A Review And An Amendment

Its New Year. 2012 has just begun. A time for looking back and reviewing. This list has taken a back seat in 2011 as I concentrated on the most important thing, moving to Hull. Which wasn't on the list! I've lacked time for some things, and I definitely lacked money. The move itself cost a lot, and there wasn't money spare for the holidays and some of the adventures I wanted to do. The last blog post is from August 2011, I moved in September which says it all really!

With 15 months to go, a review of the list shows that I won't be able to complete everything. Just two examples, I (obviously) dropped Brownies in Tunbridge Wells, and needing some time off from church obligations, I haven't joined a pack here. So qualifying as a Guider isn't going to happen. Also the couple I planned to visit in Texas are no longer both there, so that won't happen.

Therefore, I am changing item number 101 which says "Prepare the next list...." to "Donate £5 to charity for each incomplete task".

When I was researching lists to see what were popular or classic tasks, a lot of people finished with renewing the list. I must admit, it was never my intention to try something on this scale again! I didn't know what sort of 101 I would do, but it was always going to be a smaller scale!

Many people started their lists more realistically than me, knowing in advance they might not be able to do everything. And so they include the "donate £X to charity for each incomplete task". So I am doing this, to encourage me to keep going and try and do as much as possible, but hopefully take the pressure off and stop me worrying that some things just can't happen.

So, here is a re-commitment that I want to keep going with the list. There loads here I still want to do and I've got some exciting stuff planned already for January! We've done a task just this morning (post to follow later, the photos need editing) and another task is booked for later in the month. I'll try and do better with my reporting!

Happy New Year :) xx

Weigh 10 and a half stone and see what happens next...

Item 57 was very deliberately worded. I wanted to lose weight, but after trying for a decade or so, I knew it was tricky, and keeping the weight off, even trickier.

I have several motivations for losing weight. At 5ft 6 and 11 and a half stone (thats 161 pounds for the americans) I was not exactly huge, but I am right on the line of overweight/obese for BMI, and I could stand with losing a few pounds.

It hadn't escaped my notice that I was carrying more spare fat than nearly every other person at the climbing wall. And I figured slimming down might be easier than getting stronger, and it might improve my climbing.

I also need to keep my weight down for health reasons. My mum died of cancer at only 53, and it runs in females down that side of the family, so I need to eat right and stay in shape to look after myself.

I've been trying to lose the weight since this project started back in July 10. But giving up eating my favourite foods is hard. And turning down invites for yummy meals at friends, or out for dinner in town is nearly impossible. I tried upping my activity levels but I was already so busy it was hard to fit much else in.

In May 11, a few things fell into place to make a proper attempt possible. Firstly I realised I was going to turn 30 in less than a year, and that it was never going to get easier to shift. Secondly, I planned to move to Hull which meant giving up the youth groups I help out at, which free'd up a few evenings a week. And then R&S invited me to Crossfit.

Crossfit is sport practised by a small but growing group of nutters who do warm ups that are work outs for most normal people. We then lift weights, before attempting to kill ourselves perfoming the "Work Out of the Day" or WOD.

I have never worked out with such intensity, or had such encouragement from my work out buddies. The WODs are timed. I am usually last, but as soon as the others have finished (and got their breath back!) they are shouting encouragement and helping me count down the pull ups or lifts I have left to do. It makes all the difference.

Plus, in savig up to move, I can't afford to eat out as much :)

It took four months to lose a stone (14lbs) which is pretty slow I think. But then I pretty much did that through exercise. I still ate a huge amount of chocolate, and had the odd drink, and quite a lot of treats.

Its been exciting to drop a dress size, and you can nearly see definition of muscles in my arms, and even more surprisingly, my thighs.

I thought I'd find this so hard I'd hit 10 and a half stone, celebrate with a curry and probably put most of it back on.

But you know what, I don't want a curry tonight. I'm out climbing with my mates tomorrow, and I need to be awake and alert and energetic. A curry will make me tired, lethargic and slow. So tonight will be something reasonably healthy and maybe a drink of something cold and yummy.

