Meta-meta-medieval has been given a Versatility Award. Many thanks to Ken and Dot’s Allsorts. Like them,

we are graciously pleased to accept. The rules are:

1) thank the person who gave you the award (thanks, If By Yes!)
2) tell seven things about yourself and
3) pass the award on to other bloggers whom you love, and, I suppose, find to be versatile.

(see their “And first I’d like to thank my mum, my cat, my PhD supervisors…“)

1) Thank you kindly, Ken and Dot. You’re actually much more versatile than me.

2) Seven things about me:

1. I can roll my tongue. Not sure how useful that is. Outside secondary-school biology; and that’s not teenage clumsy flirtation (I was way too geeky and gormless even for that), but rather, introductory genetics.
2. I have double-jointed fingers AND toes.
3. Also, loose joints all over. For example, I can pull each finger out of its socket and then click it back in. I don’t do it very often because the good Dr Vandenplas did tell me, many decades ago, that it’s not very good for you.
4. I can walk and chew gum at the same time. Ex. not just reading Medieval stuff, including many completely unrelated blogs. My thanks to the late Karl D. Uitti for teaching me why this is actually something very important, significant, and telling.
5. Despite growing up in Belgium and having imbibed a great range of Belgian beer; and in spite of a sojourn in Munich and later quality time in England; I still don’t really like beer very much. This might count as non-versatility, or a resistance to versatility. But it’s partly because I am inordinately prone to gassiness. Loquacity aside–this is another sound reason for my avoidance of beer. And may be why I am pun-prone: if one is struck by the windy gods, one often has to recover fast by turning it all into a joke. This would count as versatility.
6. Have lived in various countries, so that probably counts as versatility. Cosmopolitan migrant who will adapt to fitting in, approximately, settling into places quite fast, and taking a liking to places rapidly. On the other hand: one never belongs in any single place 100%, one has no “home”, and one is as prone to nostalgia and melancholy as anyone else: except the sentiment is less concentrated, more diffused through all the places one has been. Including short holiday breaks.
7. I am lazy. Very very very lazy. I will go to inordinate lengths to disguise this, avoid it, and try to persuade myself that work isn’t actually work. This had led to the development of further versatile skills. And to working in a field where I do actually enjoy what counts as work …

3) Passing the award on to: Forever Amber, Passive Aggressive Notes, and Well Done Fillet. All three are deserving of the award because they’re blogs, and versatile, and fabulous; and because I read them frequently. As Ken and Dot put it very well: “no obligation to do anything other than bask in our admiration.” Consider yourselves admired!