Everything you need to know about me (and more)

Should I have taken the false teeth? All good novels have a great opening line, so for the official First Sentence to be posted on this blog, I'm shamelessly borrowing the first line from a novel I read on holiday in Tuscany a few years ago, where my friend brought a suitcase full of books about mad Italian 18th century monks and Catholic intrigue, and I brought a suitcase full of Jilly Coopers (don't hate me - after four years of speed-reading my way though Anna Karenina and Ulysses at university, I figure I'm entitled to some light holiday literature).

Naturally, having speed-read my way through the complete adventures of Rupert Campbell-Black in the first few days of the holiday, I swiftly moved onto the Catholic intrigue, and discovered a novel that began with the the Best Opening Line ever (no offence, Charles and Daphne). I mean seriously, how many novels in the history of the planet make reference to false teeth in the first sentence? Two? Three? Props to the authors who do, is all I can say.

Well, maybe it was the grappa, but I thought it was hysterical, and vowed that if I ever wrote a blog one day I would use that as the opening sentence.... well, of course I didn't really think that, the word blog had barely entered my lexicon at that stage, in fact, were blogs even invented back in days of yore (2004)? but heck, what's the point in writing a blog if you can't indulge in some artistic licence here and there.

Oh, and here's a promise that my sentence will be shorter and my paragraphs less complex from this point onwards. Or possibly longer and more complex, depending on how the mood takes me.

So let's get down to business. I'm Alice, and I'm English. My husband is Andre, and he's Portuguese/South African. Our dogs are Penny and Enrique, and they're confused about their nationality. Fortunately the Jack Russell terrier yap is the same in every language.

We all live in a little two-bed semi in Manchester, England (no, we don't support Manchester United. Or Manchester City. Well, actually the dogs might do - I've never asked them). Our house was built in the 1950s, which over in the US would make our residence a charming vintage abode - but here in the land of Victorian buildings our house is actually quite embarrassingly young ("what, no original cornices/ mouldings/ bay windows/ high ceilings - where's the character?"). However, I like to think that our little nest was born in the fabulous fifties - era of Dior's New Look, rock and roll, Teddy Boys, Some Like It Hot, and scarlet lipstick and seamed stockings. Much cooler sounding, no? Take that, houses from the age of Victorian repression and cholera!

When I'm not glued to my laptop writing this blog, I'm glued to my laptop writing for work. I work in communications for a global technology company - meaning I spend ten hours a day tapping away with a perplexed/ confused/ manic expression that varies depending on time of day/ number of espressos consumed/ distance from deadline and so on. More importantly of course, the work keeps me in chardonnay, Clarins, petrol for my baby, chandeliers, jumpers from Jigsaw, and long weekends in Paris.

So I feel that if we're going to be spending time together, there are some things that you need to know about me. We've established the accent, the basic living situation, the job, and the fondness for bad puns and music/film/literature references. Here's some other important information about the things that tickle my fancy:

• Watching re-runs of That Seventies Show ("Mrs Foreman told me to get this out of her sight. I like to think she meant hey, have a free canoe").
• Laughing like a drain at Neil Armstrong's historic first words as reported by the Onion (seriously, if you're not familiar with what Neil really said, you have to check this link out immediately if not sooner)
• Busting out some Tom Cruise Tropic Thunder-style dance moves in the kitchen when I think no one is watching
• Eggs Benedict on a Sunday morning at the local deli - the absurdly high fat content knocks me out for the day, but is totally worth it
• The knowledge that I have a year's supply of my favourite wine in the cupboard under the stairs which I bought half price cos the local supermarket had a random surplus.

So what is this blog going to be about? Well, mostly it's going to be about me (it's all about me, people), my family, and our adventures restoring our little two-bed Manchester semi to her former glory. It was the best of times (enjoying our first espressos in the newly completed kitchen), and the worst of times (dropping the new garden gate on my foot). Plus some general design musings, DIY projects, inspirational interiors, and so on, depending on what I feel about writing about on that particular day. Basically I'll be making it up as I go along, which if you've managed to read all the way through to the end of this indulgent mini-essay, you are probably OK with. Catch you later!