I hope to lose another inch or so off my tummy. Annoyingly I am now between a size 12 and 14, which not terribly helpful for clothes shopping! So I'd like to be a 12 consistently. I'd like to be able to run a 5k in under 30 minutes. I'd like to be able to climb any grade 5 climb or V2 boulder route without too much hassle. I'm nearly there, but not quite, and the weight won't be going back on this time.

I didn't actually think when I wrote the list I'd be able to achieve this goal. I knew I needed to try, but it was added out of hope rather than expectation, and I think this is now my proudest achievement to date.

Now, I think it must time to go and get some chocolate :)

Going Camping With Dan - The Return To Font

Item 70: Go Camping With Dan

When we went to Font in July 2010 we spent a bit of money on gear, and thought we'd better go on another trip to get value for money :)

For one reason or another, Font 2011 was the first time we would have a chance to use the tent.

We stayed at Camping Les Pres at Grez sur Loing, in the usual spot. It was a nice enough camp site. Showers were warm and pretty clean considering how basic it was. I was not so impressed with the amount of spiders and bugs and webs in the ladies though...

Saturday morning we went to Canche aux Merciers, which is a nice low crag to get us started. A lot of us on the trip only top rope or boulder indoors and certainly I was a little nervy with no safety net at all. We did a yellow circuit, following the arrows around the problems, which I am told is an English grade 3 or 4, but they all felt harder than that! We also learnt the lesson of checking the descent from the rock, as sometimes getting down was trickier than climbing up!

In the afternoon we moved to La Roche aux Sabots, another low(ish) crag with yellow circuit but also harder problems for those that wanted them.

I must admit I sulked a little here. I wasn't feeling well, and wasn't mentally in the right place to push myself. The rock here was quite polished in places and very slippy. Most things I tried, I failed. Including a particular problem I'd spent ages overcoming a year ago. I thought I'd leap up it this year and demonstrate my improvement but actually I couldn't do it. I ended up taking a few photos of others, and trying to enjoy being outdoors in a beautiful forest on a sunny day.

Sunday morning we headed to Elephant, and to a very high climb my brother wanted to complete after dropping from 20 feet or so from it last year. I made the decision to support him that morning, and to focus on climbing mostly in the afternoon. An easy choice to make since Elephant is mostly quite high, and I am not confident far off the ground without a rope.

Several people made the climb, but my brother didn't. I think he could remember last years fall too clearly, and although I'm really sad for him, I'd rather he came home with all his bones intact. Elephant pushes the boundaries for me between bouldering and soloing, and I was happy enough we all made it back to the minibus with no broken bones.

In the afternoon I was raring to go, and we went to Dame Jouanne with the advice to not look for circuits, but just to climb anything that looked interesting. I find this really hard. I can't pick my own problems easily. Left to my own devices I'd end up climbing routes that could be done in trainers, or problems so hard I wouldn't succeed and would be frustrated. This crag was also quite high, and after some fruitless time searching for parts of circuits, I went for a scramble with a friend instead. We figured we'd go round the bottom of the rocks looking up at the tall rock in the middle, and come out the other side. Half way round we found steps built into the ground and boulders, so we headed up them and at the top found the rocks flattened out to a big enough area to stop and admire an astounding view, before re-joining our friends.

That evening I was a bit deflated. I'd done so little climbing, and panicked at anything higher than about 10 feet. I didn't feel I had challenged myself, or achieved much at all. At dinner that evening I requested a lower crag the next day, with an obvious circuit for me to follow.

And wow did I get what I wanted! We ended up at a quiet little crag called Beauvais Guinguette with a nice yellow circuit with 50 problems. We trotted off to see how many we could get done before lunch. There was a nice variation, nothing was too high. Some required brute strength, others more technical ability. I only bottled one problem for being too high, and one or two I chose to skip after an attempt so I could attack the next problem, rather than waste 15 minutes of energy on one thing.

By lunch time most of us had hit problem number 25. Those who started at the front of the group, got to about 35 as they hadn't had to wait around at all. And two of our guys finished the lot. I think most people considered it the best crag, and I certainly feel I got some good climbing done after a disappointing Sunday.

