60@60

The 60 challenges - past and future

2017-11-23T18:09:00.000+00:00

I can hardly believe that the year of my 60 challenges is almost over and they're all done. It doesn't seem that long ago since I was looking at the list and wondering how I was going to fit them all in, while still working - and where was a spider when you needed one? Although I'd instantly been attracted to the idea of doing the challenges, it had taken me a while to decide I'd definitely go for it, mainly because once I'd gone public with the commitment, I was absolutely determined to complete them all. Missing out one or two, or changing the description of some to make them easier, simply wasn't an option (as I kept reminding myself as I climbed up the abseiling tower, feeling sick with fear).

Which was the best of the 60? This was what a lot of people asked as the year progressed, and I always found it difficult to answer as I'd liked all but one of them, in different ways. It's still really hard to choose. I'd never have thought it, but probably the one I enjoyed most while I was doing it, was no.31 - holding a fundraising dinner, unaided and entirely home-cooked, for 8 people. Considered in advance, it could almost have featured in the Face the Fear section, as I hardly ever cook and I knew the dinner needed to turn out well if I was asking people to pay to eat it. Paying not to eat it would have seemed more likely.

On the night, though, I'd prepared most of it in advance - using what I'd learned on the cookery course - and I was looking forward to sharing the evening with friends. It was also reassuring knowing that their expectations were unlikely to be high. Fortunately it was a success, although my extremely useful reputation for being a rubbish cook has now been dented:

As for the worst of the 60, that's easy - no.7, whizzing down the Orbit giant helter-skelter in the Olympic Park. When I first thought of it, I felt slightly guilty putting it in the Face the Fear section as there seemed a fair chance it could be fun. Being scared of heights was still a factor to bear in mind, but I had visions of cheering happily as I shot past the scenery, arriving at the bottom laughing and punching the air. The reality hit home as I stood at the top, waiting to climb into a sort of black sleeping bag with the front half cut away, and only a loop of rope to hang onto. The tube looked like polished steel, slippery, extremely steep, narrow and totally enclosed. I reminded myself I wasn't really claustrophobic and it would take a mere 40 seconds or so. It's surprising how long that can seem, when you're hurtling along in the dark, feeling increasingly sick, dizzy and dangerously out of control. My exit was not exactly glorious and I never, ever want to do it again:

Are there any of the challenges that I do plan to repeat? Yes, plenty - and two are in the Face the Fear section! The first is the singing workshop, which I was very nervous about but thoroughly enjoyed. It's being held again on 9 December and this time I'm looking forward to taking part. The other is driving to Cambridge and back. Our very dear friends Joyce and Bill moved there a couple of years ago and I now take the wheel when we go and visit them. I haven't yet reached the point where I use the car without even thinking about it, which was what I was aiming for, but at least I now nearly always do the drive home in the evening whenever we're out. It's a work in progress and I intend to keep at it.

Using the satnav is now automatic if I haven't memorised the route - which is pretty much all the time, given my woeful sense of direction - so that will definitely continue. So too will selling things on ebay. I already have a stack of selected items on the settee, ready to photograph and submit, and I've also offered to try selling some lovely Liberty's fabric in aid of the local Shooting Star Chase children's hospice. Why did I wait so long before learning how to do this? It's simple and very satisfying.

When I looked at the list of UK cities, I was surprised that there were a number in England I hadn't been to before, as well as a lot in Scotland and Wales, and all of Northern Ireland. Chester is high on my list, as are Lichfield and Worcester. There are also particular areas I'd like to explore, including parts of Suffolk and Dorset. As for visiting a country I've never been to before, I'm especially keen to go to Denmark (I've spent an hour at Copenhagen airport in transit to Lithuania, but I don't think that counts). Peter is far more ambitious and favours Uzbekistan, Botswana and Malawi. Although it's tempting to focus on "new" countries, there are some I've already visited but would like to spend more time there. We've each been to Russia on business, separately, but never to St Petersburg and that's very tempting. I'd also like to go back to Helsinki and visit Brittany for the first time.

I'll probably grow vegetables again next year, as I enjoyed watching the seedlings appear and develop, and felt a huge sense of achievement when they turned into something edible. I don't think I'll bother with ordinary potatoes or spring onions, as we rarely eat them, so I might branch out into new potatoes instead. The baby beetroots are worth repeating as we use them in the nutribullet and I'll also give sorrel a go, as my friend Edith's is delicious, both fresh and cooked with fruit. While I'm at it, I could give rhubarb a try as it goes well with sorrel in a compote. I remember when it was so widespread it was virtually a pest in the garden and we used to pull it up and put it on the compost. Now it's quite a treat.

I'm determined to bake another carrot cake, as my attempt this year was not a success. Mary Berry may be a wonderful cook, but I defy anyone to use her recipe and produce a cake that tastes even remotely of carrot rather than banana. Moist it may be. Soggy would be a fairer description. Any foolproof recipes would be welcome, so that I don't repeat this failure:

De-cluttering is immensely satisfying and even more so if you have the chance of helping a friend to do it. Decisions on what to discard (and preferably recycle) are much easier to make if there are two of you. I really would love to do it again, so if you have a room - or part of a room - that's bugging you and you're willing to let me work on it with you, please do let me know.

Nordic walking has now become a part of my weekly routine, as most of us who went on the Council's Fit as a Fiddle course (now a victim of the budget cuts) decided to continue doing it as a group. Clearly we aren't alone in having found it an excellent form of exercise, as Richmond Park is full of similar groups, striding along with their poles. We've found routes that can incorporate a coffee stop at the end, which makes it even more sociable. I know we may look daft but I now understand what a difference the poles make in terms of an effective cardiovascular workout, and frankly I don't care if I look a noodle:

Learning how to use my sewing machine, tutored by my friend Rowena (aka the Domestic Goddess) has been a revelation. I'm still very much a beginner but that's part of the pleasure, as there's such scope to develop and improve. In the meantime I get a real kick out of making simple things like lavender bags, tea towels and organza "envelopes" for pashminas, using a range of fabrics in gorgeous colours:

Making and painting a papier mache bowl is something else I'd like to do more of. It was a longer process than I'd expected and what I ended up with was not at all what I'd envisaged, but that was partly because I didn't have an existing bowl that would have made a suitable mould. Originally I had in mind creating a large, shallow coffee table type, painted to look like a segmented orange in reasonably subtle colours. Unfortunately I didn't have a bowl that shape, so I had to settle for a smaller, deeper one. I doubted I could make it look as delicate as I wanted, so I decided to go for a completely different design, using several shades of blue with an overpainting of silver. It wasn't brilliant but I enjoyed creating it and I'd like to experiment with different sizes, colours and designs:

I will definitely continue watching all the films nominated each year for the Oscar Best Picture. In the past I only watched those that appealed to me and as a result I'm sure I missed some that were well worth seeing. This year, for example, I wouldn't have gone to see Moonlight as the trailer was so off-putting, but it was an excellent film. In any case all the films have been chosen for a reason and it's interesting to see for myself why other people think they are outstanding.

Visiting museums, especially if they're quirky, is nearly always a pleasure and setting a target of going to five I've never been to before is a good way of ensuring I make the effort, rather than just thinking about it. It was the first time I'd done this and I plan to continue it every year. Of the five I went to this year, the visit to the Irma Stern Museum in Cape Town was unquestionably the highlight, partly because my friend Morag knows the Director and he very kindly arranged a personal guided tour, followed by delicious coffee, sandwiches, scones and cake with him and key staff members. Often the smaller museums can be more absorbing than the national treasures, particularly if the director or curator has time to show you around and talk about the pieces that mean most to them. London has a wealth of such places I should have no difficulty finding five that are new to me - though sadly I doubt any will offer a feast like this one (only the remains are visible, as we'd eaten most of it):

Laughter is an essential part of life and if you see Henning Wehn live on stage, it's guaranteed. He's one of my favourite comedians, with his perceptive reflections on British behaviour and attitudes, and his restless curiosity. He's on tour throughout the UK most of the time and gets booked up months in advance, so I'll start looking now to see if he'll be in London next year and make sure I buy tickets.

As well as continuing all these activities, there are a few more I want to add as a result of the challenges. One, which may sound a little strange as I'm not religious, is to read the Bible. Having now read all of Shakespeare's plays, recognising so many expressions which have become part of everyday life and revelling in the beauty of his imagery and language, I think it's time I read the whole of the authorised version of the Bible, for the same reason. During my school years, one way and another - including doing RE at "O" level and seriously considering it for "A" level - I've covered quite a bit of it, but there are still sizeable gaps. I'd like to read it right through, possibly skimming the "so and so, begat by so and so" sections. Once that's done, I can listen to Desert Island Discs without feeling slightly twitchy about unfinished business.

In the same vein as wanting to see the Oscar-nominated Best Pictures, I've decided to read all six books shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. The timing is awkward as the list isn't released until mid-September and I'm a slow reader, so it will probably be months before I finish. I just hope that unlike the 2017 selection, it doesn't include any of over 800 pages.

I'd like to continue writing, as I've enjoyed creating these blog posts. The possibility of trying to turn them into a book has crossed my mind, though the photographs could be a problem as the quality is variable and I imagine they would add significantly to the cost. Alternatively writing a novel - crime or general fiction - has long been a dream but so far I haven't come up with a plot or a theme, which is rather an impediment. Ironically, given my lack of interest in cookery, I did approach a few publishers some years ago about the idea of a book on marinades (which were then relatively unusual). The rejection letters were kind. I did, however, win a prize for a recipe published in Family Circle. I sometimes wonder what it was like, as I simply made it up and never cooked it. I've also had a couple of letters published in magazines and newspapers, though as creative endeavours I don't think they really count. If anyone has any ideas, suggestions or helpful contacts, I'd be very grateful to have them.

What have I learned from the 60at60 experience? Above all, it has been hugely enriching and life-enhancing - far more than I'd ever imagined. I can't thank my friend Vivien enough for having given me the idea, though my gratitude is tempered by her suggestion that it wasn't sufficient simply to learn how to do a magic trick; I had to put a video of it on YouTube as well. When I look at the list of all the new things I've done this year, ranging over so many categories, it seems scarcely credible. Instead of glancing at opportunities or activities that look initially tempting and then deciding either I can't be bothered or they might not be as good as they sound, I've shaken off the lethargy and been far more positive. Giant Orbital slides and spiders excepted, I've enjoyed every single challenge - albeit in some cases not until my legs had stopped shaking. It may have taken me 60 years, but I've learned that the sense of achievement is well worth the fear, which is probably true of most things in life.

I've realised how much more I can fit in if I stop wasting time. Although I like playing Candy Crush, there are more constructive and less addictive ways of relaxing. Early on in the year, it occurred to me that I was only going to be able to meet the target of 5 challenges a month if I deleted it from my mini iPad. I steeled myself to do it and haven't regretted it, though I must admit it's still on my old iPad, lurking... Now I tend to reach for a book rather than an electronic game, which is just as well given my reading ambitions for next year.

From the outset, the involvement of other people - Peter, friends and complete strangers -has made such a difference. Discussing the draft list with a few friends before finalising it was interesting, as it revealed elements of their characters as well as mine. Mild sadism, with some (not many) exceptions, was a common feature. The Face the Fear section easily attracted the most suggestions.

Once the list was finalised, sadistic tendencies were set aside and lots of friends volunteered to help with various challenges or to do them with me. Even if they didn't follow the blog, most wanted to know how I was getting on. Their involvement and enthusiasm made the experience great fun and much more inclusive. When I was stuck on how to tackle a particular challenge, someone would invariably come up with a way forward. My friend Jackie, for example, heard me fretting about how I was going to learn a magic trick and said her younger son could teach me. Between them they generously solved that problem. Similarly when I was wondering how to find a suitable singing workshop, bearing in mind I can't sing and always mime in public, my friend Libby told me about one taking place in Ham the following week which sounded exactly what I was after, and came with me.

It wasn't only people I knew who were kind. Once I'd explained what I was trying to do and why, strangers went out of their way to help. I was starting to panic about the vermouth masterclass, as there was only one place in London that offered it and nine months into the year, there still wasn't a date available. When I got the chance to talk to the manager of Mele e Pere and tell him about the challenges and the two charities that would be benefiting, he went to the trouble of running one personally just for Peter and me. Likewise, when the end of the wildflower season was fast approaching and I still hadn't found a guided walk anywhere in England, a local expert willingly agreed to give up an afternoon to take me around the Ham Lands.

As well as their kindness, what struck me was how talented so many people are and how much talent there is in the local community. When I was looking into cookery courses, for example, as my arrangements for attending one in Cape Town had fallen through, I found that one of our neighbours is a professional chef and runs courses from her home. I'd known that the wildflower expert was a leading member of the local allotment society but I'd had no idea that he is Chairman of London in Bloom and on the committee of Britain in Bloom. I knew Jackie's younger son was a police inspector but it never crossed my mind that he was also a member of the Magic Circle. The chances are that whatever you want to do, there will be someone nearby who has the skills and will teach you.

What I never doubted was the generosity of friends when it comes to supporting charities, even if they are not necessarily the ones they would have chosen. That doesn't mean I took it for granted, as I really appreciated every single donation, but I know how caring you all are. So far, thanks to you, the amount raised for Beating Bowel Cancer is £1,275 and for Arthritis Research UK it's £1,215, making a total of £2,490 - and there's still 9 more days to go.

Finally, I would urge anyone thinking about doing their own 60at60 - or whatever age is appropriate - to go ahead. It's been fantastic.

Task 10: Create and maintain a blog, with an entry for each task

2017-11-17T14:27:00.001+00:00

As I use a computer regularly for work, I'd assumed it wouldn't be that difficult to create a blog. Wrong. Googling to see what templates were available, there was quite a choice but none seemed entirely straightforward and simple enough for my purposes. In the end I did the obvious thing and opted for the same one as my friend Vivien had used. I knew that her knowledge of IT was no more advanced than mine but what I hadn't realised was that she had an obliging chum who was a web designer, and who more or less did it for her - which was fair enough, as she had had the sense not to include the creation of a blog as one of her 60 challenges.

Eventually I managed to sort out the columns and include a photo of myself with a bit of background blurb, but then it all went pear-shaped. It seemed I could either have text in the main section or the photo and blurb to the right, but not both. After struggling for a couple of days, I gave up and started again from scratch, but then found that when I tried to call up the blog, it kept bringing up the failed first attempt. Maybe what I needed was a young teenager to help? I asked around but the mothers all said that their children don't use blogs and wouldn't be able to help. Finally I cracked it, and Vivien was able to tell me how to insert colour coding and links into the task list, which was the final step. Unfortunately the comments box won't work unless you use Google+, and the colour coding is slightly flawed, but otherwise it does the job.

At home I always use the desk top when I'm writing a blog post but it occurred to me that while we were in South Africa for 11 weeks, I'd have to use my mini iPad. I tried setting it up before we left the UK and found to my dismay that I couldn't create any new blog posts. Having exhausted every possibility I could think of, I rang Roger - a friend who's an expert at IT - and asked if he could help. He fairly quickly pinpointed the problem and found a solution, so I was all set. Manipulating photos and inserting them into blog posts proved all but impossible using only the iPad, so Peter kindly did the cropping, re-sizing etc on his Mac and then emailed them to me, which enabled me to do the rest.

I was delighted to have acquired a new skill and was immensely relieved not to have fallen at the first hurdle. I'm sure there are elements I could have done better but I more or less got there in the end, with help from Vivien, Roger and Peter, and the sense of achievement was well worth all the hassle.

Task 60: Learn a magic trick and post a video clip on YouTube

2017-11-12T18:27:00.000+00:00

The idea of learning a magic trick came to mind when I remembered how a colleague at work had insisted that her young son learn one, ready for a Christmas party. She also required him to wear a bow tie, poor lad.

I've always admired the dexterity required to perform magic and I thought it would be fun to give it a try, although with no intention of performing it in public. When I'd more or less finalised my proposed list of challenges, I emailed them to my friend Vivien, who was the inspiration for the 60 at 60 undertaking, to see what she thought of them. Her comment - echoed by her husband - was that simply learning how to do a magic trick wouldn't really cut it. I needed to post a video of it on YouTube too.

They were right, of course, but my heart sank. I've never even been able to shuffle a pack of cards properly, let alone do anything clever with them. I couldn't imagine any trick that I could perform without making it absolutely obvious what I was trying - and failing - to do. Public humiliation seemed inevitable. My only hope was that it would be so bad, it would be funny - for other people, if not for me.

