8 July 2014

Liebster

A fellow Yorkshireman called Lee Firth dropped by this humble blog earlier on to inform me I had been nominated for a Liebster Award. I ran upstairs to check if my suit still fitted and perused my congested social diary. Excited, I wondered where the Liebster Awards Ceremony would be held. The Wembley Arena? Los Angeles? Sheffield City Hall?

Back downstairs I investigated news of the award more carefully and realised it was really just a blogging meme or round robin - aimed in my case principally at people who blog about walking. My heart sank. I don't make a point of following blogs about rambling - even though it is currently my most satisfying pastime. Most of the blogs I read are by people who like eating, moaning and sitting on their backsides far too much!

If you are a Liebster winner you have to graciously accept the  award and then answer a bunch of questions posed by the person who nominated you. Below you will find the questions that Lee Firth put to me with my responses:-

1...What's the most unusual, or funny, name of a place you've visited?
That would have to be The Land of Nod - a hamlet near Holme on Spalding Moor in East Yorkshire.
2...If there was a hole in the bottom of your rucksack and something fell out, what would you hope it wouldn't be, and why?
My camera because for me walking has become synonymous with snapping photographs of the places I ramble through.
3...What is your least favourite area for walking, and why is this?
My least favourite walking environment is disused railway tracks because often you cannot see anything as you stroll along - just bushes and trees hiding the surrounding landscape.
4...Walking poles; help or hindrance?
I have never used any walking poles so I can't really say but recently my daughter undertook the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge and said her walking sticks really helped - like having four legs - not two.
5...What are your preferred weather conditions for walking?
Bright sunshine to illuminate my photography.
6...What was your most embarrassing moment when out walking?
Coming across a fellow rambler who was nonchalantly urinating upon the stile I was just about to climb over. I wasn't embarrassed but he was mortified. I reassured him I wouldn't be contacting the local police and suggested penis enlargement.
7...How often do you think the Ordnance Survey map is wrong?
Once in a blue moon. Britain is fortunate to have such a brilliant mapping service and I wouldn't want to knock it.
8...Do you combine your walking with any other hobby, such as photography, public presentations, blogging [of course], or maybe first aid?
Photography, map reading, blogging and bull running!
9...For those of you who regularly walk in the Peak District; White Peak or Dark Peak?
I love both for different reasons - the wild beauty of the Dark Peak and the human impact upon The White Peak with its ancient limestone walls, chocolate box lid villages and its sweet green pastures.
10..Do you go walking to escape from your everyday life, or do you go to participate in something different, and better?
I go for exercise and photo opportunities and because what I see before me is far more captivating than any film or television programme. I go for the history and the weather and whatever nature has prepared for me that day. And I go because it is the best kind of psycho-therapy you can get.
11..What's your walking bugbear; what really annoys you?
Ignorant landowners who view walkers with disdain. Of course most landowners are not like that at all but I have encountered some horrors and have found myself in arguments I didn't really want. I am also not fond of unleashed dogs that come yelping at you or impede your progress along public rights of way.

In my next blogpost I shall nominate five other bloggers for the prestigious Liebster Award. These lucky nominees must decide whether or not to accept the nomination before answering a bunch of questions that I will prepare specially for them. This Liebster Awards business is all very complicated. There are rules and everything but as I am a jolly sort of chap who'd rather participate than stand carping from the sidelines - I have gone along with it and enormous thanks to Lee Firth for nominating me. How I have lived till now I do not know. The Liebster Award means everything to me. I'd like to thank my family, my agent, my teachers, the postman, the neighbours.... Will you be nominated for a Liebster Award? Watch this space!

Oh drat! I nearly forgot, I have to write down eleven random facts about myself. Let's get this over with quickly:-
1) I am right-handed
2) I met Jimmy Savile but fortunately he didn't follow me to the lavatory.
3) I am an orphan
4) I met her Majesty the Queen Mother and she asked me about East Yorkshire.
5) I have an O level in Woodwork.
6) I am a lifelong Hull City supporter
7) I can make musical sounds simply by creating a vacuum between the palms of my hands. My hand version of "Rule Britannia" is legendary.
8) I never ever deliberately kill insects.
9) The only political party I have ever voted for is The Labour Party.
10) I have visited Easter Island.
11) I wrote "The Headland" available as an e-book through Amazon. Why not buy it, enjoy it and supplement my paltry pension? Soon I'll be publishing a collection of poems - also as an e-book through Amazon. This should be helpful to insomnia sufferers.

16 comments:

  1. Thank God I am one of the ones who sits on their bum and grumbles ~ so you won't be passing it on to me. Phew! Congratulations BTW. All that walking paid off.

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    1. A-ha! Sorry Carol, now I realise that when I picked up my Liebster questions, the process had just gone off on a walking/rambling tangent. Now I see that my nominees don't have to be plodders! I can ask questions about anything but your initial response gives me the "vibe" that you'd rather eat soil!

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    2. I am looking forward to the long awaited anthology ~ being an insomniac.

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    3. Sorry - the poems are all done - just a bit of editing and messing with presentation and contents list to do but since taking early retirement I have become lazy - Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow?

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    4. Please stop apologising YP ~ you have nothing to be sorry for on either front.

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  2. Just don't reply. Stupid people. It's blog spam. You managed a post out of it.

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    1. Okay then I guess that means you would be seething with annoyance if I nominated you for a Liebster award Adrian. Maybe I will nominate you for a Lobster Award instead - well a little crab perhaps!

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  3. Please let us know when the poetry book is published. You should have told the award givers that people all over the world walk with you. Let them try to figure that one out!

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    1. Maybe I'll write a poem about a Colorado mountain woman who sometimes went on vicarious rambles in the northern English countryside....running title - "If I Could Have My Thyme Again".

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  4. By the way, it is Liebster, not Leibster. That's German for "Dearest", the way one would address someone in a letter, for example "Liebster YP".

    The questions and your answers to them were very interesting - as were the eleven random facts about you. Of course I am going to go and see if I can get "The Headland" through Amazon.de, too.

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    1. I am so pleased that you spotted my deliberate spelling error Miss Arian!

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    2. I have bought "The Headland" from the German Amazon site. It will take a while before I'll get round to reading it, but when I do and post my review on my blog, I hope you'll comment there, too.

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    3. Heavens! Now I am frightened Miss Arian!

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  5. Liebster YP.
    I read it and commented on The Headland (at least I think I did) long ago. The imagery in it is still easy to 'see' in my mind's eye even right now. That boarded-up lighthouse...
    I don't think your 'random' confessions are random enough. I learnt practically nothing new. But then I have been reading this honest blog for nigh on six yer'.

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    1. How come you are talking like a pirate at the end of your last sentence Kate?

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  6. I thought that the meme awards had long since disappeared or perhaps it's the fact that almost at the start of my blogging career when they were so popular I declined and made it clear that that wasn't my scene or, before you say it in your reply, my blog just isn't worth an award anyway.

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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