lemon garden

Looks like I’ve been tagged to play a game of sevens. So here goes:

Seven things I plan to do before I die

1. Build a space ship that can travel faster than light and use it to sail right around the outer rim of the Milky Way going “Weeeeeee!” the whole time.
2. Bake a blackberry and apple pie so big that it could feed the world, and then feed the world with it. I appreciate this is not a sustainable approach to third world aid but I can’t be expected to think of everything.
3. Live to a very, very old age. Yet remain suprisingly sprightly for my age.
4. Accidentally solve one of mathematics’ great unsolved problems whilst trying to make sense of my household budget.
5. Retain all my teeth. In my mouth, that is - in a jar by the bedside is not good enough.
6. Stumble across a vein of purest gold somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales and then surreptitiously mine it to fund a life of idle luxury.
7. Complete a single cryptic crossword successfully without cheating.

Seven things I can do

1. Blink both eyes, simultaneously or separately.
2. Waggle my ears. Though it tickles when I do it, so I end up laughing (which is not a bad place to end).
3. Contribute to global warming in my own small way every time I breath out.
4. Juggle! But only with three balls.
5. Tell the time.
6. Tie my own shoelaces.
7. Cook food. From scratch. With raw ingredients. Just like they used to do in olden times.

Seven things I cannot do

1. Work out where all my money goes.
2. Juggle with five balls.
3. Dance the tango.
4. Pronounce Dutch words correctly.
5. Believe what I read in the papers.
6. Work out my own mass with any degree of precision. Human beings are just too messy and complicated.
7. You know that bit in gymnastics where they leap onto a long thin beam, then proceed to jump hither and thither, flipping backwards and forwards and sideways and always landing on the beam? Well, I can’t do that.

Seven things that I find really attractive about the opposite sex

1. That they are not men.
2. Um.
3. Er.
4. That’s it.
5. Sorry.
6. If we were talking about specific members of the opposite sex I could go into more detail.
7. But we’re not. So I can’t.

Seven things I say the most

1. Excuse me.
2. Sorry.
3. Thank you.
4. You’re welcome.
5. Please.
6. Hi.
7. Pint of Black Sheep, please.

Seven Books I love have read recently

1. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
2. River of Gods by Ian MacDonald
3. Sea Room by Adam Nichols
4. Empire by Niall Ferguson
5. The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
6. Trees of Britain and Europe by Gregor Aas and Andreas Riedmiller
7. Al Qaeda by Jason Burke

Seven people I would like to see take the quiz

1. The woman who has just moved into the flat above mine.
2. The extremely noisy couple who live on the other side of the street.
3. The elderly chap who sits on the wall outside his house all day long, every day, just down the street from me.
4. The woman with long dark hair and glasses who looks vaguely familiar, who I pass on the way into work every morning walking the other way.
5. The young woman who, a few weeks ago, was sitting within the dome over the Tewitt Well looking very glum.
6. The portly gentleman who was one of a group of people in rather formal dress who were wandering down Oatlands Drive yesterday.
7. Kate Bush.