The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award

So, thank you Rachael Johns for this award.  Now I need to think up 10 random facts to share with other bloggers.  And since I've done something similar, I really need to find 10 different facts....

1. My book that is due published in September - It Started With A Pregnancy, is really the book of my heart.  To sum it up, a diabetic midwife falls pregnant and starts to freak when she realises she can't control her diabetes the way she used to.  Been there and done that.  Twice.  For someone who has spent their life knowing when a hypoglycaemic attack is about to hit, and could usually always avert it, to have a total change of condition and have NO signs of oncoming hypos is/was terrifying.  I could have normal, rational conversations with people with a blood sugar of 1.2 (normal is between 4 and 7, hypo warning signs usually show when it drops under 4).  Even my family were freaked by it.  And for a control freak like me, well....
2. I'm a trained nurse and health visitor.  I've worked in medical wards, orthopaedics and coronary care.  I've also worked as a District Nurse and as a health visitor I was addicted to the smell - yes, the smell - of newborn babies.  You really didn't want me near your child!
3. My favourite kids were the ones who refused to do the assessments.  The ones who threw the bricks off the wall instead of building a tower.  The ones who you tried to coax to say five single words and all they would say was NO.  The ones who wouldn't draw a circle or a cross but would look you in the eye and take the crayon along the wall.  I like kids with spunk.
4. As a student I was once asked to put cream on someone's APRON.  I was working in the ward from hell, with the Sister from hell, so I pulled the curtains, armed with my tub of cream and thought "Wherever the apron is I'm going to get it."  The poor patient had cream from the top of their forehead to the tips of their toes.  Incidentally, the APRON is the roll of fat that hangs over your belly!
5. I once auditioned for ballet school in Glasgow, but wasn't really sure I wanted to go.  I did ballet, tap , modern and jazz dancing until I was 16.
6. I used to be a good girl.  At school I was known as a goody two-shoes.  I've never done drugs and didn't start drinking alcohol until I was 19.  Please note, I said used.
7. My radley bag collection (from the last post like this) has unfortunately grown.  I now have 18 bags, and a suitcase (which isn't that great!).  All the bags are absolutely essential and none of them I can do without.
8. I wrote my first Mills and Boon when I was 17.  It was a medical and was called Hidden Love and involved a typewriter and that horrible tippex white paper for whenever you made a mistake.  Funnily enough I got a standard R, as it would now be known, and took myself off in a huff for a bit.  I didn't write my next one until 2009.
9. I'm taking my beloved and my kids to Eurodisney this year at Christmas and we are going to stay in the Disney Hotel at the park entrance, all with my M & B advance!
10. I have two wonderful critique partners for whom I am extremely grateful.  Nancy (Sheandeen on eharlequin) and Rachael Johns, both take a bow.  I am not going to forget that I couldn't have got published without you!

PHEW!!!!!!!!!!  All done!

Now, I would love to pass this on to others.  Feel free to download the pic and participate!

Ten things you didn't know about me

OK, so I'm still waiting.  And I think I could be waiting a while.  The editor I'm working with will have been busy with the medical fast-track all through the month of August, and she is part of one of the teams for New Voices, Romance is Not Dead which starts on the 6 September.  So I think that will keep her pretty busy too.
So in the meantime, here is an idea blatantly stolen from Jane Holland.  So here it is...

Ten Things You Didn't Know About Me

1. I wrote my first book age 8.  It was called Shirley and the Magic Purse and I was very proud of it.  My favourite part was the full page describing an army of mice all with names beginning with M....
2. I am an absolute sci-fi fanatic.  Especially Star Trek The Next Generation.  In my dreams I am Captain Picard's daughter, which means I get away with anything.  But I enjoy all forms of sci-fi and yes, I do have a Star Trek outfit which I have been known to wear on occasion.  But the biggest giveaway is my son, Elliott, who was named after the little boy in ET.
3. I had a spat with J-Lo's manager.  My friends and I had tickets for TFI Friday in London and managed to blag our way into the bar where Chris Evans did all the interviews.  J-Lo was a guest (it was before she was HUGE) and came with an entourage that almost filled the already packed bar.  Her manager was standing behind me and was a hideous, frantic woman.  As J-Lo walked in and sat down next to Chris this woman was wittering behind me in my ear "Is she okay?  Is she okay?  Do you think she's okay?"  The bar was free at TFI Friday's and I'd had a few.  I couldn't hear the interview for this daft woman so eventually I turned round and said "OF COURSE SHE'S BL***Y ALRIGHT, SHE'S ONLY WALKED FIVE STEPS AND SAT DOWN.  NOW SHUT UP SO I CAN HEAR!"  I think the thick Scottish accent flummoxed her and she shut up.
4. As a child I was a great singer and had star parts playing Joseph in Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat and the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz.  Today I could clear the room by singing the first few lines of any song.  I am AWFUL.
5. I am a learning junkie.  I trained as a nurse, then did a BSc degree at night school while working.  Then I trained a health visitor and did a BA degree.  I started an English Literature degree with the Open Uni.  Then did a Masters.  Finally, last year I did a few extra modules in the Masters in Public Health, Epidemiology and Communicable Disease, because I thought they would be interesting.
6. I've been diabetic since age 8 and do 4 injections a day.  I was a boring teenager and never did any of the rebellion stuff and have always did my injections the way I should.  I had a wonderful Diabetic Liaison Nurse who gave me a reference to do nursing, then spent the next few years trying to persuade me to be a Diabetic Liaison Nurse too, as there aren't any in Scotland who actually have the condition.  I love chocolate and as long as I don't use it as my sole food source there is no reason I can't eat some.  The experience of being a patient is VERY different to the experience of nursing someone with diabetes.  And I firmly believe, that no-one can know everything.  I generally keep well, but like anyone can have spells where things are difficult.  For a control freak like me that can be hard, however I've been blessed with 2 healthy children, so I must be doing something right.
7. 
   

This is my dirty confession - I am a Radley-a-holic.  I can't resist them and firmly believe that a girl can never have too many Radleys.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
8.  I spend an absolutely ridiculous amount of money on books.  I am a book addict.  I subscribe to the medicals, but buy everything else I see recommended anywhere.  In the last two years I've catalogued every Mills and Boon/Harlequin book I've read.  That's 223.  Taking notes on conflict, black moments, story arcs.  The bonus is that I registered for Gift Aid at the local Oxfam, where I donate all my books.  In the last six months I've made them over £300, so even though you can't find a surface in my house without books on it, I can smile.
9.  I have absolutely NO patience.  A bit of sad confession for a mother of two and a nurse.  It's kind of strange because as a health visitor I had lots of patience for other people's children and as a nurse I had all the patience in the world for my patients.  But put me in queue and I'm guaranteed to flip my lid.
10.  Finally, I really, really want to write Medicals and hope that one day, the dream will become a reality.
Last thing, I want to say a HUGE congratulations to Joanne Coles and Suzanne Jones who both submitted to the Medical Fast-track and received requests.  GO GIRLS!  (Jo also gave me an idiot's guide to learning to link names in blogging, so if it hasn't worked....)