The Power of Four

I've been tagged by Charlotte Phillips, so now I need to answer the following questions. I won't tag anyone, but consider yourself tagged if you'd like to do it.

 Four places I have worked

1. A holiday job in a concrete research lab. It was brilliant - I got to cast concrete beams and then smash them.

2. On the 12th floor of an office block in Kent. Great if you like views, terrible if you're scared of heights. Guess which one I am! I swear I could feel the building sway on windy days. I was working as a civil engineer at the time. The good days were the ones I got to spend out on the sewage treatment plant I was working on.

3.  Clearly the whole civil-engineer-with-vertigo thing wasn't working, so I retrained as a maths teacher. I then spent several years teaching in a rural school in Suffolk. As a result there are now several names I would never consider using for a character.

4. A school on the edge of the Kalahari. It was an amazing time - I would go off with friends each weekend and holiday and travel around Botswana and Zimbabwe.

Four films I could watch over and over

1. Sense & Sensibility (with Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson). I think this film captured the spirit of the book perfectly. And Greg Wise as Willoughby is the epitome of the Regency bounder :)

2. 2012. No, really. Disaster movies are the best. There's something about watching the world disappear under a sea of lava, and whole cities crumbling to dust that appeals to me. I must be a very bad person.

3. The Matrix. The whole concept of this film just blew me away. Plus it has Keanu Reeves. What more could you ask?

4. When Harry Met Sally. I'm a sucker for rom coms, and it was so hard to pick just one. In the end I went for this because it was the film that started me off on rom coms.

Four TV Shows

1. The Killing. I love thrillers and crime dramas. I have to concentrate really hard on the subtitles, though, or I end up missing really important stuff.

2. QI. This makes me laugh, and Stephen Fry is brilliant.

3. Downton Abbey. Pure escapism - this is one of those dramas that I can just lose myself in.

4. Dr. Who. When David Tennant left I thought it could never be as good again, but Matt Smith proved me wrong.

Four Authors I enjoy

1. Sharon Penman. She's got a real talent for bringing distant historical figures to life, and making their concerns relevant. I particularly enjoyed her novels set in Wales.

2. Katie Fforde. More escapism! I love her heroines - all quirky and self-sufficient.

3. Tolkien. The ultimate world-builder. And I can't resist a good black-and-white good vs evil plot.

4. David Baldacci. I can't resist a tense conspiracy thriller, and he writes some of the best.

Four places I've travelled to

1. Botswana
2. Malaysia - I got dizzy just looking at the Petronas Towers!
3. Australia - I backpacked round Oz when I finished my degree
4. Czech Republic - romantic fairy-tale castles on rocky crags. It would be a great setting for a romance.

Four websites I visit daily

1. BBC News - I have to check first thing to make sure the world hasn't ended.
2. Blogger
3. Gmail
4. Google

Four favourite foods

1. Chocolate
2. Fish pie
3. Tyrrells crisps
4. Brie cheese

Four places I'd rather be

1. Pembrokeshire
2. A luxury safari lodge
3. A treehouse
4. The Amazon Rainforest