets trying to catch the culprit, but I was outside, safe and watching and laughing. What a naughty boy I was!

8. If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what do you see?
By poignant I take it to mean sharply moving. It was in the Ambulance Service and an elderly renal patient decided to stop her kidney dialysis. She was a wonderful person, so kind and loving. I had been taking her, and others, in iand out of hospital for about three years and we became very close. I tried to persuade her to continue with dialysis. I tried 6 times! But she decided she had had enough and wanted to see her husband again and her daughter, who had both passed on years ago. She died after a week and I went to her funeral in my ambulance uniform. Before she died she thanked me for looking after her and she kissed me goodbye. I guess in a way I loved her and I am sure I shall meet her again one day elsewhere, and she will be young again. I have republished this post by popular request and it follows in my next post, titled Fond Memories Of A Dear Patient.

9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people or events?
It is very easy to be myself in my posts when I am relating actual events, like that recalled in the previous question. I did a post on it, my first ever, but I need to rewrite it because I have left the ambulance service and I have to make it more fictional. However, most of my writing is humorous and I just love to make people laugh.

10. If you had the choice to sit and read or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?

I would read, every time, or blog if I have time. Although I agree the phone is a very useful means of communication I do not like to 'gabble' for hours and hours, making small talk like some do! If I have something to say I will gladly ring someone but I would prefer to correspond by email. In reality recently I do not have a lot of time for anything other than getting the house straight after a major kitchen refurb. The worst is over I am pleased to say.

"Oh! Eddie, you do rabbit on, don't you? Have you got verbal diarrhoea again?" . . . . some will be wondering!

So there you have it. Great fun and bang goes my early night! All your fault TechnoBabe! I shall be bleary eyed again when I look in the mirror tomorrow morning.

Now it gives me great pleasure to announce six bloggy buddy brilliants to whom I wish to pass on this highly prestigeous award, the LIFE IS GOOD AWARD. And, yes, life is good, isn't it?

Marguerite at Cajun Delights

Ethel Mae Potter at The adventures Of fred And Ethel
SueAnn at SueAnne's Journey
Joanna Jenkins at The Fifty Factor
Eva at Wrestling With Retirement

"To Whom It May Concern" (LOL) at Eternally Distracted
and I am adding a brave 7th for none other than:
Jim Suldog at Suldog(Golly, what have I done? LOL)

Oh! and I must include the lovely Alix at Casa Hice (lovely lass who told me once she loved me! swoon)

And of course there are others I would love to add but I know they are very busy right now - but another time perhaps!

Now would the nominees answer my ten questions please to fulfill the contractual obligations hereto and to have a good laugh to boot, to get to know each other and smile and have a glass of wine and have witty fellowship with one another? Here are my questions:

1. Do you write blog posts to please yourself or to please your audience?

2. How do you make people visit your blogs and to elicit nice comments on your handy work? Do you employ the heavy mob to bully your readers or do you use your gentle wit, charm and good nature. Seriously, what do you consider the best way to interact with your fellow bloggers?

3. If you were starting your blog again would you do something radically different?

4. What is the most significant event in your life to date?

5. Would any of you like to appear on The Sunday Roast programme? TechnoBabe will tell you it is quite painless. If you would like to be interviewed please email me at eddie.bluelights@gmail.com

6. What do you like to do in your free time? And will the pretty ladies have dinner with me tonight?

7. If you could go back in time which event would be of interest to you most, and why?

8. Are you addicted to blogging? Do you think it is addictive? or can you take it or leave it?

9. Which person on planet Earth, past or present, do you admire most, and why?

10. When this life is over do you think it is curtains or do you think there is an after life?

There that is it - thank you again TechnoBabe - it was great fun.
To conclude I am posting a photo I took today that my then six year old daughter drew on the wall before I hung some wallpaper 22 years ago. The cheeky little mite! She reckons I was 93 then which makes me 115. Or perhaps I was 43 years old then!! That's it - it is a four and not a nine. All is forgiven, my dear!

She gave me a heart though and enormous shoulders but a skinny neck and a bust! A bit like the reflection I get from the mirror I was talking about earlier on. LOL