Anyway, the suggestion had been made and I felt honour-bound to accept it. Peter tried to help by buying me a couple of books last Christmas about magic for beginners, and my friend Pauline similarly gave me a magic kit. I studied them all and began to get seriously worried when I found that even the simplest trick was way beyond me. Time went on and I was getting nowhere, when I happened to mention my quandary to Jackie, a friend and fellow fundraiser for the local children's hospice. She said that her younger son, Damian, was a member of the Magic Circle and she was sure he'd agree to help me. Amazing! He'd just been promoted to police inspector so was a bit busy for the next couple of months, but she'd ask him once he'd settled in to his new job.

Jackie's kindness didn't stop there. Having persuaded Damian to spare an evening coaching me, she also insisted on buying the props needed for two of the tricks he had in mind. (No rabbits or white mice required.) As promised, he came round with Jackie one evening in the late summer and announced he was going to teach me three tricks - one with cards, one with coins and the other with lights. It was the first time I'd met him and he was lovely - friendly, direct, a great sense of humour and remarkably patient.

He needed that patience, as the card trick, which was supposed to be really easy, took me ages to learn. Having finally got to grips with it, he insisted I try it out in front of him, Jackie and Peter, complete with patter. Not good, but not too bad. We moved on to the coins, which were a nightmare. There were effectively 6 tricks in one and I struggled to master any of them. I couldn't seem to grasp any of the key points and made one mistake after another. Again I had to try it out in front of the others, who were - quite reasonably - less than impressed. I think they couldn't quite believe just how incompetent I was.

When it came to the lights trick, Damian showed me how it worked and then wisely suggested I learn it in my own time, having left me with the instructions and a link to a demonstration video. He generously offered to come back once I'd learned them all and practised the patter, and watch me do a dry run. It was very kind of him but by that time I was so embarrassed I couldn't face the prospect of putting either of us through it again.

Over the next two months I spent some time on each of them. The card trick seemed a possibility and I liked the idea that I could add my own tweaks. The coins shouldn't have been too hard but I kept dropping them and couldn't come close to memorising the sequence of actions. The lights required spot-on timing and dexterity, neither of which I possessed. So, the cards it would have to be.

Having enjoyed myself adding extra features, eg increasing the number of packs from one to three, I practised solidly for an afternoon and decided I was ready to try it out on Peter. It was a total failure as I kept forgetting what I was meant to do next. It reminded me of having to perform in a play at school and failing miserably as my mind went blank. I'd been given the lead part - a major casting error - and the rest of the cast struggled to make sense of it as I lurched from scene 3 back to scene 1, followed by any random snippets I could remember. At least it meant I never had to do it again.

That evening we had a phone call from Zoe, the clever and talented older daughter of our friend Rowena (aka the domestic goddess - whose younger daughter is also remarkably accomplished). We're very fond of her and enjoy getting together. She has just finished renovating her flat and invited us round to dinner the next night to see the transformation. This seemed a perfect opportunity to nail the challenge, so while I spent another two hours or so on the trick, Peter worked out how to video it on my iPad.

After admiring the flat and fortified by a glass of prosecco, I asked Zoe and her delightful girlfriend Hannah if they would mind being participants. They readily agreed and I laid out my props:

They each had a go at cutting the cards, ensuring a random pack:

Hannah then opened the envelope and read out the card I'd identified in advance as the one I would make Zoe select - in this case, the ace of diamonds:

Zoe then turned over her card and she and Hannah stared in disbelief as it was indeed the ace:

And here is the whole trick on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDw7CWWtnwE

I was so pleased and relieved that it worked. The effort was amply repaid by the look of astonishment on their faces. This challenge also involved learning how to post a video on YouTube, so I now know how to do that if there's anything else I want to share in future. Whew!

Task 13: Master the Google Maps app

2017-11-09T18:30:00.000+00:00

Given my rather woeful sense of direction and inability to use a map without turning it round to face the way I think I'm going (do any men do that too?), I thought Google Maps might prove very useful. Having high expectations of such apps, I'd assumed it would provide crystal clear instructions set to "numpty user" level. Phrases like "Look out for that big house with the blue door and then turn right just a few yards later" and "No, you're going the wrong way, turn back and then go left beside the pillar box" were what I had in mind. Clearly, however, there's still a market opportunity catering for people like me....

Having downloaded Google Maps onto my android phone and my mini iPad, so I could look at the instructions manual on one while trying it out on the other, I settled down to do my homework. Despite searching high and low - or whatever the online equivalent is - I couldn't find a manual anywhere. Instead I had to resort to various Help, Tips and Tricks, Tutorials and Guides web sites, most of which seemed to be based on a US version of the app. One feature that sounded interesting was the ability to see photographs of the same location taken over the last 10 years. Well, I'm sure it would have been, if I could have found the "little stick man" that was supposed to be at the top right of the screen, ready and waiting for me. He was nowhere to be found, so this "awesome tip" was no use at all.

I had more luck with the feature that enables the map to move so that it's facing the right way (in my terms). That was definitely helpful. I duly entered my home details and found it reassuring that I could always click the microphone icon and say "Please give me directions home", and be reasonably confident of it working.

Curiously it seemed rather selective when it came to providing information on nearby restaurants. I decided to test it by asking for the locations of any in our area. There are a few within walking distance but none of them came up. Instead I was offered details of a number in Westminster and one in Sussex. If I specified an Indian restaurant, the Saqui, which is just across the Common, appeared long after some that were much farther away. Maybe it depends on algorithms that take into account marketing input and "spiders" that affect how quickly the name of an entity comes up. Anyway it was clearly not entirely reliable for that purpose, which is a pity as it's the sort of information that could be very useful if you're in a town you don't know well.

One useful piece of advice was to download maps of areas to be visited in the future, in places where internet access might be limited. I've duly downloaded ones of Cape Town and Franschhoek, and marked the places we rent as key locations. It was fun using the option of viewing photographs of them, though less amusing when I found one of our favourite restaurants appeared to be a building site. I'm hoping that's because the photo was taken some time ago, before we knew it, rather than within the last year. All being well, I'll be able to use Google Maps as a satnav when we're out there, which could save us a fair amount of time and hassle.

Having looked at all the features I could find, I decided to move on to trying it out in practice My first attempt was to navigate on foot between Wimbledon tube station and a medical centre about a mile away. Emerging from the station onto the main road, I needed to know whether to turn left or right. It wasn't at all helpful to be told to turn south west. How on earth, as the sun had already set, was I supposed to know where that was? I assumed that if I made the wrong choice, the pleasant and authoritative female voice would politely tell me so. I took a chance and turned right, and she was silent. Having plodded on for about fifty yards, it occurred to me that it would be worth testing my assumption by retracing my steps and turning left, which I did. She was still silent. This wasn't encouraging.

Peering at the map on the phone, I couldn't recognise any of the street names and had no idea which way to go. Scrolling through the route marked, it was heading away from the centre of the town towards a greener area, so going right seemed the better option. After about 200 yards I noticed a pub that was marked on the screen, which was reassuring.

The rest of the route was straightforward and as I neared my destination, I decided to give the woman another chance (this was becoming personal) by deliberately going down a side road instead of carrying along the main road. She let me continue quite a way into what became a dead end, before directing me to turn west towards the A219. Again, that wasn't very helpful as I didn't know which was west, nor the number of the road. It would have been far more user-friendly to have been told to turn back until I reached the main road and then go right.

I couldn't honestly say I felt I'd "mastered" Google Maps, so today I gave it another go. I asked Peter to choose a road within reasonable walking distance but out of my normal ambit, which I'd have to find using the app. He came up with Cardinal Avenue and I duly entered the name and waited for the directions to appear. They seemed clear enough so I set off, clutching my phone and trying not to think about the recent spate of acid attacks just to steal a mobile. (Peter pointed out that they'd hardly be interested in my old Android, but it's white and I reckon it could look like an iPhone in poor light.)

As on my previous attempt, I was told to turn south west. Since we live in a cul de sac and even I know which way is out, this wasn't a problem in practice but I do think it's a design fault, giving compass bearings rather than a simple left or right. Again I made some deliberate mistakes and was disappointed that either no correcting instructions were given, or in one case I was directed to go towards the main road whereas it would have been much quicker to walk down the side of the Common. At least I now know that the road, which I've used almost daily for over 20 years, is the A307.

Having only skimmed through the directions, I thought the final stage would be to turn right off Tudor Drive into Cardinal Avenue (passing Aragon Road, Cranmer Road and Anne Boleyn's Walk - the town planners were evidently in a historical frame of mind). As I neared a newsagent, the phone suddenly told me to turn right. But there wasn't any road on the right. I carried on until I realised I must have gone too far, so I retraced my steps and as soon as I reached the newsagent, I was told to turn left. Peering around, I spotted a murky alley overhung with brambles, with garages at the end. Surely not? Oh well, it was broad daylight so I went down it and found it jinked to the left, towards a row of back gardens. At this point the phone hit its lowest ebb, declaring "Turn left into Cardinal Avenue Turn right into Cardinal Avenue Turn left into Cardinal Avenue Turn right into Cardinal Avenue". Cardinal Avenue was nowhere in sight and the announcer was in meltdown.

My approach to anything to do with computers, which is unscientific and irritates Peter as it works more often than it should, is to try to think like one. What was upsetting the phone? Since it operates on logic, perhaps it was trying to deal with a situation where this wasn't possible. Maybe I needed to turn both left and right, one immediately after the other, and the app couldn't distinguish between the two. Looking past the brambles, I noticed there was another little jink and daylight beyond it. Bingo! There was Cardinal Avenue, accessible on foot by an alley I'd never known existed.

I thought I'd do the return route as if I were going by car rather than on foot. Looking at the map on the screen, it was obvious I should take the next right into Aragon Road, which opened into Tudor Drive. Bizarrely the phone told me to turn left into Wolsey Drive (town planners at it again), which is completely the wrong way. I gave the woman a chance by following her instructions until I'd gone past the entrance to Aragon, but she was still insisting on the Drive, so I left her to it and walked home.

All in all, I think Google Maps has some useful features and is worth having as a general guide. However it isn't 100% reliable and could be much more user-friendly. It may be fine for someone with a good sense of direction and an instinctive understanding of compass bearings (unfortunately I was taught at primary school that north is always in front of me and I've never quite managed to shake this off); but for those of us who struggle with maps, it needs to have more of an idiot's guide approach. A job opportunity, maybe?

Task 35: Raise £1,500 for charity

2017-11-06T18:52:00.005+00:00

Right from the outset, I knew I wanted to include raising money for charity as part of the 60 at 60 challenges. To be really meaningful, a big part of the year had to be about helping others. I very rarely ask for sponsorship for anything, so I was hoping potential donors might take that into account and support the two charities I chose, even if they already give to a number of others. It seemed more likely that they - you - would be generous if a significant clutch of the challenges focused on activities that I'd clearly find scary. When I was first mulling over what to include, a friend suggested "eating at 10 restaurants I've never been to before". It was tempting but I couldn't honestly see many people agreeing to stump up for something so enjoyable. I had to accept that the Facing the Fear section had to be large and suitably daunting. I was so glad I'd already held a snake - an enormous python, in Key West - which ruled that out.

It seemed sensible to opt for two charities rather than one, so that people would have a choice - and some were likely to feel much more strongly about one than another. There are so many charities doing excellent work, it could have been a difficult decision, but it wasn't. As I thought about it, there was no doubt that Beating Bowel Cancer had to be one. This awful disease has had a profound impact on Peter and on his children, Richard and Helen, with the loss of his first wife Carole when she was only thirty. Too many of my friends have also had to cope with it and two are currently undergoing very tough treatment.

Arthritis is a condition that most people probably associate with the elderly, whereas it can also affect children and young people. My cheerful, fun-loving Grandma grew up with it as a child and was in almost constant pain until her forties, when she was a guinea pig for the replacement of both her hips. Like my brother, who has severe psoriatic arthritis, she never complained and made the most of life, even though she could walk only an inch or so at a time. A friend's grandson has also grown up with it and it is now affecting his jaw, as well as his legs and hips. He loves football but has had to start secondary school on crutches and sadly it won't be long before he is in a wheelchair. The work of Arthritis Research UK offers the possibility of a medical breakthrough which could transform his life - and provide relief and a better future for so many more.

I found it hard deciding what target to set, as I wanted it to be as large as possible while being realistic. Eventually I decided on £750 for each charity, secretly hoping to reach £1,000 each. If I could raise £2,500 in total, that would be wonderful. So far, thanks to your generosity, the total for Beating Bowel Cancer stands at £1,210, with £1,120 for Arthritis Research UK. This gives a grand total of £2,330 - only £170 short of what I would really love to raise.

I now have only two more challenges to achieve - mastering the Google map app, and learning a magic trick and posting a video of it on YouTube. I'm practising the magic but as expected, I'm hopeless at it, despite the excellent tuition kindly provided by Damian - the son of my friend Jackie - who's a member of the Magic Circle. Humiliation beckons, especially as somehow I've completely lost two of the coins I was supposed to be making disappear. I can't find them anywhere.

The year ends at midnight on 2 December, so there's only just over three weeks to go. If you, or anyone you know, would be happy to help towards that last £170, I'd be so grateful. The links for making a donation online are https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/60at60challenge for Beating Bowel Cancer, and https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/60at60challenges for Arthritis Research UK. Alternatively you could give me a cheque or cash, and I can pay it in on your behalf.

The euphoria of reaching £2,500 would more than make up for looking an idiot on YouTube!

Task 57: Play bingo in a bingo hall

2017-10-11T20:10:00.001+01:00

Why bingo? I'm not sure why it almost immediately came to mind. It may be partly the lure of forbidden fruit, as I was never allowed to play lotto or anything similar when I was young, because my parents disapproved of any game that relied solely on chance - although bingo in fact requires considerable mental agility and coordination, especially if you are keeping track of more than one sheet of numbers. I was also intrigued by its popularity with so many women, whom I used to see lining up to enter the hall in Kingston when it was still open. It formed an important part of their life every week, with excitement about the chance of a modest win and the attraction of what was in effect low-stakes gambling.

Having included it in the list of challenges, I belatedly realised that many of the halls have closed in recent years. The nearest one is in Tooting and when I googled it, I was delighted to find that the hall there is a striking building, both inside and out. It originally opened in 1931 as a great, luxurious art deco cinema. As well as showing films, it was used as a venue for variety shows and in the 1960s it used to attract major talent including Jerry Lee Lewis, Frank Sinatra, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles (twice, to sell-out audiences) and the Bee Gees. In 2000 it was awarded Grade 1 listed status and it remains the only Grade 1 cinema of its style.

Would any of my friends feel like joining in this task? I mentioned it to Vivien, who inspired me to do the 60 challenges in the first place, and she obligingly jumped at the idea. (Please do look at her blog of her own challenges, which she started in 2015 - http://sixtyat60challenge.blogspot.co.uk/.) Chips were mentioned as an inducement....

Neither of our husbands fancied taking part but Peter did come along to have a look round the hall, as he likes art deco, and to take some photos before heading home for lunch and a peaceful afternoon. The foyer and fruit machine room were certainly worth recording:

The pink inflatable flamingos seemed to be a theme of the venue. One of the staff members had wholeheartedly adopted it, including wearing lacy pink pants over his trousers, along with a rather fetching wig:

While Peter was doing his David Bailey stuff, Vivien and I were explaining to the very pleasant woman on the front desk that we'd never played bingo before and hadn't a clue what to do. When she referred to lines, tickets and full houses, it didn't mean much to us. We did grasp that to be allowed to play, we had to become members of Gala Bingo. Membership is free and is presumably a requirement of the gambling regulations.

That done, we moved into the entrance hall and the tender mercies of the man with the wig. He was charming and did his best to enlighten us as to the options available. Essentially there appeared to be three: the traditional paper and pen method or the use of a digital tablet, with or without autoplay. The full session didn't start until 1pm, but for only £1 we could take part in a half-hour game using paper and pen. If we enjoyed it, we could return to him and pay for the full session, using whichever option we wanted.

That sounded a good plan, so we handed over our £1 each and went through to the main hall - which was even more striking, with a mixture of Gothic and art deco:

There was another flock of inflatable flamingos taking centre stage in front of the callers, contrasting strangely with the grandeur of the walls and ceiling:

It all seemed slightly surreal, as Vivien and I made our way to one of the tables and settled down to read the instructions we'd been given in a booklet that also contained various vouchers - including one for a small bottle of wine, which at this rate was soon going to be cashed in. We couldn't help noticing that the customers portrayed in the booklet bore no relation to reality. They were universally young, full of vitality and with gleaming white teeth:

The only point they had in common was that they were virtually all female. As we gazed around, we saw that apart from 3 women in their 20s, all the rest were well past retirement age, not exactly bouncy and missing more than a few teeth. Interestingly all the callers and staff in the hall were male. Were they expecting trouble later on? There was a wide range of ethnicities, which was reflected in the staff too, and - contrary to some of the reviews on the internet - all the staff were very friendly and helpful.

