I am an army brat, which means my father was a soldier and I grew up in a military environment and moved regularly from place to place, I lived mainly in the UK and Germany when I was a child. Eventually we settled in the Outer Hebrides on an island called Benbecula.

I studied in Birmingham, although the college was validated by the University of Wales, and I have 2:1 degree in theology, in particular I enjoyed studying hermeneutics.

I enjoy learning languages and can speak at differing levels the following

• Czech - quite good but awful grammar
• French - reasonable
• German - similar to my French, but I would love to brush it up again.
• Slavic languages - I can read Cyrillic and can work out the meaning of most things I read in several Slavic languages.
• I have a working knowledge of American English.

I am a Business Analyst for a software company in Virginia.

I love reading, I can't imagine life without books. My favourite author is Umberto Eco, although I recently read the Harry Potter books and was pleasantly surprised.

I also enjoy music, I like bands such as the Smiths, Fleetwood Mac, Madness, Starflyer 59, Morex Optimo, as well as enjoying both classical music and opera, but I can't stand jazz and techno.

My other hobbies are cooking, which I am good at, football and photography.