Originally done by Olan (@CottonJones), I was challenged by Mary (see dedication) to do this, so I decided to do it as part of #Wattpadwednesday

The twenty things are just what popped into my head at the time and are not really in any order of importance or life-shakingness. They're probably kinda random though... 

1. I'm a 41 yr old man, married, with 4 kids, a cat and a dog and I live in Devon, UK (the pointy bit at the south-western end) about 40 miles from where I grew up, and where my parents still live. 

2. In my late twenties I had a partial retinal detachment in my right eye that left me near enough blind in one eye for several weeks and partially sighted for several months. Although people in the UK sometimes slag of the National Health Service, without it I would now be blind in one eye and losing the sight in the other. With glasses I have near perfect vision and a healthy appreciation of modern medicine and medical professionals. Can't complain really. Thank you NHS. 

3. Family rumour has it that we're distantly related to the Swedish royal family.

4. I love food and drink (as Canadian colleagues will attest) and will happily try anything once and most things repeatedly. Except sheeps brain: that was vile. 

5. Favourites :

Quote - "Everybody is somebody else's weirdo" - 'cos it's quite often been proved true

Film - Dark City

Story - probably The Price by Neil Gaiman.

Writer - Terry Pratchett

Music - Pretty much anything, although I'm not massively keen on Opera or Rap in general

Computer Game - Civilisation II (I lost weeks of my life playing that damn game)

Colour - black, if indeed it is a colour, or merely the absense of all colour. Although I could suggest Octarine if I was being a geek (which is quite often the case)

Place - The garden to the house where I grew up, looking at the ever changing landscape of Dartmoor with a cup of coffee in my hand (or a beer)

6. I once babysat a lamb and a couple of kids (real ones, not baby goats. I usually only babysat children, although there was a tortoise once too, we got on fairly well but his conversational skills were limited)

7. I have a City and Guilds certificate in tarmac laying (among other odd qualifications and strange collections of letters after my name). Previous jobs have included sports instructor, kitchen fitter, waiter, salad chef, kitchen porter, builder, shop assistant, archaeologist, professional abseiler, stone mason, gardener, babysitter, lighting engineer for bands / events, and engineering geologist. Now I work for Wattpad - that's the coolest one =] 

8. Over the course of several years, I worked on the cliffs at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, helping to make them safe and preserve some sections of deteriorating stonework. Tintagel is the reputed birthplace of King Arthur (well, one of them). 

9. My favourite genre is Science Fiction, closely followed by Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror / Paranormal and Humour. 

10. I am bald

11. I can play the guitar and piano badly enough to impress my kids, and taught myself the recorder aged ten to prove to the headteacher's daughter that boys could play as well as girls could. Sadly, this little stunt meant that the headteacher, who seemed to be rather impressed with me, thought 'all' boys should learn to play it. Playtimes were a little fraught for a while...

12. I can juggle

13. For about a year I took evening classes in how to make stained glass windows. It was kinda cool

14. I failed my A-levels (qualification required for entry into University in the UK) but got a degree anyway 'cos I'm stubborn

15. I once performed on stage in a band in front of 500 people. 

16. On my first ever trip to Canada (and only my second ever long-haul flight) my luggage got lost, I missed two separate connecting flights due to weather and officialdom, and the guy next to me at the Lost Luggage desk in Toronto fainted and I had to put him in the recovery position. About 30 seconds afterwards he recovered, screamed "bastards!" at the top of his voice and ran off. Subsequent trips have been less eventful. 

17. I used to be able to do the box splits

18. I prefer coffee to tea, and beer to champagne. 

19. I have read at least a book a week since I was 7 years old. My father always used to complain that I read too much, and my little brother not at all. These days I probably read as much as I ever did but it's rare that I spend an entire day in a chair with a book the way I did when I was a child. Nothing will ever stop me reading though, and I certainly believe that you cannot write unless you read. The two are utterly intertwined. 

20. My brain is known as Brian. He gets blamed for most things...