I will definitely be back to Font, its such a beautiful area and I have only scratched the surface of what it has to offer. I'm going to to try and do some more outdoor bouldering before next year, to get more confidence in my ability, and possibly consider learning how to fall off!

Before I went, @CrossfitTonbuk tweeted to his followers that I was in Font to see if Crossfit (a particular type of training which focuses on strength and balance) had helped my climbing. I spent a lot of the weekend thinking about this, and on that final circuit realised that at no point in the weekend did I give up because I lacked the strength. That never let me down and thats probably a first for me. Crossfit has definitely helped my climbing.

My nerve and my confidence let me down and that is all in my head. I feel I've hit a bit of a plateau in my climbing. I'm getting pretty good, I'm more flexible than I was and I'm stronger than I was. I'm getting more stamina. The wall I've hit, is mental. I need to believe I can be better, that I can make that move, that my foot won't slip, that my arms won't suddenly give up and that's where my next improvement is going to have to come from.

Oh yes, this 101 item was in the "love and romance" section. I messed that up. Nothing romantic about camping at all, especially when you're there to climb! Unless you count the romance of the shared passion for climbing :)

A Picnic on Ashdown Forest

Ok, so the photo is not of us eating a picnic, but I think its a great photo Dan took so I'm using this one :)

I gave myself an area on the list called "Romance". Some on this list are proving tricky to complete and will need more time. Why on earth I thought it was a good idea to romantically surprise Dan I don't know. I know what I'd like, but I'm finding it hard to get inside his head.

Anyway, I live quite close to a beautiful forest and hardly ever go there for a walk or picnic, so I chucked it on the list to make sure I made the effort at some point.

After a unseasonably sunny Easter, the weather round here deteriorated, so after a few weeks was rain when the sun came out we nipped out to the forest and braved the winds for a mini adventure.

Ashdown Forest is the location A A Milne used in her childrens books Winnie The Pooh. I read them growing up and I must admit, it still holds some kind of magic for me. We drove out and stopped at one of two car parks I know on the forest. We walked off to the quarry where we sat out the wind to have lunch and then climbed a tree I remembered as a kid to see if I could get higher now. I could, but find if I do this kind of thing in trainers I am very wary that I lack the grip of my climbing shoes and found it scarier than I should!

We took our stuff back to the car and then found in the car park a post with some leaflets describing walks. It was SUCH a good leaflet. From the car park there were two walks, we picked the longer and got given the description as we went. No tricky maps to follow, but directions using the locations that were in the stories. So we set off first to the Heffleump Trap. They helpfully pictured the first stop so you could identify when you arrived. Then we headed off back to the quarry we'd had lunch in, which was actually Roo's Sandy Pit via the A A Milne memorial which has fantastic views. Then the route took us to The North Pole and up the hill past Eeyores Gloomy Place.

Then I suggested a diversion. We were at the track to take us back to the car, but hadn't really been walking long, plus it was hot. And I was certain the second of the car parks I knew was straight ahead and always, ALWAYS has an ice cream van.

Dan being a trusting sort of boyfriend let me lead him off route into the forest and gently teased me as trudged further and further from the junction with no ice cream van in sight....

My hunch was correct, but on foot it took us longer to get there than expected. Luckily the ice cream van was there, but the exposed position and strong winds meant I was freezing within minutes so we headed off back to the car, returning the leaflet for others as suggested.

It was a perfect Saturday mini adventure. The discovery of these fab walks taking you past points mentioned in the books is genius, and I may have to go back and do some more!! I need to see Winnie The Pooh and Tiggers house I think :)

A week without TV or Internet

I'm blogging this several months after my week without tv or internet, which wasn't my intention (I'm lazy and forgetful - oops!) but at least will give a perspective on what happened next.

The week off was unbelievably hard. I felt like I was missing on facebook, that things might have happened and I wouldn't know I felt very out of the loop. I found myself reaching for my mobile to check for updates at any spare moment. I had NO attention span, and was unable to to "be". It was actually quite alarming.

