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What to say? Well, at my time of life
I'd LIKE to say I stay at home with my feet up, but that's
not the case. Pete and I married in 1968, and our three
children are all grown up and two of them are still living
at home - I must make life too comfortable for them or something
- but I must admit that housework is not my main priority.
I once had a keyring which said "Boring women have immaculate
homes" and I have adopted that as my motto! It's probably
just as well - I also have a soft spot for anything with
fur, hair or feathers and over the years have given houseroom
to a wide assortment of pets
: the current tally is two dogs, one cat and two rats, plus
a pony who is the only one not actually IN the house. As
they say, in our house "dust" is a noun....
I don't have TIME for housework : although I recently retired
from working full-time as a teacher of children with special
educational needs, I have taken on part-time work and write
a regular weekly column for the local newspaper, do a bit
of freelance web design and also volunteer one day a week
at the Red Cross charity shop. In my spare time I'm heavily
involved with the Guide movement, running (with a lot of
help from Carol and Kay) a Ranger Guide unit for girls aged
14 plus - at the moment there are fifteen of them, although
at times it feels more like fifTY - and a Guide unit of
18 ten to fourteen year olds! I'm the East Yorkshire County
Water Activities Adviser, a qualified GNAS
Archery Leader and have just been co-opted onto the
County Public Relations Committee. If you'd like to know
more about that very important aspect of my life, click
here. I'm also a local councillor, serving on the Parish
Council (website here,)
I'm a member of Kingston
Kayak Club and play canoe polo for the Kingston
Mummies ladies' team. (If you go to visit any of these
sites, do come back here, they should all open in a new
window so just shut it down!)
My sons will also tell you that I spend FAR too much time
on the Internet! I now have forty-one websites scattered
around the Web and am forever "tweaking" them; I also make
all my own backgrounds, graphics etc. including everything
on this website.
One unexpected result of all those hours spent on the 'net
is that I have succeeded in tracing my roots back as far
as 1575, and recently met some American cousins I previously
had no idea existed. I have put all the details I have discovered
about my family and origins onto my own genealogy
website - if you think we might be related, however
distantly, do drop
me a line.
Like Rosina, I was born under the sign
of Aries so I don't need to duplicate
the characteristics and birthstone stuff - you can read
it all on her page.
My name is spelt the more unusual way, with two "ns," and
I couldn't find many famous "double-n" Diannes apart from
the actress Dianne Wiest and jazz singer Dianne
Reeves, but however you spell it, Dianne/Diane is derived
from Diana, the Roman goddess of the moon, which
is itself derived from the Latin for "goddess."
I share my birthday with Catherine de Medici,
16th century queen of France, the inventor Richard Trevithick,
the original F. W. Woolworth, playwright Samuel
Beckett, author John Braine and chess champion
Gary Kasparov - a very mixed bag - and on my birthday
in 1970 the Apollo 13 astronauts announced, "Houston
- we have a problem!"
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