We fished out our biros and sat poised over our tickets, ready to cross off numbers as they were called:

By separating my two pages, on the (mistaken) assumption that I should scan them both at the same time, I was advised by one of the staff who wandered over that I had invalidated both of them. Seeing my crestfallen look - and no doubt realising I was so clueless I hadn't a chance of winning anyway - he kindly said it didn't matter and I could carry on.

Vivien and I both found it quite a challenge trying not only to keep tabs on all our numbers and locate and cross them off as they came up, but to spot which lines were nearing completion - and thus the chance of a small cash prize, if we could complete the line and yell out quickly enough to stop the game. As you can see from the photo above, each page has six blocks of numbers, each with 3 rows. There are prizes - typically £10-£25 - for whoever is first to get all the numbers in any single line, or any pair of lines, or all 3 (a full house). Neither of us got anywhere close. One of the staff came across to us after the game was over and advised that if we wanted to have a fighting chance, we needed to use either a thick felt-tipped pen or a "dabber" - a sort of green marker pen with a very large flat round "nib" which would completely cover the number we were trying to cross out. That way, we'd be able to see at a glance which of our numbers hadn't yet been called.

It all passed in rather a blur and we had to decide what to do next. Both of us felt that even if we bought dabbers, we would be so much slower than the regulars that it wouldn't make much difference. Also we fancied trying a different approach and having a go with the electronic version. We each plumped for the £10 package, which would cover the main game for the afternoon - and would give us the chance of winning not only a larger cash prize but even a car, if the number marked with a gold star on our screen came up. (We briefly debated buying one package between us but how would we then share the car?)

The next decision was whether to set the digital tablet to autoplay or not. If we did, it would automatically mark off the called numbers for us and alert us if we got to the point of needing only one more number to win. We could therefore more or less sit back and let it do the work for us. Whatever we decided, we could always change our minds at any stage and simply click it on or off. Initially Vivien took the view that we should leave autoplay off and stretch our mental reflexes, whereas I felt I'd already done that and was ready for the more slothful approach. Her higher moral ground soon crumbled, so autoplay it was.

We had a few minutes before the main game started at 1pm, which was just enough time to cash in our wine vouchers and order some food. The wine was surprisingly good - chilled pinot grigio or soft fruity merlot - and we each ordered chips with tomato ketchup. There was a full and reasonably priced menu, including an offer of any 2 main courses for only £10 the pair, with items such as chicken kiev as well as the inevitable burgers. The afternoon was shaping up nicely!

Once the game was underway, this was what the computer screen looked like:

The numbers with black triangles are those which have been called. At the bottom of the worm-like space on the right, above the Claim button, you can see it says that I am only 2 numbers away from completing a single line (the top line of the first block on the top left). I was therefore gazing at the screen and listening to the caller, willing him to call out one of my required numbers:

When that happened - as it did for both of us, several times - the single last number needed would appear at the top of the worm, flashing. Meanwhile there was still the possibility of winning that car. I couldn't quite believe it later on when my screen showed a number with a gold star on it, and it was called. Surely I couldn't have won a set of wheels? I tentatively squeaked "Yes" and half raised my hand. The game carried on, as I hadn't been heard. One of the staff had spotted me, however, and came over to see what had happened. I explained and it turned out is was just as well my squeak had been inaudible, as the gold star only applies when you also have a full house - ie virtually never. Feeling a chump, I settled down and carried on staring at my worm.

We were surprised that from time to time, it was announced that the winner of a cash prize was from Ipswich or South Shields or Liverpool. Eventually we realised that some of the games were being played nationally, with people taking part either on-line or via links with other Gala Clubs across the country. The cash prizes then were bigger but our chances of winning were greatly reduced. Or were they? I tried to remember the rules of randomness but couldn't, and decided to believe that my chances were the same no matter how many other people were taking part - unless, as was likely, they were much quicker to react in shouting out and/or pressing the Claim button if their numbers came up.

Each time it got to the point where I needed only one more number, my heart would start pounding as I stared at the flashing number in the worm, willing the caller to announce it. I'd almost given up when suddenly it happened! I hit the Claim button, squeaked "Yes!" and waved my hand, determined this time to be noticed. Amazingly I'd won one of the two highest prizes for a non-national game that afternoon - £100. Far from resenting a beginner's luck, most of the other women smiled approvingly. As I almost never win anything, I was bowled over and so excited.

Once the game ended, Vivien and I went out to the entrance hall to return our screens and for me to collect my winnings. I'd laughingly said that I'd probably find the prize was simply credited to my membership card. As the staff member went to put my screen away, I pointed out that it was showing a balance of £100 - and she said it would be put on my card. No, no. Fortunately a woman in the queue behind me, who was clearly a regular, told me I should ask for the cash and it was duly handed over. Feeling in need of a stiff cup of coffee, we went to the nearby Caffe Nero and indulged.

It had been a very special day, sharing one of my 60 challenges with Vivien, who had had such a huge influence on my past year. If we hadn't met by chance at a mutual friend's lunch party last summer, and started chatting about what she'd been up to recently, I would never have thought of doing the challenges and would have missed out on so many different experiences this year. Thanks to her, my life has been greatly enriched and, with the generous support of friends who've made donations to one or both charities, other lives will have been helped too. We're hoping that someone else will pick up and take over when my year ends in early December - so if you're coming up to 60....

Task 43: Create a painting using potato printing

2017-10-04T17:36:00.001+01:00

This may seem a slightly odd choice but when I was getting a bit stuck for ideas, my friend Pauline suggested I think about whatever I'd really enjoyed doing years ago, and see whether I could create a new challenge incorporating it. Instantly I said "potato printing". I'd loved it the one time we'd had a go at school using newspaper and saucers of powdered paint, when I was about six, and had never tried it since. When we came to live in Ham over 20 years ago, I went round to the little local library and noticed that one of the events coming up was potato printing - wonderful! It was being run by the Hamster group, so I asked if I could join. The librarian looked a little puzzled and asked if I had any children. It seemed rather a personal question but I said no and looked at her eagerly, waiting for my joining instructions. She explained that the maximum age was 12.

Anyway, now was my opportunity and as I like painting, I decided to combine the two and set myself the task of producing a painting based on potato printing. As I couldn't remember how to do it, I did a lot of googling and found that all the advice was for young primary school children. Very irresponsible, I thought, letting them loose with knives (hopefully not their own) - even with the instruction to ask teacher to help you. The exception was a women's project in Africa, where they make really striking fabrics using sweet potato prints and sell them to generate income for their families.

I set to with a combination of large and small potatoes, pastry cutters and a sharp knife. The cutters included a couple shaped like a star and a chicken, which seemed worth a try, and I used the knife to start carving out veined leaves:

I was quite pleased with the leaves, mainly because I'd managed to preserve the margins and resist the temptation to make all the veins identical, but my chickens didn't resemble anything living. The star was a possibility, but it seemed rather unimaginative. With autumn approaching, I thought it would be best to focus on the leaves alone and use seasonal colours - burnt sienna, raw sienna, cadmium yellow and olive green. To provide plenty of body, I used acrylic paints, blending them thickly into the potato surfaces, and heavy duty watercolour paper.

My hope was that a sheet of printed leaves might be sufficient, when framed, to fulfil the challenge. It was clear, though, that it wouldn't as there was no focal point - just foliage. Maybe I needed to change tack and go for something much more unusual, using tiny coloured glass beads either glued (crushed or whole) onto a canvas or stitched on through and around the paper leaves, with swirls to suggest movement and autumn winds. In my mind I could see it. The fact that I'd never tried anything like it before was exciting. It was also completely naff, so I reluctantly put away my pristine glue gun and stared at the blank canvas.

If the lack of a focal point was a problem, perhaps it would be better to scale down and go for a simple row of leaves, set against a vibrant watercolour background. This - with luck - would suggest autumn as a theme without having to create a specific image. So, next step was to paint the background:

Then I had to choose a few leaves out of the thirty or so I'd made, and try them out in different positions to see what worked best:

Finally there was the gluing, mounting and framing, using supplies from my existing stock:

To be honest it doesn't look great - rather like a child's effort which a proud parent has framed, where the background is the best part - but maybe in the right setting it would look a little more accomplished. The surplus leaves work quite well as gift tags, with green raffia, so they won't go to waste. As for potato printing, I think I've now got it out of my system - though I am tempted to have a go with it on plain heavy cotton, to create tea towels or possibly a tote bag. Just not any time soon....

Task 18: Visit a country I've never been to before

2017-09-28T22:24:00.002+01:00

It's always interesting visiting a country for the first time and I enjoyed asking friends which one they'd suggest. One, who owns an independent travel agency and is extremely well travelled, urged us to consider the Faroe Islands. Not surprisingly, given my wayward sense of geography, they aren't at all where I thought they were (somewhere nestling quietly in a sheltered spot of water just off Denmark), but are way up north of Scotland between Norway and Iceland. The climate is unappealing, museums and cultural entertainment are thin on the ground - the total population is less than 50,000 - and the clincher is the food. I just don't go for the idea of blubber, sheep's head or fermented colon on sauerkraut.

As we didn't have much free time, it needed to be a short haul destination and preferably somewhere with a chance of fine weather. I was keen on Denmark, although technically I went there last year as we'd had to fly to Lithuania via Copenhagen, or possibly Norway as the train journey by the fjords and then over the mountains sounded attractive. Poland was high on the list until some Polish friends warned that September has quite high rainfall. A few weeks ago we were chatting to someone from Romania and he was saying how sunny and warm it is there at this time of year, and how much there is to see and do. Its recent history, leading to the fall of Ceausescu and beyond, is interesting and the food sounded reasonable. Decision taken, we booked flights and four nights in a hotel in Bucharest.

The next week we told our Romanian friend we were going, expecting him to be pleased. Instead he looked aghast. What was wrong? "I hate Bucharest. I hate it." It seemed to be pretty much the only part of the country he disliked. The problem was that it's a city, with no mountains or rural villages, and no soul. Oh well, it was too late to change our minds and at least he said the food should be OK, with a strong French and Mediterranean influence.

We had a smooth journey to Heathrow by bus and tube, and checked that the boarding gate hadn't been announced before settling down to a cappuccino and almond croissant. Unfortunately the time between boarding and gate closing was a matter of minutes - and we hadn't realised there was a transit train involved. When we reached the gate there was no sign of any other passengers and it was only 10 minutes to take-off. Luckily people were still standing inside the plane, arguing about luggage space, so we were able to shuffle into our seats without getting any hard stares.

The bus journey from the airport to the centre of Bucharest took nearly two hours, as the traffic was almost gridlocked, and we then had to walk a couple of miles to the hotel. It was hot - the weather was gloriously sunny and the temperature in the low 30s the whole time we were there - and I was feeling frazzled and grumpy by the time we eventually arrived. My mood swiftly improved when we were offered a glass of prosecco by the charming desk staff and found that our room was air conditioned and huge, with 3 ante rooms, separate shower and basin rooms, a bar area and a comfortable king sized bed.

Having unpacked and taken our bearings, we set off for a recommended restaurant, looking forward to a relaxing dinner. Having read lots of Trip Advisor reviews of Bucharest, I wasn't surprised that the service was fairly dismal. It wasn't as tardy as in Cuba, where - as the Lonely Planet guide book noted, you can expect to be served only when all possible topics of conversation between the staff have been exhausted - but it wasn't exactly speedy or cordial. We found this was true of most of the restaurants we tried, although everyone else we came across was very friendly and went out of their way to be helpful.

On the Friday morning, buoyed up by a substantial breakfast and excellent coffee (the Romanians take coffee seriously, to the extent that even in Starbucks you are asked if you would prefer light or dark roasted beans), we caught the metro and then walked a mile to the Cotroceni Palace. We'd tried ringing and emailing the day before to check it was open but couldn't get any reply, and when we arrived we were told it was closed to non-Romanian speakers until 2.30pm the following day. Not an encouraging start, but we made a booking for the next day and walked to the nearby Botanical Gardens.

Created in 1860, the Gardens contain over 10,000 species of plants and it's a pleasant area to stroll around. I particularly wanted to see the Grandma's Garden, which is intended to represent a traditional Romanian rural vegetable garden and includes a wide variety of vegetables, herbs, flowers, fruit trees and bushes, and medicinal plants. The effect is somewhat diminished by the towers of the neighbouring power plant, which you can glimpse on the right in the photo below:

Moving on, we spotted a bird hide and went to have a closer look. The bird feeder in front of it was empty but the hide itself was well used by the local fly-tippers:

Next on our list was a guided tour of the Palace of Parliament, which we'd booked the previous day. Although Bucharest has a metro system with several lines, there aren't many stops and the distances between them are large. There are a few trolley buses but no information that we could find about destinations or times, so you end up having to walk about six miles a day if you want to see the main sights and rely on the tube. There are ambitious plans to extend the metro but so far these have come to nothing - and with the roads so busy, the disruption during construction would be massive.

Having bolted down a lunch of three nutella-filled croissants (unhealthy but yummy and the only thing available in the Palace cafe) and a bottle of water (amazingly cheap at only 20p a litre in the supermarkets), we joined the group waiting for the tour. The Palace is vast. It's the second-largest administrative building in the world, beaten only by the Pentagon, is the heaviest in the world - weighing in at over 4 billion kg - and has more than 3,000 rooms:

Building started in 1984 and it still isn't quite finished, despite having cost over £4 billion. By the time the tour ended, we were told we'd walked two kilometres and even so, we had seen a mere 4% of the rooms! The security instructions were strict and we were forbidden from taking a photograph of them - for security reasons. However they were irresistible, especially the final injunction, and in a rare moment of wilfulness Peter sneaked a photo:

The scale of the building and the quality of its fittings were impressive. I forget how many million tons of marble were used, but one chandelier alone weighed 5 tons and four men can fit inside it, to change light bulbs and clean the crystal (visions of Dell Boy came to mind):

We were allowed to walk out onto the Presidential balcony and admire the view:

Nicolae Ceausescu had intended to use it to make Presidential addresses to the populace but was executed before the balcony was completed. Michael Jackson famously made his mark on the city by speaking to crowds of adoring fans from it, with "Hello Budapest!" as his opening gambit. Oops. These days only about 30% of the Palace is used by the Romanian Parliament and the annual running costs simply for heating and lighting are some £4 million. They manage to recoup roughly half of this through the guided tours and - more recently - by offering rooms as venues for wedding receptions, meetings, film sets, etc. Apparently the majority of Romanians regard the building more as a reminder of the oppressive regime under Ceausescu, than as a source of national pride. That isn't surprising, given the huge cost of its construction at a time when the country was close to starvation.

After the tour, we decided to visit some of the churches and monasteries within walking distance. Although religion was heavily discouraged during the Communist period, and a number of churches were either demolished or moved to areas where they would be hidden by concrete high rise housing blocks, it wasn't banned. One of the most attractive from the outside is the tiny Stavropoleos Church:

We thought the most striking was the Antim Monastery, built in 1715 within a walled complex:

Its interior is equally beautiful:

As we walked around, we gained the impression of the city as being a mixture of rather lovely old buildings cheek by jowl with ugly Communist blocks, with a surprising amount of graffiti - not political slogans, but the mindless tagging type:

There were also some rather eccentric monuments, such as the Rebirth Memorial, which looks like a bird's nest on a stick:

In a similar vein there is the statue of Emperor Trajan outside the National History Museum, standing naked and holding a Dacian wolf, although the wolf appears to be levitating and its head is weirdly joined to the tail of another creature:

Bucharest has its own Arc de Triomphe, initially built in wood after Romania gained its independence in 1878 from the Ottoman Empire. A second temporary version was built after the First World War and the current one was inaugurated in 1936:

Given the statue of Charles de Gaulle and some of the street names, it's easy to see the French influence on the city, which is sometimes referred to as Little Paris. In the nineteenth century the sons of wealthy families used to go to Paris to complete their education and French became the second language of Romania (now largely displaced by English). According to our Romanian friend, the food also reflects this influence but I can't say I noticed it. "Hearty" and meat-orientated seemed to be its main characteristics.

