An award, part 2.

You know, it's quite stressful, this passing on the award lark: who to include, how much to say and the to-ing and fro-ing to obtain URLs and post the news to folk. Or is it me! Cannot multi-task so easily. I know some people hate these memes, so apologies in advance if you're one of them.

Darlene in Tucson, Arizona, is an inspiration and if I can be as feisty and politically committed when I reach her age, I shall be very content. Sprinkled through her blog are some great jokes and stories.
Di lives in Mallorca though she's over in UK at the moment for the Notting Hill Carnival banging the drums and having a ball. She writes about her life in Spain.

Karin is halfway up a mountain in Utah and has recently started blogging to lessen her isolation. She took a risk and reached out for company and was not disappointed when

Celeste popped up. An accomplished artist and bon-viveur, Celeste has escaped the heat of Madrid to Portugal but will soon be returning to her busy life.

Chaise-longue in France decamped from Wales. She blogs in French and English, grows her own veg and fruit and provides delicious Mediterranean recipes - as does

Juma in Portugal who combines her career in music with wonderful cooking. Juma has just battled with a serious illness and is on the mend. She can blog in Portuguese, Spanish and English.

Margaretha in Sweden is a dedicated reader and provides wonderful pictures to amplify her interests. Suffering from a rare debilitating illness, she makes the most of her time getting satisfaction on the internet.

So, gals, go get your award if you'd like it, choose 7 others to pass it on to, with links and write 7 facts about yourself on your blog. Here are my "interesting" facts....

To show me what a drudge working life would be if I didn't study, my father got me to work in the school summer holidays in a laundry shaking out hotel bedding, tablecloths and napkins and folding them, ready for the ironers. I was 16. It was gruelling, paid peanuts and being in factory conditions with a bunch of women was an eye-opener.

I also had a Saturday job in British Home Stores on the snack bar. I could eat and drink as much as I liked (and I did, discovering thick, cold Horlicks). The record counter was nearby and I bopped up and down the counter to Tommy Steel's "Singin' the Blues".

In Singapore, in the 1960s, I was an extra in Hayley Mills' film "Pretty Polly", strolling up and down a make-believe Bugis Street all night. Boring but lucrative.

On the Yemeni border in the 1980s, I stopped for mint tea at a roadside "cafe". The carpet was rushed out to sit on, tea tray and hubble-bubble pipe. Sat watching the eagles soaring in the valley - spectacular. To this day, I don't know what was in the pipe but I sure did feel strange afterwards.

I once had a traditional Arabic feast - lamb and rice, half a chicken, sitting on the floor, no cutlery - with eight men and was regarded as an honorary man, while the women slaved away in the kitchen: they had to wait for the men to finish eating before they got a chance at the leavings.
How could I have done it.

My real growing up started in my 50s, when my father, mother, grandmother all died within 6 months of one another. It was a strange time and even stranger feeling to be the grown up in the family.

And lastly, I met my 3rd husband on a American site for older people which had a poetry section. He lived in Portugal with a daughter who lived in Cornwall, where I lived, so we met up, sparks flew and the rest is history.