Regular readers will know that here on this blog I move at the speed of a gazelle.

Okay, perhaps at the speed of a very young gazelle. With a club foot. Who is just learning to walk in heels.

Anyone who read my post at the start of March about these children’s T-shirts I made and was intrigued by my little teaser about the tomato fabric at the end will still be eagerly waiting to find out what I made. (Why? Because I haven’t finished making it yet…) And my promise to deliver a baby bib pattern was made first in February and then again in April. But erm, no pattern yet, I’m afraid…*

So, perhaps it’s not a surprise that, despite my very real excitement at being mentioned by two of my very favourite blogs Truly Myrtle and This Blog is Not For You, a couple of months have passed and I’ve not yet shared five things about me. Or even one.

Partly, this was down to the fact I simply couldn’t think of anything interesting to say about myself. But then recently (ahem, not that recently) I saw a post on Decorator’s Notebook with a photo of her blogging view: the view she usually has when she sits down to write a blog post.

I found it really interesting (I always used to love those articles in the Guardian as well, where they showed a picture of an author’s study) and thought to myself, O-ho, this is something I could share as one of my five things and, what’s more, I’d love to see other bloggers views too…

So, my blogging view takes number one place and, after much head scratching, I managed to think of four more as well.

1. This is my view as I write most of my blog posts. I sit on my sofa, the baby usually asleep on me, and whenever I raise my eyes from the screen as I scramble round my brain looking for the perfect word, this is what I see in front of me.

I was going to move the bins out of view for the photo, but then I thought that would be cheating – especially as I so often catch sight of them and think, drat, I forgot to put the rubbish out. Six months ago, you wouldn’t even have been able to see the bins, just a giant cactus.

I feel the need to point out that I did not choose that wallpaper. We moved into our new house about eight months ago and it’s not yet been decorated. So we currently have a different 1950s floral wallpaper in every room. I might show you some more of them in the coming weeks…

2. The succulent on the window sill is one I grew from a “cutting” of a 150 year-old jade plant. I say cutting, but actually I snapped a bit off and hid it in my bag when I was looking round the cactus and succulent house of a botanical garden. I’m not going to say which one, because, clearly, you’re not meant to go round breaking bits off the plants and I feel a bit guilty whenever I think about it…

3. Ever since I was about five, the one thing I’ve really wanted to do with my life is write a novel. From the age of 18, every time I went on holiday / took a gap year / was between jobs / went travelling I promised myself that would be the time I was going to write my novel. Finally, last winter, on sabbatical in Hong Kong for six months I actually did write a novel…

4. …When I read over it, it was a bit shit.

5. And for the last one, this is what I look like:

I’ve been really reticent about including a photo of myself on my blog; my About page just has a logo. I don’t even really know why. I suppose it’s a combination of a photos-on-the-internet-fear combined with a general not-liking-photos-of-myself.

But, I thought it was time to bite the bullet! I always like to see what other people look like when I read their blogs, so I guess people might want to know what I look like. This is it! (*Blog readership dramatically plummets* ha ha.)

The photo was taken by my partner who is officially the world’s worst photographer. And this photograph is officially the best one he’s ever taken in his life.

It’s not recent, as any recent photo of me would include bags down to my jowls, but about a year old, back when I was pregnant. As you can probably guess, it was taken when we were living in Hong Kong, and this is a Chinese New Year market. It was very busy, as you can see.

So, there you (finally) have it: five things you (probably) didn’t know about me.

And here are a few bloggers whose blogging view I would love to see:

• Laura from Circle of Pine Trees is an amazing photographer and I just know any photos of her blogging view would make me long to move to her house even more than I already do.
• Her crafty correspondent Annie, at Nimble Fingers & Steady Eyebrows, lives in the US now and I have a feeling her view will be equally impressive. It will probably include the odd bee or two as well.
• Cheryl from Thimble Fingers makes the most beautiful fabric items with vintage images on them. Also in the US, I am very curious as to what she sees out of the window. Nothing like my London front garden, I’ll warrant…

So if any of you would like to show me a photo of your blogging view, I’d be delighted!

* Honestly, honestly, this is coming soon though. I’ve got it in pdf form now and everything.

P.S. On an unrelated note (though I suppose I could always make this a sixth thing), I mentioned that I went to a Pinterest party a few weeks ago, which was in celebration of Pinterest launching over here in the UK. I’m part of the UK Pin It Forward campaign, where 300 bloggers over the course of May will share one of their favourite boards, talk about why and what they’re pinning and introduce a new blogger the following day to do the same. Sort of like a giant online game of tag.

It’s all kicking off today and you can read more about it on the Pinterest blog. If you’ve got your reading glasses on, you can even spot my name at the very bottom of that great long list of blogs. If only I’d called my blog Aardvarks in London, eh?!

I’m up on May 17th, so look out for more then. It’s one deadline I will definitely be keeping.

Related articles:

• I’ve linked to about a hundred articles in this post already, so I’m just going to give you the links again if you’re like me and prefer to read to the end of a post first before clicking on a link.
• Other posts about my house: one with some chat about our new house, one with the full story of our now extinct giant cactus.
• Some projects I’ve made: homemade printed children’s T-shirts; printed carrot baby clothes; a bundle of baby bibs.