Welcome back to Mondayitis, a series of questions published on Tuesdays. If you’re interested in having yourself or your business featured on Mondayitis please leave a comment and I’ll email you.

What do you read?

Currently I am reading Twitter and my German phrase book. I’d like more varied tomes but, at the moment, life brings me to these. I have books that are old friends which I keep re-reading and there are a lot of potential new friends out there that I’d like to curl up on a sofa with and really get to know them whilst having a relaxing cup of tea or coffee. One of life’s great joys is to be able to curl up on a sofa, with a cup of tea or coffee and a good book and be immersed in another world.

Why do you read?

I read because I adore reading: it educates, fires imagination, inspires and induces all kinds of other emotions too.

Do you read for work or pleasure?

I read mostly for pleasure: there’s some work stuff too, but mostly for pure pleasure. Reading for work can be pleasurable, but too often it can be a chore that has to be done and that’s a poor state of affairs to be in!

Can you do the Safety Dance while reading?

No, I don’t and you have succeeded in giving me an earworm!

Are you a Discworld/Twilight/Harry Potter fan?

Discworld/Twilight/Harry Potter? I’m more Ringworld/True Blood/Wizard of Earthsea material. Of those three, “A Wizard Of Earthsea” is a much-loved old friend I love to meet up with on a frequent basis.

Would you attend a flash mob dressed as your favourite character?

I would love to do a flashmob, but I’m a wimp. In character? Where is my “Conversational Klingon” tape? I’d love to be dressed as a full-on Klingon warrior as that’s completely different to my real personality!

Ritual sacrifice procedures: excuse me whilst I laugh, but it’s how I have dealt with those turning up at my doorstep wanting to “save my soul”.

I have no objections to anyone wanting to follow their own religion but I do object when they want to insist that I follow it too! It seems to me that there are good and bad types in all sorts of religions and too often, those wanting to force their religious views on others can have a bit too many of the bad parts in them. I have friends who follow many different religions and the one thing common to all of them is that they have a genuine love of other people, tolerance for those who are not of their own belief system and they have never tried to force their religious beliefs on me as the only ones to be correct. Call me picky but I appreciate those traits.

As you know, I have hens and I love doing a spot of gardening by attempting to grow a few vegetables and herbs. One summer day a couple of years ago I was in the back garden cutting some salad leaves and picking herbs for a meal with the hens about my feet looking for tasty treats such as snails and other goodies that have a thorax and a total number of legs that is not two, which came to light as I cut the leaves. The hens undertake their pest-control duties with great deal of enthusiasm and are extremely effective.  I was nattering to the hens as I cut leaves and was disturbed by a “good afternoon” followed by an immediate launch into a speech about my salvation and asking if I had found the lord. I looked up to see two religious-zealot types in my garden, thrusting copies of their literature in my direction. This irked me as they’d just wandered right into my garden without permission and I thought that displayed a certain lack of good manners. I don’t know what came over me, but after my initial thought of it being a bit careless of them to lose the lord and having to ask a total stranger if she had found him, it just flashed into my mind that I was stood there with kitchen knife in one hand, herb-type leaves in the other and hens at my feet and this presented opportunity for a bit of amusement. So I smiled sweetly to the zealots and told them, “Thank you but I’m not interested as I’m a Satanist and I’m just getting ready for today’s ritual sacrifice.” For some reason they swiftly backed away and left. They have not returned and this is fine by me!

This comes from my lovely friend, Helen in Norwich. She has interesting ideas as you can see from her treatment of some religious visitors. She’s also the first person to have none of the addictions I asked about but instead has other excellent addictions.