I found I had to work more at work. Everytime a thought popped into my head about a film I wanted to watch, or what the opening hours for such and such was, I had to put it out my head and keep working. It made me feel quite ashamed to see how easily I will leap on the net for five minutes even though I'm in the middle of a task.

Almost straight away I realised I hadn't needed to give up TV at all. I didn't really miss it, there are very few regular shows I watch. Instead, I watch whole series when it suits me on my BT Vision. However, two or three evenings I was at home, eating dinner in silence in front of a blank TV thinking, why I am putting myself through this? Thirty minutes of television to me company while I eat is not a habit that needs breaking!

I found my flat was tidier. I didn't end up surfing for rubbish on the net, so I was bored enough to wander the flat, find things to do and go to bed at a reasonable time. I actually read my bible once or twice (see the task to read the Bible all the way through, I haven't got very far yet...).

Then there was an earthquake in Japan. I couldn't check the news. I couldn't see what people were saying facebook. I didn't know how many were hurt or what had happened apart from a discussion with work colleagues. I had my one sort of "cheat" where a work colleague had an article from the bbc website up and called me over so I could just "happen" to read over her shoulder for a second.

And then the week was over and I hit facebook with a vegence and decided to sign up to Twitter which was an odd response! But I have discovered Twitter is very different to facebook and I have been so inspired by some of the people I follow, I wish I'd done it earlier.

And now? The flat is a mess. I haven't read the bible for weeks. I still check facebook and twitter almost immediately on waking (mostly to stop myself from going to straight back to sleep). I am better at not spending whole evenings surfing for random rubbish, but this might be because I have not really had an evening in for weeks. So I just come home and go straight to bed!

Writing this has reminded me that I was a bit calmer and had a better attention span when I went cold turkey. So I think I may try to cut back a bit. It would be good to try and restrict my use to just lunch times at work, so my little flat gets the benefit of more free time at home!

I'm very glad I did it.

The Sound Of Music

The other film on the top 20 list I have seen before is The Sound Of Music. My mum loved the film, and I used to watch it with her when I was younger.

I can't say I was looking forward to re-watching it. I remember it as being a bit boring, with a few good songs. And BT Vision told me it was 3 hours long...

So while the UK is voting a referendum on whether to move from a First Past The Post system to Alternative Vote, I am watching The Sound Of Music.

From the opening credits, I loved the film again. I can identify so much with Maria. When she is running over the hills, singing because her heart is full with happiness. That is, EXACTLY, what how I feel in the alps. You look to those majestic mountains and feel like your heart might burst. I also appreciate her ditziness!

I love the first part of the film, where she teaches them to sing, and they rebel and climb trees and swim in lakes. As a child it was my favourite bit. I was then amused to find that as the film heads to more adult themes such as love, my interest wandered and I updated this blog a bit, and dated some photographs. It was my intention to sit and really absorb every film, but I have just watched this one too many times.

I know why its in the classic film list, it tells a timeless story. And now, the Captain is singing Eidelwiess to the Austrians before he does a runner, and I'm only understanding now just how poignant that is.

I'm not sure quite when I'll get the desire to watch this film again, but I'm sure I will. And I think I'd better pretend the tear in my eye is because this was one of mums favourite films, and is nothing to do with sad ending!

Alien...

On my list of top 20 films is Alien. The first, and original. Its one of the few films on the top 20 list I have seen before, but a long time ago and I was looking forward to re-watching it.

It was made in 1979, which seems hardly believable, the film has hardly aged at all. Its not the space scenes, the alien bursting from the mans chest or the set that dates it, its the fact they are all smoking on their spacecraft which is heading home! It seems very odd now that we can't smoke on planes, or indeed anywhere public.

It had been so long since I had watched it, I'd forgotten a lot of it. I won't spoil it by saying what I had forgotten! But it was like I was watching for the first time. You can see why its considered a classic, it paved the way for all horror and suspense films that followed.

I now want to watch the rest of the trilogy!!