By this time we were ready for dinner and we made our way to Caru' cu Bere, Bucharest's oldest beer house with a stylish belle-epoque interior and fine stained glass windows. Our problem was gaining access. We'd taken the precaution of booking an upstairs table by email before we left the UK but no-one had any record of this and, while we were told there were no free tables, others who turned up without any bookings were being told they could come in - and to the prized upstairs spaces. Irritated as much by the attitude of the staff as the prospect of not being fed, we became very un-British and insisted on being accommodated, marching up to the balcony area while the waitresses just shrugged. Once settled with some wine and an excellent view of all the action - including, later on, tango dancers whirling around in tails and pink satin, dodging trays of beer being carried aloft - we relaxed and enjoyed the evening:

Despite having resolved beforehand that we wouldn't try to pack too much in, but would relax and simply stroll around absorbing the atmosphere, there were so many places we were keen to see that we ended up cramming a lot in - particularly as it seemed unlikely we'd visit Bucharest again, so we wanted to make the most of the opportunity. After another excellent breakfast, we headed off to the Theodor Aman Museum, which is the beautifully restored residence of this nineteenth century Romanian painter, engraver, musician, wood carver and art professor. We particularly admired the portrait of his wife:

and the attention to detail in the log basket he carved:

We moved on to the Museum of the History of Bucharest, which sounds a bit dry but is actually very appealing. It's housed in the Sutu Palace, one of the oldest aristrocratic residences in the city and one of the few that has remained virtually unchanged for over 150 years. Its heyday was in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the first ball of each year took place there, in February. The Sutu family entertained in style, specialising in high society parties and balls, and the impressive entrance staircase with its huge mirror gives a flavour of their style:

The clock that you can see was specially designed so that guests would see the correct time in the mirror above them. Here it is "in the flesh" on the opposite wall:

Although the Museum is quite small, there's a great deal to see and I was so absorbed reading about Romania's independence from the Ottoman Empire and its period as a kingdom before coming under Communist control at the end of the Second World War, that I missed out on the displays of old photographs, costumes, sewing baskets, etc (though I did see the penny farthing, and Peter very obligingly took photos of anything else he thought I'd find interesting). It would have made more sense to have done the reverse, as I could have googled the history later, but by then I was thoroughly confused about references to a kingdom and wanted to be able to set what I was seeing in context. As the Museum leaflet explained, the Communist regime took total control on 30 December 1947 when King Mihai I was forced to renounce the throne. This "was the moment Romania entered an ample process of sovietisation". Irony or a quirky translation?

I was reluctant to move on, but we needed to get to the Cotroceni Palace in time for the guided tour. The Palace dates from the late nineteenth century and is the official residence of the Romanian President. It was designed as the Bucharest royal family home for Romania's first king, Carol I, by a French architect and is elegant without having any sense of warmth. The staircase sets the tone:

King Carol and his wife were under pressure to produce an heir and when none was forthcoming, an outstandingly tactless gift was made, to encourage their efforts:

Apparently it was never used in their lifetime.

As we made our way back to the hotel for a relaxing dinner, we pondered the evening ahead. At home, I'd read in the Lonely Planet guide book that the Athenaeum in Bucharest is exquisite and "the majestic heart of Romania's classical music tradition". It is also normally open during concerts. Happily September is the month of the George Enescu International Festival in the city, so there seemed a reasonable chance of being able to attend a concert there. When we tried booking from the UK, most of the events for that weekend were sold out, but there was one that started at 10.30pm and sounded promising - The Musical Voyages of Marco Polo, performed by the En Chordais and Constantinople Ensembles, using old traditional instruments. We managed to get tickets and were looking forward to it.

The day we arrived in the city, however, we'd bumped into a group of cyclists and one had told us that on the Saturday evening there would be a huge video imaging and pop concert in the open air - a relatively new event that happens only once a year there. We hoped we might be able to go to that first, but when we reached the venue - which was filling rapidly - we found out that the video part, which sounded spectacular, wouldn't start until much later. At least we saw part of the pop concert, which was great, and the Parliament building lit up ready for the fantastic light show to come:

Rather regretfully we made our way to the Athenaeum, to a very different experience. The building was certainly magnificent and it was as well we saw the foyer ceiling, as that was nearly the sum total of our time there:

We were in a hurry as the concert was about to start and one of the ticket stewards initially refused to let us through, as he claimed that the email tickets we had printed out at home from the official Athenaeum website were merely an indication of purchase via a third party and not sufficient to permit entry. We were hot, tired and fed up, and Peter started losing his temper. I could see us being ejected, so I said we needed the loo and marched us both downstairs, in the hope of finding someone more amenable when we reappeared. Not very dignified, but it worked.

The staircase, as we beetled past, was as impressive as the foyer:

We needn't have worried about being late, as plenty of people arrived after us and there was no sign of either ensemble for quite a while. While Peter muttered about the empty seats and how we could probably have bought tickets on the door (the set-to with the steward still rankled) I did some people-watching:

Eventually the concert started and Peter really enjoyed it, especially the Mongolian throat singer. I was much less keen, but still I was glad we went as it was an unusual experience and one we weren't likely to have again.

The next morning was in some ways the highlight of the trip, with a guided tour of the former Ceausescu Residence, which was first opened to the public last year. Like most people we'd heard about the opulent living quarters of the family, with no expense spared while most Romanians were barely surviving, and were curious to see it at first hand. What surprised us was how few Bucharest citizens seemed to be aware of it. It's known now as the Spring Palace but even that name was mostly met with blank stares. Maybe it's symptomatic of a wish to forget about that bleak period of their history.

The villa, which was built in the mid-1960s, has been restored to the state it was in when the Ceausescus lived there, including the original bed linen, their night clothes on either side of the bed, and some of the 40 or so wardrobes in their dressing room open to display the vast number of Elena's dresses. The family, including their two sons and one daughter, lived there for about 20 years until they were toppled in December 1989. One of the sons, who is now an atomic scientist, still lives in Bucharest but keeps a low profile and has declined an invitation to visit the villa, preferring to regard that part of his life as completely finished.

The guide, who spoke excellent English, described the background of Nicolae and Elena, their rise to power, his increasing megalomania and their eventual overthrow and execution by firing squad on Christmas Day 1989. Born in 1918, he - and she - were educated only to primary school level. He was a member of the Romanian Communist youth movement and rose through the ranks, becoming leader and General Secretary of the Party in 1965. I hadn't realised that he eased press censorship and openly condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, becoming the darling of the West and receiving numerous honours from many European countries, including the UK.

Within only a few years his regime changed drastically, becoming one of the most repressive in Eastern Europe. His visits to countries like North Korea fostered a taste for absolute power and a personality cult, with a Stalinist approach to any dissent, however mildly expressed. It was striking, for example, that at a time when the Romanian economy was in such dire straits that broadcast TV had been cut to only 2 hours a day, of which 15 minutes was for children's programmes and the rest for propaganda, the villa contained a basement cinema with the latest sound system. He was particularly fond of Westerns, especially John Wayne, and would get a film sent in every day for the family to enjoy in the evening:

Elena developed a passion for porcelain dinner services and the dining room table settings are changed every month to display some of them:

Each of the three children had their own apartments within the villa, and Elena had her own for taking a rest during the day, as well as the one she shared with Nicolae. All are very ornately furnished and it's hard to imagine a teenage boy relishing the decor:

As well as a sizeable garden outside, there is a winter garden upstairs. This was a particular extravagance, given that the average Romanian would have to cope with an indoor temperature of 60 degrees at best:

The bathrooms were all state of the art in bling and gold - although contrary to popular belief, the taps are apparently painted, not real gold.

The family must have been unusually clean, as the villa also contains an extensive "health" area, including a room with multiple shower heads of varying power, a large sauna, a manicure and pedicure station, a rather sinister looking jacuzzi and a steam bath unit that reminded me of the scene where James Bond gets locked inside one that is then set to lobster boiling temperature:

The emphasis on health and fitness continued with the stunning swimming pool, complete with superb mosaic walls:

Leaving the villa, we opted for a complete contrast by going to the National Village Museum, an open air collection of several dozen domestic dwellings, churches, mills and windmills relocated from rural Romania and set in Heraustrau Park, by the lake. It turned out to be rather a letdown, as hardly any of the buildings were open and the information provided was minimal at best. The traditional clothing was worth seeing, as was the church made entirely - and very unusually - from wood, the old chapel next to a building being re-thatched, and the carved wooden sleigh outside the vintner's house made for carrying a large barrel of wine :

On the whole, though, I'd recommend giving this a miss if you're in Bucharest and have limited time.

The next morning - our last there - we decided to visit the Choral Temple, which is the city's main working synagogue. We were given a rapid but comprehensive talk about the history of the Romanian Jews in the twentieth century and of the synagogue itself. Although many of them served in the First World War, it wasn't until 1923 that they could gain citizenship and almost half of the 800,000 or so living in Romania had been killed by the end of the Second World War.

Extremely harsh treatment continued under Communist rule. During the Ceausescu period there was mass emigration to Israel, with Jews being allowed to leave in return for a payment per individual by the Israeli government, plus support for projects in Romania. The size of the payment depended on their perceived value to the Romanian economy, so the younger, more highly educated Jews - doctors, engineers etc - cost more. Now there are only just over 3,000 left in the whole of the country.

The synagogue itself is visually stunning inside. As it is Orthodox, there is separation between the sexes, with women using the upstairs. However those who are too frail to climb the stairs are allowed to use the ground floor, with curtains that can be pulled across to preserve the division:

We stayed to hear the speaker sing during a brief celebration with a group of visiting Spanish Jews, having read on Trip Advisor that he has a wonderful voice. He does and we were privileged to hear it.

Walking around the city afterwards before lunch and leaving for the airport, we noticed two other things that were distinctive. One was a style of building we hadn't seen anywhere else before but which we saw in a few streets - a very tall art nouveau type of apartment building, with a top floor that consisted of rather Roman-looking facade with nothing behind it:

The other was the huge spaghetti tangle of wires on lamp posts, which was quite commonplace and a reminder that Romania still has some way to go in developing its economic infrastructure:

One word of caution. If you're thinking of going to Bucharest - and I'd certainly recommend it - you might want to consider the timing. It's an area prone to severe earthquakes, causing heavy casualties. Over 11,000 people were injured in the last one, in 1977, which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale. They tend to come every 35 years, so the next one is now overdue....

Task 49: Visit Tate Liverpool

2017-09-09T21:23:00.000+01:00

As I enjoy going to the Tate Modern in London and love the Tate St Ives in Cornwall, I thought it was about time I visited the Tate Liverpool, especially as it's many years since I was in the city. The first time was as a student at Bristol, in the university archery team, when we had a match against Liverpool. The captain Andy drove 5 of us there and back in a day, all squashed into a mini. I was feeling car sick, the other girl had a grumbling appendix, and we almost crashed on the return trip as Andy was so tired he went straight across at a T-junction. Luckily there was no other traffic and we stopped just short of the ditch.

The second occasion was en route to a wedding at Frodsham, in a tiny church that was a converted barn. It was bitterly cold and the service took an hour, as it was a full Catholic nuptial mass. When it came to giving the sign of peace - something I hadn't come across before and wasn't expecting - the woman in front of me turned round, grabbed my hands and said "Thank God, mine are bloody freezing!". The aisle was the width of only one person, and speculation was rife as to whether the bride or groom would come down first at the end of the ceremony. It was resolved by the extremely possessive mother of the groom launching herself over the top of the pew, grabbing her son and refusing to part with him. The marriage didn't end well.

The final time was in my twenties, when I had to fly to Speke for a telecoms industry exhibition. The plane was very small, with only about 12 passengers, and it was a bumpy ride. By the time we arrived I was feeling green and didn't exactly excel at the exhibition. The lowest point was when I mentioned to one of the exhibitors that there seemed to be something wrong with one of his demonstration phones, as it was making a funny noise. He explained it was the new warble tone.

As well as visiting the gallery, I was looking forward to seeing something of the city itself. We had a smooth journey there by train and asked the young woman at the information desk which metro station we needed for the Tate. She looked completely blank and it was clear she'd never heard of it. Her much older (male) colleague gave us directions and we emerged into a cold brisk wind, with rain in the air. As we saw the Mersey and looked out towards the sea, I found it very poignant, thinking of the millions of emigrants who had made the journey across the Atlantic in appalling conditions, hoping for a better life. There is a statue in bronze given to the people of Liverpool by the Mormon Church as a tribute to the estimated 9 million who made the crossing to the USA. The child stepping forward symbolises migration to the unknown world whilst the child playing with a crab (barely visible in the photo below) indicates a deep association with the sea. The blur of Peter's finger indicates the need for more coffee:

The ferry terminal now is a modern block, with sentimental padlocks festooning the cable fencing:

Behind it you can see some of the Three Graces, which now have a rather unsightly funfair in front of them:

We stopped to have a quick look round the old Piermaster's house, which is furnished inside to illustrate family life during the Second World War, when bombing was heavy. Then our destination was in sight:

As we paused by the entrance and looked across the Albert Dock, we could see the cathedral in the distance and a nineteenth century boat - the Glaciere - which used to carry stones to Denmark and is now for sale:

Inside the Tate, I was wondering where all the works of art had gone. The basement and most of the ground floor had none; half of the first floor was closed as they were dismantling the recent William Blake and Tracey Emin exhibition (a narrow escape, as Peter can't stand her work), there was a Clore Learning Centre for families, and the rest of that floor and the second floor had a Constellation exhibition of the part of the Tate's collection that could in some way be connected with outer space; the third floor had some of their non-Space related pieces; and the top floor was devoted to an exhibition of paintings and photographs portraying Germany in the 1920s and 30s. Since outer space appeared to include empty space, it was slim pickings.

We did find a Mondrian - rather a dreary one (No.VI/Composition No.II, 1920):

There was also a rather fine Lowry (Industrial Landscape, 1955), though from his later, more depressed period when his industrial scenes were largely devoid of people:

I wandered into the Clore Learning Centre, having heard a lot about them in the past but never having been inside one before. It was a large, informal room full of wonderful colours, interesting shapes, some books and a few toys rather like lego but much more attractive as they were lovely colours and you could interlock them to produce all sorts of striking combinations. I was absorbed in playing with them when Peter found me and I reluctantly abandoned the idea of crawling through the mesh tubes (probably a bit ambitious anyway, and rather embarrassing if I'd got wedged). The large cubes which changed colour were mesmerising:

I just had to try out the bean bags but got well and truly stuck. Every time I'd almost reached vertical, a load of beans would shift and I'd fall back, laughing:

In the end Peter had to haul me upright. I was tempted to stop by the cube that had some of those toys on it but thought I'd better not push my luck.

So, it was back to culture - or what I honestly thought was pretentious rubbish, in some cases. One example, and there were plenty, was a pair of very small brown leather shoes:

The Tate's accompanying note explained that "This sculpture relates to Levine's Shoe Sale exhibition of 1977 in which the artist presented shoes that she had purchased from a thrift-store as works of art. Levine is part of the "Pictures Generation" of artists emergent during the late 1970s whose work adopted imagery, ideas or materials from already existing works of art or culture, using appropriation to comment on the notion of authorship and the act of borrowing itself. Levine's work also comments on the fetishisation of art objects while generating associations with the surreal uncanny. The apparent banal functionality of the shoes is undercut by their diminutive scale and emphasised by the over-long shoe laces". Huge shoes, tiny laces, anyone?

There were some exhibits I liked, particularly this life-size drawing in charcoal and graphite by Robert Longo (Untitled (Joe) 1981):

The sheer vivacity is infectious and I thought the drawing skill was very impressive. For the skill and the sense of drama, I was quite keen on the Andy Warhol self-portrait, painted in 1986, the year before he died:

The sculpture The Machine Minders, created by Ghisha Koenig in 1956, was also rather appealing for its simplicity:

It depicts two men minding vats at an ink factory in Kent, which she visited regularly, as her particular interest was producing sculptures of people at work.

We moved up to the top floor to have a look at the exhibition entitled Portraying a Nation: Germany 1919-1933. We'd been in two minds about whether to bother, as the posters looked off-putting and it was rather expensive. However the reviews sounded promising and it seemed silly not to go the whole hog while we were there. I'm glad we did, as it was very interesting both in terms of the art and in giving an insight into the mindset of parts of Germany between the wars.

The first half was 144 photographs by August Sander, who in the mid-1920s started his monumental project - which remained unfinished when he died in 1964 - of creating a social atlas of Germany through portraits of people from all segments of society, classified principally by their profession. Some of the most striking images were from the classifications of family and the disabled. Looking at them, you couldn't help wondering how many of the boys would survive the war and whether any of the disabled would.

Above the photographs was a timeline, describing the changes taking place in Germany during this period. I'd known about the hyperinflation but not how extreme it was - far, far worse than Zimbabwe, for example. I also hadn't realised how hard life had been for the farmers in particular. If anything I'd assumed they would be better off than most when times got really hard, as at least they could produce food for their families, but they were in a dire situation. It was uncomfortable thinking about how the British might have reacted - or enough of them, at any rate, to win power - given the same history and conditions.

The other half comprised some 150 paintings by Otto Dix (1891-1969), who was a significant artist during the 1920s and 30s. He was fascinated by the depths of human experience and focused on the aftermath of the First World War and the sordid underbelly of the "Golden Twenties". Having served as a machine-gunner for three years in the First World War, his paintings of some of his experiences were grim and again it made you think about what it would have been like being on the German side. In many respects, probably very similar.

Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photographs of the exhibition but if you have the chance to see it, I'd recommend it.

We finished our exploration of the Tate by returning to the ground floor, to see the so-called Space Tapestry by Aleksandra Mir and 25 young artists, which is in fact a huge segmented drawing in marker pen and biro that "contemplates the evolution of advanced space technologies and their increasing impact on our everyday lives".

What struck me was the coincidence that one panel referred to Columbia Road flower market, which I visited last month as another of the challenges (a very enjoyable one):

As we left the Tate and started walking back through the attractive docks area, we passed an interesting juxtaposition of old and new:

The bus is now a cafe, parked outside the Maritime Museum.

Further on, we came across a statue of a working horse, erected in 2010 by the Liverpool Retired Carters Association after 12 years of fundraising. It commemorates the 250 years' service of the working horses of the city. Through all weathers, they hauled goods between the docks and the warehouses, ensuring the flow of food and fuel through the port during the Second World War. Apparently they were considered the best in the land and the carters were renowned for their handling skills and the phenomenal weights they hauled:

Close by, we were surprised to find the propeller of the passenger ship the Lusitania, which was sunk by a German U-boat in 2015 off the coast of southern Ireland, with the loss of 1,198 men, women and children:

As we were leaving the area and heading back towards the metro station, we came across a group statue that I couldn't resist - even though as I posed for the photo, some Middle Eastern men standing behind Peter were watching and giving me points out of ten (not many, it seemed):

Although Tate Liverpool wasn't as exciting as I'd expected, it was worth the visit and the city itself has plenty to offer. We may have only scratched the surface but I love knowing that - equipped with my senior railcard - I can make day trips to all sorts of places across England. If you get up early and come home late, you can see a lot.

Task 5: Catch a spider in my hand

2017-09-07T07:55:00.000+01:00

I have Peter to thank for this challenge. He decided it was high time I caught my own spiders, rather than calling for him and vanishing while he dealt with them. Catching them with a glass and a piece of paper wasn't enough - it had to be in my hands. Sheer sadism.

The only upside was that it meant I could ignore any cobwebs, as they were housing my potential targets. What I hadn't understood is that there is a spider season, and I'd have to wait until the autumn for them to appear. There were one or two earlier on, but Peter ruled them out as not being big enough. I found myself looking at spiders in a new light. Instead of shuddering, I was considering them as potential fulfillers of the last challenge in my Face the Fear section. My attitude was becoming almost maternal.

That all changed last night, when we were just about to go to bed and I spotted a huge spider above a bookcase in our living room:

(Apologies for the poor quality of the photos in this blog post. Things were moving fast.)

I hurriedly fetched a feather duster, to lure it down to floor level:

Instead of nestling in the feathers and allowing itself to be gently lowered, it fell to the carpet and sat there, lurking:

It was only when I crouched down, trying to catch it, when I realised just how much I really didn't want to do this:

It wasn't so much a question of whimpering, more of anguished squeaking, as it kept moving and I knew that at some point I was going to have to touch it:

Eventually I plucked up enough courage to catch it in my hands - horrible, really awful - and ran outside to release it:

It was such a relief to let it go, and to know I never had to do this again:

I stood up, brushed my trousers - and realised it was still in my hand. To my shame I screamed, which immediately set off Hesther next door, barking loudly. Muttering apologies to the corgi and neighbours, I tottered indoors, heart pounding. I hadn't expected to feel so scared, knowing it was irrational and I was considerably bigger than that poor arachnid, which I had just flung onto the patio. It looks as though Peter is still stuck with the job of spider removal.

Task 53: Visit the Lowry, Salford Quays

2017-09-06T18:25:00.001+01:00

Some years ago my friend Joyce mentioned that she and her husband Bill had very much enjoyed their visit to the Lowry arts centre in Salford Quays, which has the largest public collection of Lowry's paintings and drawings, displayed in a permanent exhibition in the gallery. Although Lowry isn't an artist whose work greatly appeals to me, it is iconic and I thought I'd like to know more about it. Usually when Peter and I go north it's to the County Durham area, where he's from, and the last time we were in Manchester was in the early 1990s. He's never visited Salford Quays and I've only been once, to the opening of a film studio in 1985. So a visit seemed long overdue, and combining it with looking around the Lowry and using my new senior railcard for the first time, made it an attractive choice for the list of challenges.

Normally we always travel standard or economy but Peter suggested we splash out and go first class, partly to ease the pain of having to get up at 6am for the train from Euston. I booked the tickets a couple of weeks in advance, to take advantage of the lower prices, but was surprised that even with the early booking and senior railcard reductions, they were substantially more expensive than going to Liverpool, for example. It took quite a while to go through all the hoops, as I had to rule out any which involved changing trains, and then alter my selection when I found out that the Lowry gallery shuts at 5pm, so we'd have to get an earlier train than expected to give us enough time looking at the paintings. The seat allocation wasn't straightforward but eventually it was done, the tickets were emailed to us and we looked forward to the trip.

I did my homework by reading my mother's old copy of the illustrated catalogue for the Lowry exhibition held at the Royal Academy in late 1976, not long after his death:

It wasn't until the afternoon before we set off that I printed out the tickets, although I had checked that they had arrived safely in my inbox a fortnight earlier. As Peter was glancing at them, he asked why the returns were dated for 11 September. What??? Somehow I had booked them for a week later than the outbound journey - and I knew they were non-refundable and non-exchangeable. They were also expensive, and we'd not only have to write them off but also buy new ones - assuming there were any still available.

As I was glumly looking at Virgin's website, I noticed there was a helpline and thought I might as well give it a try, though I wasn't hopeful. To my surprise I got through immediately and spoke to a very friendly Indian assistant. I explained what had happened and that I didn't want a refund, just to return a week earlier than the date on the ticket. He said if there was anything that could be done, he'd do it. He went out of his way to help, speaking to his supervisor and pleading our case. To my amazement he secured a deal which would reduce our loss on the redundant tickets by £10 each, and would cost a fairly modest amount for new return tickets with exactly the seats we wanted (admittedly standard rather than first class). He then suggested that if we travelled 20 minutes later than planned, it would knock off another £30. When he told me the total cost, I thought he must mean each - but no, it was for both of us, because the reduction of £10 each was in fact a refund of the full first class cost except for £20. The net result was that instead of losing a substantial sum, we were £3 in profit! For once, hurrah for Virgin!

We had a smooth journey, enjoying the comforts of travelling first class, including a hot breakfast. Salford Quays has changed considerably over the last 30 years and the combination of striking architecture and the light on the water made it a much more attractive proposition than in the freezing cold of November 1985:

The entrance to the Lowry was similarly stylish:

The foyer featured a wonderful piece of work - a "book bench", with two images symbolising the First World War - which is part of a series of benches around the area:

On a more prosaic note, despite having had two breakfasts I was feeling rather peckish so we decided to have lunch in the cafe first and a quick stab at the sudokus, before heading inside the gallery to watch a film about Lowry's life and work:

After that we were just in time to take part - along with only one other couple - in a guided tour of the gallery, which was very interesting and informative. What struck me most was how lonely and bleak his life had been. His mother, a talented pianist with social aspirations, had married "beneath her" to an estate agent. Lowry was an only child, educated at private school, and the family lived in a relatively comfortable area of Manchester in the expectation that the father would be made a partner in the firm. Instead, the owner's son was awarded the position and the family had to move to the much more industrialised town of Pendlebury in Salford.

Meanwhile, far from fulfilling his mother's dream of his becoming a barrister or doctor, Lowry left school at 17 and started working full time as a claims clerk in an insurance company. He was studying art at evening classes, as he continued to do for about 20 years, but this didn't help the atmosphere at home as his mother regarded art as greatly inferior to music. Throughout his life, she was his harshest critic and his constant attempts to please her were fruitless.

In 1910, having been made redundant (through no fault of his own), he began working as a rent collector - a job he held for many years, eventually retiring at 65 having reached the level of Chief Cashier. He did his best to keep his occupation secret throughout his life, threatening legal action at one point if a newspaper which had mentioned it, ever did so again. He didn't have to serve in the war because of his extremely flat feet, which was a blessing but perhaps felt at the time like another rejection, increasing his social isolation.

In 1932 his father died suddenly, leaving substantial debts as the family had been living above its means. It took Lowry two years to clear them. His mother simply took to her bed and stayed there for the next seven years, until she too died. Lowry would work as a rent collector all day, go home to give his mother a bed bath and a meal, tend to her bed sores and read to her. Only once she had fallen asleep could he go upstairs to the attic and paint.

In 1939, when his mother died, he felt totally desolate. His painting was beginning to be exhibited and gain acclaim, but it was too late now for it to impress his mother - even if that would ever have been possible. He was overwhelmed by utter loneliness. It is doubtful that he ever had a sexual relationship and he certainly never married, and he now had no family. Speaking of his art, he said "All my people are lonely. Crowds are the most lonely thing of all. Everyone is a stranger to everyone else". He referred to his "lonely landscapes" and commented "Look at my seascapes, they don't really exist you know, they're just an expression of my own loneliness.... Generally I put nothing on the sea when I paint it. Perhaps a tiny boat if I must".

In 1948 he moved from Pendlebury to a house in Mottram-in-Longdendale, Cheshire, where he lived until his death nearly 30 years later. His decision to move there was curious, as he had already claimed that he disliked the village. Its one advantage was its proximity to the moors, and despite complaining regularly that it was a terrible place, plagued by constant rain, he admitted "I'd never leave the north of England.... Warmer climates don't attract me, nor does the sun".

Apart from an initial burst of decorating, he did little to the property and it gradually became rather dilapidated - and it was always cold.

His furniture was heavy and Victorian, he eschewed modern comforts and there was "stuff" everywhere - masses of clocks (mostly his mother's), knick-knacks and paintings. :

His studio - which he preferred to call his workroom - was a jumble of paintbrushes, canvases, completed works and bits of clutter, all lit by a single light bulb:

Even by the time he was earning a decent living from his art - as well as the income from his full time job - he lived frugally, with no phone, no camera, no car (he never learned to drive) and no trips abroad. Although, in 1943, he was commissioned as a war artist, this involved no foreign travel and focused on images of Manchester. He had quite a wide circle of friends but none was close (his funeral was apparently sparsely attended) and he disliked surprise visits.

He did, however, collect art, particularly by Rossetti and to a lesser extent by Lucian Freud. He had a passion for the paintings featuring Jane Morris and owned 10 original Rossettis, which hung in his bedroom.

His own art evolved through three fairly distinct phases. Initially he focused on the work for which he is best known - the "matchstick figures", in crowd scenes. Although he had spent many years studying life drawing and was highly skilled at it, he made a positive decision to paint in this style: "I wanted to paint myself into what absorbed me. Natural figures would have broken the spell of it, so I made them half unreal.... Had I drawn them as they are, it would not have looked like a vision".

He used a very limited palette of only five colours - flake white, black, yellow ochre, prussian blue and red - partly because oil paint was expensive. The flake white had a high lead content and turns yellow with age. Lowry liked this effect and instructed that none of his work should be treated to prevent it happening - a curator's nightmare. It was only as he became better known and his paintings sold well that he started expanding both his palette and the size of his canvases.

He painted the background in white - in later years, painting the entire canvas in white first - and deliberately used no shadows, blurring, weather effects, sunsets or sunrises, and avoided any trace of sentimentality. He was particularly strong on line, construction and composition. He hated charcoal and vastly preferred pencil, for its precision. It struck him as ridiculous that people would always pay more for an oil painting, simply because it was in oil, whereas he felt that some of his best work was in pencil.

For most of his life he was a prolific painter, working on several paintings at the same time. If one wouldn't "come right", he would set it aside for a while and then come back to it. He drew and sketched outside but didn't like the inconvenience of carrying paints around, so virtually all his painting was done at home. That also suited his habit of producing composite scenes, using parts of actual places and bringing them together to make a whole.

Interestingly as soon as Lowry became famous for his crowd scenes, he switched to portraits and then, in his final phase, to paintings of the sea. He still produced some industrial scenes but they tended to be bleak pictures of flooded devastation, with only a few people, usually on the margins rather than centre-stage. As he grew older, his view of people as seen in his work became increasingly harsh and satirical - even hostile and cruel at times. His painting "The Cripples" (1949), part of which can be seen in the photograph below, is an example of this:

In his 60s, Lowry experimented with biro and felt tip. In the late 1950s, he tried using watercolours but completed only a few paintings. "They don't really suit me... dry too quickly. They're not flexible enough. I like a medium you can work into, over a period of time." With oil, as well as his brushes he often used his index finger and thumb, particularly for faces. The one subject he never mastered was horses. He said he simply couldn't draw their legs accurately. That's why there is only one horse in any of his paintings, and its legs are hidden behind a wall.

Real fame came late, with the offer of a knighthood when he was 74. He rejected it, along with other honours. He felt uncomfortable with the idea of this social distinction and in any case it would only have made a real difference to him while his mother was still alive.

There is one mystery about his portraits, and that is the identity of Ann, who featured in a number of his paintings and drawings during the 1950s and 60s:

She appears to be a composite figure rather than based on one real person, always depicted with swept-back hair and kohled eyes, and an oval face. Less benign were the erotic and sadistic paintings and drawings of dark-haired women which came to light after Lowry's death. They weren't casual pieces but had been revisited and reworked, almost like an obsession. Given his lonely and repressed life, and the influence of his mother, they aren't surprising but they certainly make uncomfortable viewing.

Overall I found the experience of learning about his life and viewing his work - augmented by an exhibition of photographs of him taken by Clive Arrowsmith which, unlike everything else on display, we were allowed to photograph - very interesting, albeit bleak. Always an outsider, as a large and clumsy child through to a depressed and isolated old man, his life seems to have been dominated by loneliness. Far from feeling released by the death of his mother, he never really recovered from the desolation it wrought. His own assessment was "Had I not been lonely, none of my work would have happened. I should not have done what I've done, nor seen the way I saw things. I work because there's nothing else to do".

Afterwards I felt in need of some retail therapy and headed into the Lowry outlet mall:

It proved a disappointment, with nothing worth a second look, so we caught the tram back to Manchester and enjoyed an early dinner in Carluccio's. After a glass of red wine, the world soon appeared in a rosier light.

Task 25: Take part in a Vermouth masterclass

2017-09-01T18:37:00.001+01:00

Ever since university days I've liked extra dry martini. In my third year, living in a sort of large cupboard under the stairs owned by a Mr Brown, where all the furniture - including the fridge - was painted brown, my evening routine when I got back from the library was to put on a record, light the gas fire, pour a martini and lie on the settee thinking of nothing for 20 minutes. In the evening now, Peter and I get together for a couple of martinis made with gin and a whisper of vermouth, and talk about the day. When I was deciding what to include in the food and drink section of the 60 challenges, there was no doubt that something along these lines had to feature. Doing some research online, I found that Mele e Pere - http://meleepere.co.uk/page/about-us - in Soho offered a vermouth masterclass about once a month, which had excellent reviews and sounded perfect.

On our return from South Africa at the end of March, I started trying to make a booking but found that plans to hold the next masterclass were not yet firm. By late August I was getting seriously concerned, as there was still no sign of a date and I couldn't find anywhere else in London - or England - which offered anything similar. In the end I managed to speak to Ed, the manager and "vermouthier-in-chief". I explained about the challenges, the two charities I was raising money for and how I really needed his help to be able to achieve this one. He was lovely and immediately offered to run a class just for Peter and me, which was so kind of him. We settled on the last Wednesday in August, to start at about 6.30pm before the restaurant and bar got too busy.

I was sure I was going to enjoy the evening, and I was right. We'd never been to Mele e Pere before and I wasn't sure what to expect. The tone is set as soon as you enter, by the imaginative and stylish decor, with the accent very much on vermouth:

There is a bar and smallish seating area on the ground floor, and when you go downstairs you find a sizeable restaurant and a larger bar:

I liked the fact that in the restaurant, the chairs and tables didn't all match but worked well together as they are made of wood and have character. The lighting is unusual and carefully chosen to enhance the atmosphere. Although the surfaces are hard, you can easily hear one another as there are interestingly shaped white baffles on the ceiling, which look good and absorb the sound. If only all restaurants would do the same!

When we arrived the masterclass materials - glasses, bottles and some little pots containing dried herbs, roots and other aromatic ingredients ("botanicals") - were already set out on a long old wooden table, with swivel stools attached. Ed introduced himself and began by explaining the history of vermouth and how the taste varies depending largely on which botanicals and which base alcohol (wine or spirits) are used. Recipes tend to be closely guarded secrets.

