About Me
- I was born on 9th March 1981 in the Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital in Aylesbury
- From 1993 I attended Aylesbury High School and then in 1999 I moved to West Yorkshire to study at the University of Bradford
- In 2003 I completed my degree course and obtained a 2.1 (Hons) in Cybernetics & Virtual Worlds
- I have a great little office in the Little Germany area of Bradford where I work as training coordinator for GBdirect Ltd.
- I live in Bradford with my partner of 9 years, Nigel Smith and our two Burmese cats
- I have one younger sister called Claire
- My parents live in Calpe on the Costa Blanca in Spain
- I play the violin in Leeds Symphony Orchestra
Likes:
Good food, good (red) wine, good beer, cooking, Sunday morning lie-ins, sunny days, peace and quiet, walking, reading, long hot showers, beautiful music, Farmers markets, clementine oranges, pasta and noodles
Will take or leave:
Bananas, sweets, cakes, puddings & desserts, white wine, watching films
Dislikes:
Crowds, fast food, ready and microwave meals, mushy peas, houmous, greed, loud noise, dishonesty, bad language, fussy eaters, driving, clutter, clothes shopping, spelling mistakes, violence
Music
One of my main interests is music. I started learning the piano when I was aged 4 and the violin at age 8. I now spend quite a substantial amount of my free time playing with the orchestra – we rehearse regularly on Monday evenings and play 10 concerts a year around Yorkshire.
I also like listening to music. My CD collection is quite varied with albums ranging from Bach to Britney. I don’t pay much attention to the image of modern artists, if I like the sound of the music they make then that’s really all I care about. I don’t tend to like the sound of really heavy metal (that stuff where it just sounds like they’re playing random guitar chords really loudly and screaming). I’m also not usually particularly taken by the stuff that comes out of the likes of ‘Diddy’, ‘Nelly’, ‘2PAC’ or any other of those ‘rapper/hip-hop’ artistes (or however they’re classified).
Probably my favourite ‘popular music’ artist is Billy Joel, but I also have a great deal of respect for Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson. I also like Bon Jovi. My most favourite album in my the whole of my collection has to be Savage Garden’s ‘Affirmation’, and I am quite disappointed that the Australian duo didn’t do more than they did.
Books
I’m quite a keen reader. I don’t get through books that quickly as I often don’t get much chance to read. I’m not that fussy about what I read, so normally I just try and get bargain paperbacks and then when I’ve read them I pass them to friends/family if they’re good, or stick them in the charity bag if they’re not. I regularly buy books bargain books from ‘The Book People’. See my reviews here.