sally flea selfie
Here are seven things I hate about you.

Not you.

Not individually you, at least.

Rather, here are seven people who grind my gears and raise my blood pressure.

First, Emily at Brighton Mum has asked me to share seven of my character traits. Here they are: 

  • Inappropriate. I must confess to having frequent, inappropriate thoughts about Robert Pattinson, even though he’s a whole decade younger than me, and it’s all sorts of wrong. I have a post-graduate diploma and a mortgage, but I still want to ruffle his mop-top. I’ve seen Twilight more times than I care to admit. Not sure I’d go this far, mind (safe for work).
  • Obsessive. I have a touch of the OCD. I alphabetise my spice rack, all my tins in the cupboard are facing front, Sleeping with the Enemy style, and my CDs are organised by artist and genre. I find imposing order gives me a sense of control in a chaotic world. Also, it looks pretty.
  • Practical. I don’t own an iron, but I do have an impressive toolkit and selection of power tools. This is what comes of growing up with a single mother – you learn how to wire a plug and use a belt-sander, but you can’t make a cupcake to save your life.
  • I don’t have rows. Ever. I always think people who say “names will never hurt me” are stupid. It’s the cruel things people say that we remember for all our lives, and are most wounded by. So I try to never speak in anger. I’m much more likely to just decide I don’t want to speak to someone any more, and that’s that.
  • Sarcastic. Apparently, people say I’m sarcastic. I just don’t see it myself.
  • Indecisive: I used to be a really decisive person – I moved from London to Brighton on the strength of one episode of Phil & Kirsty. But a cataclysmic marriage breakdown before your first anniversary kinda leaves you doubting your ability to make good choices. Flea is currently registered at five schools while I decide which one to send her to (in, erm, 6 weeks) and my life is one long round of, “Yes, but I’m just not completely sure it’s the right way to go..”
  • Different. When I left school, my headmistress filled in a character statement saying I was “idiosynchratic”. I thought it was the best compliment ever. I now spend an awful lot of time trying to teach Flea that on the list of things to worry about, “fitting in” should be somewhere towards the bottom, right above “have I ironed my socks?”and “what if Katie and Peter never work it out?”

* and if you get the song reference, you should be ashamed of yourself. Think on.