Vermouth is one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in the world, dating back to 1500 BC in India. Its name derives from the German word (wermut) for its key ingredient wormwood, a plant - artemisia absinthium - from the daisy with legendary medicinal properties. In Europe it was first produced commercially in northern Italy in the 18th century, became the essence of classic cocktails in the 19th century, and is still regarded as the king of aperitifs.

Every week Mele e Pere infuses, blends and kegs 20 litres of its own vermouths on-site, using ingredients such as gentian, hyssop, lemongrass and angelica, drawn from the extensive collection of botanicals beautifully displayed on the second shelf of the bar:

Ed gave us two to sample, one white and one red:

The white one tasted dry and not overly bitter, with what seemed to me a flavour of grapefruit (actually lemon and orange peel) and lavender. The red one struck us as more of a winter drink, with a spicier flavour including cloves and cinnamon. We liked them both and were very happy to be making a dent in that week's 20 litres.

We then moved on to sampling three bottled vermouths, from Italy, Germany and France:

The French one, Lillet, seemed the driest and the German the sweetest, reminding me a bit of walnut sherry. I should perhaps add that the samples were generous...

Now we were at the point where we were going to make our own vermouths, using the selection of liquid botanicals provided - sage, oregano and rhubarb root for red, and angelica, marjoram and wormwood for white - together with dry white Italian wine and sugar syrup. Out of curiosity we decided to taste each of the botanicals in their dry form before using any of them. The angelica was relatively sweet and fruity. The wormwood, as expected, was very bitter although it is not the type - now banned - that is hallucinogenic and was much favoured by Toulouse Lautrec et al as green absinthe, and contributed to their early demise. The rhubarb root was intensely bitter - far more than the wormwood.

We both began with the white, mixing a few drops of sugar syrup with a third of a glass of wine and adding one ingredient at a time, using about a quarter of a teaspoonful. Peter produced a fine combination, using extra sugar syrup offset by enough wormwood to give it plenty of character. I found that simply adding angelica gave quite a caramel flavour, which was pleasant but bland. With marjoram as well, its taste reminded me of some Italian pasta meals, fragrant with a sharp edge. When I added the wormwood, the mixture smelled really bitter but the taste was less so. With a little more sugar syrup it developed a more rounded flavour, which I liked.

We then turned to the red. The sage turned the wine slightly pink but didn't seem to have much effect on the taste. With the oregano as well, the effect was similar to the marjoram. What made the difference was the rhubarb root, which gave it a woody fragrance which was unusual and not too bitter. It also changed the colour to a lovely pale rose.

Ed explained that we were free to continue mixing if we wished, but we were becoming aware of the cumulative effects of the strong alcohol - 16-18% - and decided to leave it at that, happy with what we'd produced. The masterclass includes three sharing platters between two, which you choose from the menu. We took a while to decide which to have, as they all sounded delicious. Eventually we settled on finely sliced porchetta, salsa tonnata, capers and rocket cress; bruschetta with sweet red peppers and truffled cheese; and figs with soft Italian cheese and honey:

They all tasted wonderful. I'm not usually a huge fan of Italian food - it's fine for casual eating, but not really special. This was completely different. Absolutely fresh, northern Italian flavours and combinations, perfectly balanced and with nothing too heavy. The last time we had anything like this was in Verona - and it turned out that that is where the chef is from. We were two very happy bunnies:

We decided, though, that we had room for a little more so Peter ordered a main course (saffron risotto with roasted scallops and razor clams), while I opted for focaccia and beef bresaola with rocket and fresh black truffle. We shared the Italian white wine left over from the vermouth-making - two glasses each - and thought how lucky we were to have this experience, thanks to the delightful Ed:

We will definitely go back there again for dinner, and even just for a drink - though it would be a shame not to savour that superb food again...

Task 56: Go mud larking

2017-08-30T13:26:00.001+01:00

I've always been intrigued by the idea of mudlarking, looking for tangible pieces of history washed up on the Thames foreshore. Life as a mudlark in the Victorian period was grim and probably short, working hard in filthy conditions for a pittance. Being able to go home to a hot shower (although not in my case, as both bathrooms are still out of action) and doing it for pleasure rather than to avoid starvation puts a totally different cast on it. This was one of the 60 challenges I was really looking forward to.

What I hadn't realised was that last autumn a licensing system was introduced, which means that "Anyone wishing to search the tidal Thames foreshore in any way for any reason must hold a current foreshore permit from the Port of London Authority. Searching includes all such activities including searching, metal detecting; digging, or 'scraping'". There are two types of permits: a Standard one allows digging to a depth of 7.5cm, whereas a Mudlark one allows digging to a depth of 1.2m and access to certain areas prohibited to those who only have a Standard permit. However, to apply for a Mudlark permit you must have held a Standard permit for at least two years and have a record of reporting finds to the Museum of London.

If I'd known this before I compiled my list of challenges, I wouldn't have included mudlarking as it clearly couldn't be done within a year. I only found out when I started researching tide tables - which is essential, as the difference between high and low tide on the relevant parts of the Thames is 7 metres, the water comes in fast and the access steps are slippery.

I spent ages trying to find a way round the problem, as I was determined not to have to give in. None of the companies which had previously offered guided walks focusing on mudlarking still included this in their menu, as the licensing system made it too complicated and expensive. I did find one that would reluctantly agree to include the sort of activity covered by a Standard permit, but at a price that effectively ruled it out.

The next route I tried was researching mudlarking societies and asking whether any of their members would allow me to tag along, so at least I could learn from them and get the flavour of the experience. I found two societies, one of which specialises in using metal detectors. A woman who blogs for the more traditional one replied within 24 hours, explaining that life was hectic at present as she is writing a book which is right up against the deadline, and is also renovating a house, working part time and looking after her young twins. Although she'd be willing in principle to consider letting me accompany her, it couldn't be until after Christmas, which would be too late for my challenges. She very kindly offered advice about going on my own, such as the best places to search, what I might hope to find and what precautions to take (beware the tides, wear protective gloves, etc).

A man who seems to be the leading light in the other society offered to take me out on a guided trip, along with two or three other people, but again the cost was pretty steep. I asked whether he might consider a barter deal: one of my paintings for a 3 hour trip. He replied saying "Show me your wares, girl", which didn't sound too inviting. He was evidently as impressed by my art as I was by his sales technique, so that was a dead end.

I then tried looking at press releases and book reviews about mudlarking, with the idea of contacting the authors to see if one of them might be willing to help. In the process I noticed that the foreshore at Chiswick, which is conveniently close and has accessible parking (so I could stash my muddy Wellingtons and protective gloves etc in the car), seemed easily accessible at low tide and according to one article yields some interesting objects. I decided the best - or least-worst - option was to apply for a 1-day Standard permit (costing £32) and go searching there on my own. Wading through the PLA instructions, however, I discovered that you have to apply at least a month in advance and specify the day for which the permit will be valid - even though you have no idea what the weather will be like, nor whether something else might crop up in the meantime that made the planned date unsuitable. Suddenly the idea seemed much less attractive and I was back at square one.

Glancing again through one of the articles, I spotted a reference to "The Secret Thames - the Archaeology Tour", by London Walks - http://www.walks.com/our-walks/thames-beachcombing. It was clear that the walk, led by a distinguished intertidal archaeologist, had previously centred on mudlarking but had had to be substantially revised following the introduction of licensing. Now, instead of sticking to the foreshore in front of Tate Modern, it covers a range of the Thames on both banks, with Fiona (the guide) explaining the history of the area and showing us part of her collection of objects found while mudlarking. At the end of the walk, we would be free to go down onto the foreshore - which in itself isn't illegal, as long as you don't move anything to have a look at what's there - and would have a much better idea of what it was we were seeing. There was a walk scheduled in 2 days' time. Bingo!

The weather was lovely and Peter and I duly assembled outside Mansion House tube station, along with about 30 others, of all ages. As we started walking towards the riverbank, Fiona described the network of rivers in London and how most are now covered and have been absorbed into the sewage system. Apparently if you go to Sloane Square tube station and look up at the end where trains come in from the west, you will see the base of a large tube that contains one of the tributaries. In mediaeval times, the rivers would have been uncovered, filthy and stinking. Fiona pointed out the storm gate for the hidden Walbrook River, visible at the base of the left-hand strut below, which bursts open under heavy pressure:

We passed a black phone box - black rather than red, as it's in the City of London - and walked across Southwark Bridge. Looking down from the far bank, we saw a gull trying to eat a dead eel - without much success, as the skin is so tough:

It was a reminder of how successfully the Thames has been cleaned up, since the 1950s when it was so polluted that almost nothing could survive in its waters. Now there are over 125 different species of fish flourishing there, which in turn have attracted seals and porpoises.

As we walked along the South Bank under the Bridge, Fiona pointed out the murals depicting London's first Frost Fair, held on the ice when the Thames froze over in 1564:

The Thames was broader and shallower then, and the old London Bridge was built on narrow arches which concentrated the water into swift-flowing torrents, with the effect that in winter large pieces of ice would gradually block the arches. Eventually, usually only for a few days, the whole river would freeze over. The wording on the murals, taken from handbills of the period, is:

Behold the Liquid Thames frozen o’re,
That lately Ships of mighty Burthen bore
The Watermen for want of Rowing Boats
Make use of Booths to get their Pence & Groats
Here you may see beef roasted on the spit
And for your money you may taste a bit
There you may print your name, tho cannot write
Cause num'd with cold: tis done with great delight
And lay it by that ages yet to come
May see what things upon the ice were done.

Another unusual sight was the so-called Ferryman's Seat, which was intended for the convenience of ferrymen waiting to ply their trade across the Thames:

It's so narrow that only a child or a malnourished adult can use it, and the sloping back forces you into a subservient position, leaning forwards.

At the end of the walk, we settled down on steps near the Tate Modern to look at some of the objects Fiona has found since 1995, when she first started mudlarking. We were allowed to handle all of them except for the first one, an ancient hand axe made of flint for a right-handed person (you can tell by the shape of the grip):

Next were some small flints, fashioned as cutting tools with notched "serrated" edges (they're all but invisible in this photo, so you'll have to take my word for it):

We moved on to the sixteenth century, with a variety of clay pipes. It's relatively easy to come across the remnants, as the tobacco came packed in the pipes which were simply discarded once the smoke was finished. When tobacco first reached England, it was so expensive that the pipe bowls were tiny:

As their use became more widespread, they were produced in a wide range of designs, including the saucy (spot the lady's garter):

Fiona explained how they could be dated by the changes in shape and design, including whether the base of the bowl was flat or had a "heel":

One of her finds which particularly appealed to me was a late Georgian glass ink bottle which would originally have been in a writing slope:

The first present I ever gave Peter, for Christmas, was a Victorian writing slope, so it had a special resonance for me. I don't recall him using it once, but it's perfect for writing Christmas cards while sitting on the settee with half an eye on the television.

Moving into the twentieth century, Fiona showed us the detonator head from a German incendiary bomb during the Blitz:

Once the walk was over, I was keen to get onto the foreshore and see what I could find:

It was frustrating not being able to pick up anything, as there were plenty of objects that caught my eye:

Amongst them was an assortment of old nails, which don't show that well in the photo but it was interesting speculating about how they'd come there and who had first used them:

I was surprised at how many fragments of terracotta there were. Most looked as though they were pieces of roof tile and I wished I could have handled them, as Fiona had explained how the shape of the holes for attaching them to a roof had changed over the ages. At first they had been round and smoothed by hand on only one side (the underneath didn't matter, as it wouldn't be seen). Then, as skills developed, the holes became diamond-shaped and looked more sophisticated. Not being able to inspect the ones on the foreshore, I could only guess:

There were also various pieces of glass in different colours, mostly pale blue and green, along with some shells. Oyster shells are plentiful, as oysters were for centuries a cheap source of protein and eaten by the poor. It was only as the supply dwindled and prices rose, that the rich showed any interest in them:

I thoroughly enjoyed this walk and would certainly recommend it. If you think you might be interested in mudlarking, it would provide useful information on what to look for and its potential significance, and help you "get your eye in". Then, if you want to take it further, I'd suggest getting a £75 permit for 3 years, rather than a £32 permit for only one day. I'm tempted to apply for one, as it was so tantalising seeing objects that I wanted to pick up and couldn't touch. With a permit I'd be able to dig down a few inches, so that I could prise them out of the mud and have a really good look. I'm not expecting to find anything valuable, but simply holding a piece of history in my hands and thinking about who else might have held it, and when and why, would be very satisfying.

Task 12: Sell something on eBay

2017-08-29T20:45:00.000+01:00

Over the years I've bought a few things on eBay, using the Buy Now option by default, as my attempts to bid successfully for anything at a price that seemed reasonable always came to nought - or I wanted it enough to offer the Buy Now price. Listening to my friend Linda talk about bidding techniques, I realised there seemed to be quite a knack to it and presumably the same applied to selling. As I love selling things and can't persuade Peter to stagger up before dawn to do any more car boot sales, I decided it would be an interesting challenge to sell something on eBay.

Dutifully I read all the guidance I could find, which was plentiful, and then had to choose what to try and sell. The idea of the DVD of Hell or High Water, which I'd bought on eBay to watch for one of the other challenges, was appealing. I wouldn't want to view it again and there was a pleasing symmetry to seeing it go as it had come. Also I could streamline the effort involved by using much the same blurb as my seller had. Simple.

Or not. You may notice that my photo of the DVD looks rather blue:

That's because I took it in the conservatory and I'd forgotten that the replacement roof had an anti-glare tint. Still, I reckoned it would do as it wasn't really a question of trying to present the charms of the DVD in the best possible light - someone would either want it or they wouldn't, and price would be the determining factor. I decided to offer free postage, as I find it irritating when you see something advertised quite cheaply, only to find they're charging way over the odds for postage. I wanted the starting price to be sufficiently low to be sure of selling it, so that the challenge would be achieved, but on the other hand it would be satisfying to make enough for the effort to be worthwhile. I therefore chose £3.99 as the Buy Now price and £2.99 as the starting bid price. What I hadn't realised is that the Buy Now price has to be at least 40% higher than the starting bid price, so it was bounced until I made the necessary adjustment.

As it's the holiday season, I thought it would make sense to opt for a 10 rather than 7 day selling period, to maximise the chances of getting a sale. It was handy finding that you can set your start time and date in advance, so I set it to start (and therefore end) at 7.15pm, when most people would be back from work and hopefully in the mood to buy. I hit the relevant button and waited for the action to start. It did, immediately, with a message saying that it had been rejected because the start date had already passed. It took me a while to realise it was a 24 hour clock and I'd selected 7.15am, not pm. Duh. I made the correction and sat back with some excitement, waiting for a bidding frenzy (in my dreams).

To my surprise, it sold in less than an hour to someone using the Buy Now option. Rather a damp squib, really, but at least I'd learned how the system worked. I'm now keen to try it again with something more ambitious, so I'm roving the house, looking for an interesting and easily postable object that we no longer want. A combined compass and whistle, anyone?

Task 14: Learn all the functions of my iPad

2017-08-24T12:34:00.001+01:00

For so long I've been aware that I was using only a fraction of the capability of my iPad and that I didn't know much of what it could do, let alone how to use it. On plane trips I often seemed to be sitting next to a bright young thing, watching her tap away on her iPad, organising lists, watching videos etc. Meanwhile I wasn't even using mine as the battery was dead, having been exhausted playing Candy Crush while waiting to board. This had to change and once again the Challenges provided the required spur to action.

