The challenges were written by guests & I am currently working my way through in no particular order other than attempting what seem the simplest first so that I can try out some of the filming and recording!

Read War & Peace – In a Week

The challenge was entered twice, the second with the caveat of completing it in a week which was no mean feat as an audio reading is apparently just over 60 hours of listening which possibly would have been easier.

I had some sense of the story from watching a TV dramatisation some years ago which helped me keep on tract with the general story & numerous characters with impossible sounding names.

I read on the ferry to Ireland, in the car while my husband was watching rugby & basically any spare minute I found including sitting in bed with what my hubby nicknamed my ‘miners lamp’ on my head so I could continue reading while he slept.

Still I did achieve it so it motivated me to attempt the second whilst starting to put together the plans to enable me to move on to the more complicated ones.

Tie & Knots in 7 Days

This was the second challenge to be attempted that was set by my oldest friend and proved to be more difficult than anticipated especially trying to film it and make the final version watchable! 

I now can tie a few knots but really (if I had known then)I should have asked the cowboys we watched at a Rodeo in Montana as I am guessing they could have shown me a knot or two – The Highway man for sure.

Even though this challenge did test my patience at various points during the week I still did laugh in places and it triggered some memories from the past of my girl guiding days.

Doing A Munro

I am now busy getting ready for the first of the really physical challenges which involves travelling to Scotland. From where I live that’s a bit of a drive & Paddi the dog will also be tagging along.

The Munro walking was fun and is duly recorded to show what it was like. It was a good taster in the preparation for one of the other challenges that will come along in the future.

Velocity Two

This one is currently up on the You Tube channel and was great fun. It involves getting suited up and then being strapped into a special harness before being launched over an old quarry. Reputedly speeds of around 100mph can be achieved and it was a fantastic adrenaline rush. I wanted to have another go as soon as we had come down but sadly it was really busy so it will have to wait until another day.

Circus Skills

So what of the next challenges. Well some will take a longer time to actually achieve as I actually have to learn the skills in order to be able to attempt them!

I had made a start with some of them but Lockdown has had an impact as many involved travel & adventure so I had to look at those that could be attempted at home.

Strangely the person setting this challenge hadn’t realised that there was a unicycle gathering dust in our garage that belonged to my husband. I had never actually attempted to ride it given the fact that I can hardly ride a normal bicycle!

Circus Skills Update 2022

The juggling continues and I know have acquired a few new sets of balls of different weight & size as I explore the art of laughing them into the air and trying not to fling them at anyone or thing close by. I now leave them around the house so I can pick them up at random moments rather than having set practice times.

No idea if I will ever master that or the unicycling to be honest but have decided these are skills which only time & practice will tell.

A chance conversation whilst the therapist during a sports massage gave me an opportunity to refine my skills by having an impromptu lesson & he also inspired me to get myself a slack line to begin the journey towards high wire walking.

Well I have begun the slow & what for me is likely to be a painful process of trying to learn Spanish. Despite being reasonably articulate in my mother tongue pronouncing words from a foreign language has always been a challenge for me. Must be just how my brain works as I can recognise quite an extensive vocabulary of words in the written form which is handy for reading menus & shopping in a supermarket but a definite disadvantage when trying to order or pay at the checkout.

Still with a popular language training app on my phone I have been chipping way at the basics for some months now & even went on a weekend trip (pre lockdown) to Seville. A friend who is also learning Spanish wanted to go so we spent a delightful long weekend exploring & trying to inflict our conversation on unsuspecting Spanish people. Definitely a another trip wold be good & next time hopefully to Barcelona where I can visit my nephew.

Spanish Update 2022

I have been plodding along with my attempt to learn Spanish. Duolingo has been a useful tool to assist in the process as its on my phone so I can access it easily. I confess I probably an not very good at the spoken word but can now understand quite a lot of the written language so could probably communicate on some level.

Before the pandemic I went on a city break with a mate so she could practice her Spanish and now the restrictions are lifting it would be great to try and organise another trip to see how I get on.