I’m killing two birds with one stone here. First of all, I’ve decided to sign up for the Post A to Z Challenge Road Trip. This just means that I continue to explore the blogs on the list, but at a more leisurely pace than during the challenge itself. I’m wary of committing myself to targets but maybe, just maybe, I could visit a few new blogs each week and occasionally give shout-outs to my favourite discoveries. You will note the vagueness of all those terms! My first discovery is beautiful flower photographs on Letters from the Land of Cherry Blossoms.

Secondly, I’ve been nominated for the Real Neat Blog Award. Thank you so much to Discovering Home who was kind enough to say that my blog is “wonderful, informative and attractive”.  Can I suggest that you pop over to Discovering Home for a visit and start at Z is for Zest? The recipe for Zesty Lemon Filled Choux Puffs is amazing! After you’ve salivated for a while, turn your attention back to the Real Neat Blog Award. The idea is to answer a set of questions, then pass the award on. As with last week’s Five Photos Five Stories challenge, I’m not going to make any official nominations, but I have answered Discovering Home’s questions:

1. When did you last feel courageous? Describe the circumstances and if/how it changed you, even if it impacted you just a little. I’m going to relate these questions to travel where I can, so I’ll take this as physical courage. I think the most courageous travel feat I’ve achieved is climbing Mount Kinabalu a few years ago. One day, a full account will appear on this blog. How did it change me? It made me determined never to do anything as daft again!
2. Sweet or savoury – and why? Bonus Points for sharing your favourite recipe. Savoury, definitely. I’m fond of chocolate, and I do eat desserts sometimes, but I’d almost always choose two savoury courses over a savoury and a sweet. Mind you, often I’ve eaten so much by the time I get to the sweet course that I couldn’t fit any more in anyway! When traveling, we always like to try out local food – the spicier the better.
3. When did you first begin blogging? Which early post (or posts) would you most want people to read? In 2007/8 I started a children’s literature blog which was aimed at students going on placement (I was then a librarian in a Faculty which educated teachers).  I wanted them to know about new authors because it seemed to me they were taking books into school from their own childhoods, their lecturers’ childhoods or even my childhood! The blog still exists, but it’s mainly noted for tumbleweed these days so I’m not going to recommend you go off and read it. This travel blog has been going since 2011.
4. Create your very own word, complete with definition, and use it in a sentence. I like accidental words that rhyme. The child who told her parents she was making them the gift of a wasterpaster at school (turned out to be a waste-paper basket). The politician in our recent election who invented the word fundilymundily (he meant to say fundamentally – I think). How can I compete with those? I’m trying to think of a travel word and failing dismally. Anybody help?
5. And for the sake of tradition – if you could have one super power … nope, let’s make this a generous question … if you could keep two superpowers and give one duplicate power to a friend, what would they be and who would get which powers? I’d like the Seven League Boots of folklore so that I could stride the world and never have to use airports again – and my husband would have to have a pair too so that he could come with me. Invisibility would also be good for jumping queues and getting into museums for free. (Ooh, shocking, can’t believe I just wrote that!)

Thank you once again to Discovering Home. I had fun answering your questions (even though I realise I didn’t quite answer some of them!)