What I hadn't hoisted in was quite how much there was to learn. The manual runs to 357 pages and some days I couldn't take in more than 20 at a time, as I needed to try out so many of the functions. I was able to speed up once it occurred to me that instead of reading and trying to memorise the instructions on my iPad, and then switching to the relevant facility on the iPad to see how it worked - and having to keep repeating the process as I nearly always forgot part of it - I could use 2 iPads at the same time. Although my old iPad doesn't work that well, I was able to download the latest version of the manual and view it with no problem, leaving my newer one available for testing out what I'd learned:

The most useful things I came across were:

adding the iPad user guide icon to the home screen, so that I could access it immediately.
opening the iPad by simply placing my forefinger on the main button rather than having to key in my 4 number password.
in the evening, switching on the night setting which gives a softer light, making it easier on the eyes and apparently more likely to give you a better night's sleep.
how to type a letter that has an accent. You hold your finger on the letter and options will appear. Slide your finger across and select the accent you want.
how to search for a word or phrase on a web page and to find other instances of it in subsequent pages. This should save a lot of time and frustration when googling for information and coming across documents in web sites that apparently contain the key words, but because they aren't on the first page of the document it can take ages to find them.
how to open a link on a website in split view, so that you can read the linked web page while still being able to see the original website.
how to download my music and playlists from my desktop to my iPad. I've been meaning to do this for years, especially since last time I was in South Africa I thought I'd use Spotify instead, only to find that it doesn't work overseas after the first 2 weeks.
the wonders of Siri. For example, you can use it to dictate an email (not perfect, but very handy if for some reason you want to keep typing to a minimum); identify music you hear by asking Siri "What song is playing", and Siri will tell you the name and artist of the song (which you can buy or add to your wish list if you're so inclined); play music stored on your iPad, by any particular artist or album, simply by asking Siri to play it; get directions to a location by car, on foot or public transport, showing traffic conditions and weather, and the current journey time; and find places of interest, eg if you say "Hey Siri, find a coffee near me", it will show you on screen the nearest cafes and restaurants, and give you the distance - with links to their websites, expedia/trip advisor reviews, etc.
podcasts. I've rarely used them in the past, but now I realise what a rich source of entertainment and information they are - and free, too. It's particularly useful if you have to do something like exercises at home, which are boring but necessary and you want something interesting to listen to, to alleviate the tedium.
in Maps, you can face a different direction by rotating the image with two fingers. Peter rolled his eyes when I was enthusing about this, as he can't understand why I need to have the map facing the direction I want to go in. I know I'm not alone in this, though.
in Messages, how to send audio messages rather than just text.
how to make text in Messages more interesting by using special effects, eg invisible text that's too blurred to read until you swipe it and which afterwards reverts to being blurred (could be useful, provided you're confident that your loved one or whoever isn't familiar with this feature); handwritten text that appears to the recipient as if it's being written while they watch (and you can save standard phrases like "Thank you", so you don't have to create it each time); messages including showers of confetti, balloons floating up the screen, attractive images (my favourite is of a teddy bear swinging its arms, which was how I felt after finishing my first gym session in years) etc. I owe my friend Rowena a big thank you for her patience in giving me feedback on my various attempts to master these features, so this particular teddy bear is for her:

taking photos using the volume buttons (either of them) on the side of the iPad, rather than pressing the shutter button on the screen. This helps to get a steadier image - and reduced the number of times I accidentally included my thumbs.
how to see the photos you've taken recently, while staying in Camera mode rather than having to switch to Gallery and back. You tap the thumbnail image below the shutter button, then swipe left.
adjusting the exposure when taking a photo, by tapping the sunlight symbol next to the exposure rectangle on the screen.

There were two things I found surprising. One was that iTunes covers vastly more than just music, which is a little confusing. The other is that the safety instructions come at the very end of the manual, which was a big relief as it meant I could whizz through the last section, but I'd have expected them to be at the start. I was amused by the instruction that "Sleeping or sitting on the Lightning connector should be avoided".

This challenge took much longer than I'd expected but it was definitely worth the effort - even though at times this section of the manual felt strangely familiar: "If iPad can't regulate its internal temperature, it goes into deep sleep mode until it cools".

Task 17: Explore a UK city I’ve never been to before

2017-08-20T18:50:00.000+01:00

Like most people, I don't know my own country as well as I should, so exploring a UK city I'd never been to before seemed a natural challenge to include in the list. Googling a list of all the cities, I was surprised to find there were 18 in England alone that I'd never visited, out of a total of 51. Selecting Chester was an easy choice as I knew it was attractive and historically interesting, and I could put together a short break including 2 other challenges - visiting the Tate in Liverpool and the Lowry Gallery in Salford. Given that I'd also want to include places like Port Sunlight and the Lady Lever Art Gallery, it could end up being more like a week, but that seemed fine.

Since then, free time has become a bit scarce and particularly trying to get more than a few days when there's nothing else already booked. With the end of the 60 at 60 year getting uncomfortably close - just over 3 months to go, jeepers! - I decided to look at the list of the 18 cities again, to review the other options. Chelmsford had the advantage of being the nearest and also the most recently created city in England, having been granted city status in 2012. At a pinch, I thought, it might be possible to squeeze it all in in a day, with an early start and a late return home. That would open up the possibility of doing the Tate and the Lowry in 2 day trips, which would make the logistics much simpler.

Decision made, I started doing some research on what there was to see there, resigning myself to limiting it to "must see" options. Turning to Wikipedia, I found the Places of Interest section was remarkably brief. The best on offer seemed to be a small cathedral, a railway viaduct, the eighteenth century Hylands House (only open on Sundays and Mondays, and I was going on a Saturday) and a museum. Maybe the official tourism website for Essex would have richer pickings? Nope. The most it could offer was that a visit to Chelmsford would "leave you entertained for hours". Not very promising.

Widening my search to places nearby, I came across Ingatestone Hall, a smallish Tudor stately home with two priest holes and a Summer Parlour providing light lunches. It is normally open only on Sunday and Wednesday afternoons, but fortunately it would be open to "casual visitors" for self-guided tours on Saturday 19 August, as a historical reenactment event would be taking place in the grounds. That sounded like a plan.

Peter and I set off reasonably early, in rather heavy traffic, and arrived at the Hall at 12 noon. The event was described on its website as "A re-creation of everyday life in the years following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1667, staged with impressive attention to detail by The Essex Militia, a well-known historical re-enactment society, with Musket, Cannon Fire and Archery Displays. Mingle with the gentry, soldiers, tradesmen and country folk as they go about their business". We were told that the Militia would be starting with a march at 12.30 pm in the main courtyard, so we decided to have a look around the outside of the Hall in the meantime:

The motto of the family Sans Dieu Rien (Without God There Is Nothing) appears on the attractive tower over the entrance gate:

In the grounds we found a few men and women in historical dress, but time was getting on and not a lot was happening. Apparently they had "lost the king" and couldn't start without him, so we retired to the Summer Parlour for coffee and a slice of delicious carrot cake. Eventually we heard a drum roll and wandered out to the courtyard to watch the action:

Charles II - the tall one at the back - had been found and was bringing Nell Gwynn to visit Lord Petre and his wife, the owners of the Hall. The militia were a bit thin on the ground but the three musket-men (one of whom was an elderly woman, who struggled with her hat, musket and sense of direction, accidentally bumping into the king at one point) did their best. Lord Petre welcomed his guests with a drink, the king made a speech and we toddled back to the Parlour for toasted sandwiches, feeling how eccentrically English it all was:

After lunch we explored the house, which had been built in 1541 and has remained in the family since then, passing through 15 generations. There are eight principal rooms to see, with helpful information and friendly guides in each of them. The family still lives there and it has a pleasantly relaxed atmosphere, especially once you move past the slightly chilly great hall:

A few of the female members of the militia had reappeared inside, demonstrating various occupations of the period, including spinning, wig making and carving gilded gingerbread:

They were all very knowledgeable about their craft and happy to talk about its significance. Although I was aware that spices were precious in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, I hadn't realised that a small wooden chest containing mace, nutmeg, cloves, star anise, cinnamon and black pepper - about the size of a large tupperware box - would cost the equivalent then of a decent house in London. To offer spiced and gilded gingerbread to a guest was to make a statement about your wealth and establish your status.

The wig making was less fragrant but equally interesting. Two main techniques were employed, both of which were demonstrated: creating a kind of crocheted lattice-work from the (real) hair, forming a fine base from which the hair then hangs, or using a piece of mesh through which the hairs were pulled and knotted. Peter was given the opportunity to try on a splendid Restoration wig, made of artificial hair, long and full of curls. He rather fancied the effect, noting that it automatically made you throw back your head and look haughty. He does haughty rather well, although it isn't in character. Unfortunately no photographs were allowed, otherwise that would have been Christmas cards sorted.

The two priest holes were reasonably spacious inside, although not for prolonged periods. Surprisingly one wasn't discovered until the Victorian period and the other far more recently. The priests must have been brave men - and the family too, retaining their Catholic faith for hundreds of years, despite the penalties for doing so.

Finally it was time to move on to Chelmsford. In the car park there we faced a dilemma, having to choose how many hours to pay for. Two might not be enough, especially if we wanted a cup of tea, so we plumped for three. We started with the cathedral, which was originally built - as St Mary the Virgin - about 800 years ago and rebuilt in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries:

The nave partially collapsed in 1800 and had to be rebuilt, and the interior was extensively refurbished in 1983:

One of the stained glass windows, in memory of a wife and mother who died in 1905, was particularly attractive with rich and vivid colours:

There was a curious and unexplained use of Byzantine imagery, which was especially striking in the "icons" high on the chancel wall, near the ceiling:

Two other interesting features included the modern painting of the Tree of Life, shaped to fill the tracery of a former window which had been discovered fairly recently when the organ had been moved to allow for the extension of the vestry:

There was also the Mildmay Monument and tomb, dating from 1566:

Thomas Mildmay and his eight sons are shown on the bottom right, and his wife Avice and her seven daughters on the bottom left. The rather moving Latin inscription at the top translates as:

Almost everything else in the cathedral is modern and dull, so we moved on to explore the rest of the city. Well, that didn't take long. Charles Dickens, on a brief stop there, wrote to a friend: "If anyone were to ask me what in my opinion was the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the Earth, I should decidedly say Chelmsford". There didn't appear to be any buildings that were interesting, old or attractive, the shops were the standard fare in two characterless malls, and the high spot in our search was a bridge dating from 1785:

I wondered why Chelmsford had been given the honour of becoming a city five years ago. It seems there was general bemusement at the decision, and even the locals such as Simon Heffer couldn't understand it, remarking in an article that "only a mother could really love Chelmsford". The BBC News noted at the time that "the Cabinet Office would not say how it reached its decision about how to award City Status". We found it completely charmless and returned to the car after less than an hour. I think Chester would have been rather different....

Task 22: Visit Columbia Road flower market

2017-08-15T18:16:00.000+01:00

It was about 30 years ago when I first heard of Columbia Road flower market and I've been meaning to go for ages, once I could brace myself to be there for 8am on Sundays, when it opens. Including it as one of the challenges provided exactly the impetus I needed, and I was delighted when my friend Angela said she'd like to go too. Unfortunately she has been ill this year and not really up to long outings, so Peter good-naturedly agreed to go in her place (also the football season was about to start and he was possibly interested in getting some Brownie points). If you're reading this, Angela, I'd love to go again once you're better.

Columbia Market, in Tower Hamlets, was first established in 1869 by the heiress and philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts, as a covered food market with 400 stalls. It never really got off the ground, partly because traders preferred the less regulated system of roadside pitches, and it closed less than 20 years later. The French Huguenot presence in the area fostered a demand for cut flowers and a flower market became established. Originally it opened on Saturdays but with the influx of Jewish immigrants this changed to Sundays, to accommodate their need not to trade on the Sabbath. It also gave Covent Garden and Spitalfields traders the opportunity to sell their leftover produce.

Following a long period of decline, the market started flourishing in the late 1960s with increasing interest in gardening programmes and it is now full of life and colour:

It has a cosmopolitan atmosphere, with many different nationalities - predominantly European - among the crowd. The main attraction is the flowers, shrubs and herbs, but there are also plenty of quirky little shops which are mostly open only on Sundays or by appointment:

Having failed to get there until about 10am, partly because it took a long time to find a parking space (there are no tube stations nearby, but the parking is free and there are some areas that aren't restricted to residents only), we decided to start with a coffee and a pastry. The weather was lovely and we found a vibrant Spanish restaurant with its doors and windows open to the sun, which was perfect for watching the local scene:

Suitably fortified, we wandered out to listen to the jazz, browse the shops and look at all the stalls. The colours of the flowers were wonderful and I was sorely tempted to buy some huge blue and white hydrangea heads, but decided there was no point while our house is full of building dust:

Having looked at every single stall - and there are a lot of them - we noticed an intriguing shop that seemed to be a combination of a specialist wine seller and laid back cafe. The coffee was in styrofoam cups but delicious, and we enjoyed sitting on cushioned benches at a long wooden table, imbibing the atmosphere along with the caffeine:

While Peter was trying not to think of how Newcastle's first match of the season was going (they lost), I decided it would be a good idea to look at all the stalls again and make a few purchases. With so much choice and such low prices, it wasn't easy to make up my mind. I bought a few plants and we went for lunch at an unusual Italian restaurant on the fringe of the market - the Stringray Globe.

By the time we'd finished it was getting on for 3 o'clock and the traders had nearly finished packing away - the perfect opportunity to see if there were any bargains to be had. By then you could get 4 hydrangea heads instead of 3 for £10, and four bunches of cornflowers for only £5, but commonsense prevailed. On the other hand, it would have been daft not to buy a white orchid - admittedly a bit the worse for wear - for a mere £1. In the end I came home with the orchid, 2 penstemons in pink and mauve flushed with white, a Cambridge blue salvia and two pink purple fuchsias, for the princely sum of £8:

It was a lovely way of spending a sunny Sunday and I'd highly recommend it. Even if you aren't interested in buying any plants or flowers, it's a fascinating place to wander around. There's no need to get there as soon as it opens, as the traders have plenty of stock and you won't miss out if you arrive later. It's worth waiting for lunch until about 2 o'clock, when the cafes are more likely to have a free table, and then scooping up some extra last-minute bargains while the traders are packing away. I also found it intriguing reading about Angela Burdett-Coutts, who was a remarkable woman in so many ways, including proposing to the Duke of Wellington when she was 33 and he was 78. He declined, wishing her to marry someone younger who could offer her years of happiness together. This she did at the age of 67, when she married her 29 year old secretary, William Bartlett - probably not quite what the Iron Duke had in mind!

Task 48: Watch all the films nominated for 2017 Oscar Best Picture

2017-07-29T18:14:00.001+01:00

I've always loved going to the cinema. The moment the lights go down, you enter a different world. Even watching the Pearl and Dean advertisements that were so old and worn they almost crackled with age, was sheer pleasure. That feeling of anticipation is still there, although these days I tend to watch films on the television at home, now that TV screens are so much larger and cinema tickets so expensive. The exception is when we go to South Africa, where even the best seats cost only a few pounds, especially during the daytime. If it's hot outside, the air conditioning is a pleasant relief and on the rare occasions when it rains, it's the perfect way of spending the late morning before heading off for a delicious lunch somewhere.

It seemed appropriate, then, to include a film-related challenge and I remembered that the girl in the basement flat in Camps Bay, where we rented for a while, used to have an Oscars party every year. I also realised that I'd never seen all the films nominated for Best Picture in any one year. There were always some that didn't appeal to me and I'd give them a miss. As Peter and I wait until we go to South Africa in January before watching any new films, it meant that by my 60th birthday last December I hadn't seen any that had been nominated. Having the challenge of watching all nine was definitely appealing.

Fortunately films tend to be shown a bit later in the Cape than in London, so there was a good chance they'd still be available when we arrived. The order in which I watched them - Lion, LaLa Land, Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight, Hidden Figures, Fences, Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, and Hell or High Water - was largely determined by how soon they were likely to disappear.

The first was Lion. The scenery was spectacular, especially the coasts and forests of Tasmania, although it did occasionally feel like a tourism promo. I thought it was well acted and the scenes of destitution in India, particularly of the children and their vulnerability to appalling abuse - and their resilience - were moving. Overall though I felt the story was too slow-paced and it was hard to sustain interest in the main character's emotional torment and how it might be resolved. Luckily I hadn't seen the trailer, otherwise there would have been even less suspense as it's quite a spoiler.

The next day we went to see LaLa Land. I'm not all that keen on filmed musicals and I particularly disliked the opening sequence of this one. Set on the LA highway, with hundreds of people stuck in a massive traffic jam suddenly breaking into song and dance - complete with a bicycle and a skate board - it set the tone of artificiality without charm. On the other hand I thought the use of colour was magnificent throughout the film, including the dresses, outdoor scenes, parties and gardens. The jewel-like intensity was effectively contrasted with the relatively subdued palette used for the scenes between the two main characters, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. His piano playing was really impressive and I thought her acting in the scene where she is auditioning for a part and has to cover a huge range of emotions convincingly, was superb.

I found the first half pretty boring and felt no involvement with the story, but then it came alive when Gosling joined the new style of jazz music, which was much more tuneful and energising. As his and Emma Stone's characters began to face their personal dilemmas and acquired more depth, their development became more engrossing and the music took a back seat. It struck me as a rather curious film of two halves - more than any other film I've seen.

The next film, Manchester by the Sea, could hardly have been more different. I'd assumed it was the English Manchester - my geography is wayward at best, and although I've been there a number of times some years ago, I'd forgotten it's inland. That had shaped my expectations of what the film might be about and I was bracing myself for rain and general greyness. Instead it was set partly in snowy Boston and mainly in the small coastal town of Manchester, an hour and a half's drive north. The coastal scenery was very attractive, albeit rather bleak at times. This and the elegiac music reflected the sadness and sense of loss and guilt that pervades the film. The acting by Casey Affleck and the 20 year old Lucas Hedges who played his 16 year old nephew was excellent, and I thought Affleck's Best Actor award was well deserved.

