So, the Noughties have come to an end... thank goodness (and not least because "Noughties" is a rubbish soubriquet). I'm not going to write a review of the decade that has just passed - many others have done that, with a particularly interesting and highly recommended take on the last ten years being given at the always-excellent Crying All The Way To The Chip Shop.
But no, none of that here. Instead, I will try to give you my life in numbers, celebrating nought to nine in honour of the now-deceased Noughties. Yes, it's a lazy way of writing a post. Yes, some might even call it a meme. I just think of it as a way of telling you ten odd and maybe unusual things about myself you probably don't know. Here goes.
- The number of criminal convictions I have. Phew.
- How many houses I have bought. Hopefully this won't change for a good long while.
- The number of Swedish au-pairs I have dallied with. No, really.
- European countries passed through without stopping to visit properly (Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein).
- The number of bones in my right arm that I've broken (three different events).
- The number of cars I have owned. All good in different ways, one truly epic. Three of them are still on the road, somewhere...
- Years since being made redundant by a faceless, soulless, heartless global corporation. What, me? Bitter?
- How many years of part-time study it took to do my Masters. A slog, but a worthwhile slog.
- Number of people I became friends with in my first year at uni (20 years ago) that are now on my Facebook friends list.
- The number of jobs I have had in my time, i.e. proper jobs with wage slips. I didn't count my old paper-round though...
Who knows, if I'm still blogging in 2020, maybe I'll do ten to nineteen...