Having seen the trailer, I definitely wouldn't have watched Moonlight if it hadn't been part of the challenge. The trailer was really off putting and did the film no favours at all, showing an American black drug dealer with gold teeth and huge muscles, mumbling almost inaudibly and trying to come to terms with being gay. And it would have been such a shame not to have seen the film, as it was excellent. The acting was first-rate, with sensitive and finely nuanced performances. The only part where I struggled to understand what was being said was the section used in the trailer. There was no sentimentality, nor any unnecessary violence, and the themes of being gay and black, bullying and drug addiction were well handled and thought provoking.

Hidden Figures sounded interesting, portraying the true life story of three African American women with an exceptional talent for maths, who each played an important part at NASA in the first US manned orbit of the moon at a time when racism was rife and segregation still applied in Virginia. It could have been absorbing but for me it was marred by its sentimentality. It made one think that the contribution made by the women had been exaggerated in the film, which did them a disservice as they genuinely were remarkable. Many of the "facts" had indeed been falsified for dramatic effect - for example the lavatories in the main building were not segregated and there was no question of the black women having to trek a kilometre or so to the nearest one available to them. There seemed nothing Oscar-worthy about the film and it could have been so much better.

Fences was originally a play which took years to be filmed, apparently because the author would agree to this only if the director were black. Eventually Denzel Washington not only directed but produced and starred in it too. The subject matter was fairly bleak, depicting the life of a black refuse collector in Pittsburgh who can't come to terms with past disappointments and repeats the cycle with his own wife and children. It was well acted but I found it rather tedious.

This was the last of the films on the list that I was able to see in South Africa, as the others were no longer on the circuit. I wondered whether any of the remaining three might be available to watch on the plane home and was delighted to find they all were. As it was an overnight flight and I don't usually get much sleep then anyway, all I had to do was stay awake all night and I could complete another challenge! I decided to start with Arrival, as I'm not keen on sci-fi or fantasy, so having to watch it in less than ideal conditions wouldn't bother me. Also I could get it out of the way and then enjoy the other two, which looked more promising.

Ironically I found it so boring, I simply couldn't keep my eyes open. I ended up having to watch large chunks of it several times while I tried to work out where I'd dropped off - which did at least chime with the surreal aspect of the film and its emphasis on non-linear time. By contrast the critics rated it very highly. Catherine Shoard in the Guardian, for example, described it as "by far the most thoughtful release this year. It informs and explores ideas subconsciously common to us all about our interplay with language, and the past and the future.... Everyone, everything seems elevated by a movie about which there is something intangible, miraculous".

That's all very well, but it isn't easy to suspend disbelief when the main character is a young woman who is not only an expert linguist chosen to try to communicate with aliens that have landed simultaneously in 12 space ships across the world (including Montana), but who also happens to have the gift of being able to see the future. By the time we landed at Heathrow I was thoroughly fed up with her earnestness and courage, armed only with a clip board and a felt tip, in the face of aliens that looked like vaguely menacing hoover attachments.

Fortunately Hacksaw Ridge was a complete contrast. Although I had to watch it on DVD rather than on the big screen, our television is quite large (every time his son upgrades, Peter yearns to do the same) and I didn't feel the experience was impaired as a result. It's a scarcely believable but true story about a young American man - Desmond Doss - who is a Seventh Day Adventist and won't touch or carry a rifle, but who enlists to serve as a medic in the war after Pearl Harbour. When, during basic training, his commanding officers fail to break his resolve not to touch a weapon, he is really put through the mill and eventually court martialled for refusing to obey orders. In the end the court martial is abandoned and he goes on to serve as a combat medic with exceptional courage, especially at Hacksaw Ridge in the battle of Okinawa, where he saves the lives of 75 wounded men, despite being under intense fire and having been injured.

The extremely graphic battle scenes were very effective but I thought they went on too long and there were also some jarring sentimental incidents. That apart, it's a remarkable film and all the more so for being largely accurate. It includes interview recordings at the end with the real Desmond Doss, who died in 2006 aged 87, and with a few of the other key figures. It seems hard to believe that any of them could have survived such carnage - although Doss was classified as 90% disabled after the war.

Interestingly Mel Gibson, the director, decided not to include some events which really did happen, as he thought the audience wouldn't find them credible. In reality, for example, after Doss had been seriously injured by a grenade which he had kicked away from himself and the 3 other men in his foxhole, he was eventually rescued and was being carried on a stretcher under heavy fire when he noticed a severely wounded soldier lying on the ground. He rolled off the stretcher to attend to the soldier, and gave him his place - and was then shot by a Japanese sniper, shattering his left arm. He only survived by crawling 300 yards through intense gunfire, at last reaching an aid station and relative safety.

The last of the nine, Hell or High Water, I also had to watch on DVD as it was no longer on at any cinemas. Having Jeff Bridges as one of the key actors was a strong point in its favour, even if it did mean having to use the subtitles, and the striking New Mexico scenery (although the story is set in Texas) was an added attraction. It's a sort of cross between a Western and a bank heist film, with an emotional twist and an appealingly dry humour. The ending is ambiguous, with two of the surviving main characters agreeing to meet to "finish the conversation". I wondered whether this pointed towards a sequel but it seems more likely that it was simply a neat way of drawing it to a close. Although it's nowhere near the all-time great standard, I enjoyed it.

While we were in South Africa, as the day of the Oscars approached, Peter and I found ourselves rooting for different films. We agreed that LaLa Land (the apparent front-runner) shouldn't win but he favoured Manchester by the Sea, while I was a fan of Moonlight - the film I'd least wanted to watch. Honour was satisfied for both of us, as Moonlight won Best Film and Casey Affleck won Best Actor.

I'm very glad I included this as one of the 60 challenges, particularly as it meant I watched films I wouldn't otherwise have bothered with and - at least in the case of Moonlight - found them far more interesting that I'd expected. I plan to watch all nine nominated films next year too, as I've found it so worthwhile and enjoyable. If it means having to sit through a few I don't relish, I think it's worth it.

Task 46: Use YouTube to learn how to package and present things attractively

2017-07-28T18:29:00.000+01:00

This idea came from my friend Pauline, who has an eye for attractive presentation and display. I was explaining that although I enjoy making jewellery, I struggle with the marketing and presentation. She alerted me to the number of videos on YouTube on how to wrap and present gifts, including the art of Japanese wrapping, which I'd never heard of before. The thought of being surrounded by pretty paper, ribbons and boxes, and learning how to use them imaginatively, was instantly appealing and this challenge went straight on the list.

What I should have realised is that unless you are naturally deft and spatially aware, it takes time and practice to acquire this skill. That's why this post is appearing now instead of last Christmas, which was when I enthusiastically set to with my sellotape and scissors - though you might find that hard to believe when you see the photos of the end results, below. I've always enjoyed wrapping presents and Christmas seemed the perfect opportunity to polish off this task. Well, I tried. And failed.

YouTube certainly has a wealth of videos on the subject and by the time the carol singers appeared, I felt as though I'd watched most of them. Who knew there were so many ways of tying bows, pleating paper, creating little envelopes in the surface of the paper to hold charming sprigs of yew or berries, etc? Double-sided sellotape seemed to be essential. Ditto wire edged, rather than ordinary, ribbon if you wanted it to hold its shape once you'd twisted it into a mass of frills or rosettes. Clearly a shopping trip was required.

Have you ever tried used double-sided sellotape? It's a menace. I ended up with bits in my hair, stuck to my clothing, and pretty much everywhere except where I wanted. I also discovered it won't stick to ribbon, nor take much pressure without suddenly losing its adhesive properties. Making a rosette out of little pieces of ribbon was a nightmare. As fast as I stuck them together, they pinged apart. I tried stapling the centre sections to provide a working base, but that only worked for the first layer. After that, the stapler simply squashed any additions. After two hours, I grimly chucked the whole lot in the bin and gave up on the idea of making rosettes - even though they looked so easy on the video clips.

My hairdresser strongly recommended paper pleating - much beloved of the Japanese, apparently - so I thought I'd give that a go. She assured me it was a doddle, once you'd got the hang of it. The main problem I found, which applied to most of my efforts with this particular challenge, was that I couldn't find a way of pausing the YouTube video to allow me to absorb the information and try it out, before moving on to the next stage. Nor could I get it to rewind without going right back to the beginning. As a result there were three that I must have watched literally scores of times, and still without being able to retain the key images in my mind. It was interesting realising how poor my visual memory is, but not helpful.

Eventually I produced two wrapped gifts that I thought passed muster. I'd decided I should produce at least 3 decent samples using different techniques - originally I'd envisaged more, until I realised it was much more challenging than I'd expected - and at least now I was two-thirds of the way through. One I asked Peter to photograph for me (I don't have a camera, apart from the one on my phone). It looked quite striking, with the central section in pleated blue and gold paper and a small gold bow at the top right. The other I gave to a friend without remembering to take a photo first, so that was a write-off from the point of view of the blog. Time to give it a rest and turn to something else.

When we returned from South Africa at the end of March, I thought I should unearth the sellotape and renew my efforts. To remind myself that I had already accomplished a third of this task, I decided to write up the beginning of the blog post. I needed the photograph Peter had taken, but couldn't find it anywhere. It turned out he'd had a major clear-out of his camera, to release more memory, and my photo was no more. So I was back to square one, with nothing to show for all those hours of frustration.

As the pleating had been moderately successful, I had another go at that and was reasonably happy with the result:

Perhaps a box would be a good idea, using tissue paper and ribbon inside? From the video it looked almost childishly simple. All I had to do was measure the ribbon, place it inside the box with the ends hanging over the sides, scrunch up some paper to line the base, lay some folded tissue paper over the top with the ends flowing over the sides of the box, place my gift on top, fold the ends of the paper over the top, pick up the two ends of ribbon and tie a bow, and put the lid on. Easy. Except it wasn't.

The presenter had commented, almost as an aside, that she folded the tissue paper so that it was only slightly narrower than the box. That seemed entirely sensible but not at all easy to do, without leaving marks in the paper as I kept trying to get the measurement right - and also bearing in mind that it looks neater if you don't have any raw edges. The scrunched up paper took up too much space, so I had to keep removing bits. When it came to folding the tissue paper over the top of the gift, it wouldn't lie flat (not surprisingly, as - unlike the object in the video - the gift was bobbly). Finally when it came to tying the ribbon, I found it wasn't long enough, even though I'd taken the precaution of allowing quite a bit more than the 10cm that the presenter had said would be enough for tying the bow. There was nothing for it but to dismantle the whole thing and start again.

In the end it looked quite pretty but nothing like the effortlessly elegant gift featured in the video:

For my third offering, I thought I should try tackling an awkwardly shaped object. A hexagonally shaped jar of marmalade seemed ideal. Unfortunately I couldn't find a video that addressed this (and now I know why). Still, I reckoned it would work if I combined the instruction on wrapping cylinders with the one on dealing with pentangles. Both of these were covered in a Japanese video on YouTube. All I had to do was measure the paper accurately, fold over any raw edges, make a series of interweaving pleats at the top and base of the jar, and tuck in the final flap of paper without needing any sellotape.

I think it might have been less of a failure if I'd taken more care with the measurements. They really do need to be spot on, and mine weren't, so the pleats didn't all meet in the centre. Also if you're going to rely on making crisp triangular pleats with one hand while holding and slowly rotating the jar in the other, you need paper that has some body. Mine was from IKEA and it didn't. It couldn't tolerate that degree of manipulation without wrinkling and creasing. The end result was a complete mess, even with the addition of some sellotape to stop the pleats unravelling. Fortunately the friend I gave it to is someone with a zest for life who rips presents open without pausing to notice the packaging:

One upside of this experience was that I decided to invest in some decent quality wrapping paper. I spent a happy hour or so browsing in John Lewis and came home equipped with two rolls of paper, two rolls of coloured raffia, some wire-edged ribbon and funky gift tags. Now I was ready for business.

My birthday present for Pauline was a nest of Joseph measuring cups in a box - she's an accomplished cook who loves baking - and I was keen to show her what I'd learned, especially as it had been her idea in the first place. I knew she liked the Japanese style of wrapping, so I decided to opt for that but with the extra challenge of creating a diagonal "envelope pouch" on the top, into which you can tuck a gift tag - or a sprig of herbs or something similar. The John Lewis paper was a vast improvement and at last I'd worked out how to use the pause and rewind facilities on my iPad. It was going reasonably well until the very last stage, and I'd even managed not to use any sellotape, but then the instructions rather petered out and the video finished in a whirl of dexterous Japanese fingers twisting the box this way and that, tucking in stray angles of paper and producing a perfect package. No matter how often I replayed that section, I couldn't see how it was done.

I did my best, which wasn't good enough, but the attractive paper helped take the eye away from the flaws and it did feature a diagonal envelope, as planned. Earlier in the year I'd had a go at the potato printing challenge and although I hadn't produced anything suitable for a painting, I'd kept the leaf shapes as I thought I might be able to do something with them. It occurred to me that I could cut one out and use it as a gift tag, with a twist of the raffia. Pauline generously awarded me 9 out of 10 - she's a kind friend - and we were both happy:

Despite the frustrations, I enjoyed this challenge and would be interested in attending a present wrapping workshop - or better still, having a session with a patient friend who has the skill and can teach me. I used to think it was the object itself that mattered, not how it was presented, but I now believe it really does make a difference if it looks visually appealing and tempting. There's so much scope for creativity once you've mastered the various techniques - and then it can be fun.

Task 58: Go to a games cafe and join a game

2017-07-19T09:38:00.000+01:00

Until I started thinking about possible challenges to include, I hadn't realised there was such a thing as games cafes - and I certainly wasn't aware there was one in Richmond. I've always loved playing board games, as long as they don't require too much strategic thinking. For me the essence is fun with some thought required, so the outcome doesn't just depend on luck, but I don't have the patience for chess or games like Risk. Even draughts is so low on my list, I'd probably rather not play at all than have to settle for that. Anything that involves colour, words, general knowledge and imagination is what I go for.

My brother is the complete opposite, and Peter isn't keen on board games at all - he much prefers watching sport on television - so I've always been rather short of people to play with, especially as most games need at least 4 players. The idea of a cafe full of people wanting to play seemed perfect, except that when I looked at the website of The Library Pot in Richmond, they all looked about 40 years younger than me. Although you're meant to be able to join in, I doubted I'd know any of the games they were likely to be playing and I'd stick out like a sore thumb. That's what made this a challenge.

With Peter about to settle down to watch the Wimbledon men's final, I decided the time was right to tackle it. The journey there couldn't have been easier - the 65 bus goes virtually door to door, and is free thanks to the wonderful 60+ travel card - and I was there in about 20 minutes:

Stepping inside, I felt I was entering a different world:

On the left, in the black cocktail dress, is Emily - one of the co-owners and the "hostess". I'd taken the precaution of ringing first, to check that there would definitely be enough people there for me to be able to join in without disrupting anyone's arrangements, and she recognised my voice when I arrived - though on reflection, it was probably more my age than my voice. She was immediately welcoming, introducing me to some groups and making me feel at ease.

The upstairs is an attractive mixture of large open tables on the right and generous alcoves on the left, all festooned with fairy lights and with the slightly odd addition of an exercise bike in the middle:

The group on the left invited me to join them and as I watched them playing a game that looked like a combination of chess and Risk, I felt rather apprehensive:

Fortunately it was clear it would have been difficult to join in at that stage and as the unwritten rule is that no-one is left on their own, the lovely Celia from Asturias in northern Spain immediately left the game to set up a new one with me and with Nick, who had also just arrived but has been coming every Sunday for the last few weeks. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of board and card games available, and for the £5 entry fee (waived on Tuesday nights for students and Richmond Card holders), you can stay there for hours without any obligation to have anything to eat or drink.

Nick suggested we could play 3-person chess (yikes!). I explained that although I could play chess, I wasn't keen on it, and I readily accepted Nick's ban on Monopoly. We left it to Celia, who is a regular, to choose something suitable and she selected Dobble. It's a sort of multi-layered Snap, which is curiously addictive. Evidently she had sussed my skill level accurately, albeit somewhat embarrassingly. I was reassured when I won the first game, but after that it was downhill the whole afternoon - but still great fun.

After 3 rounds of Dobble, we decided to be more ambitious and Celia chose Camel Up, a board game which she assured us was simple. To give us more room, Emily suggested we moved downstairs, which also had the advantage of being much cooler. There we were joined by Gareth, a larger than life Welshman with what I could have sworn was an Irish accent - and he was wearing a bright green t-shirt. He's a systems analyst who also runs photography courses and rides a motorbike, with a side car for his dog.

Before long Celia must have been regretting her choice of game, as both Nick and I struggled to grasp the rules. Why could camels move only singly in some cases and in a vertically stacked group in others, and what determined whether the vertical order (and therefore the chances of a particular camel winning) suddenly changed? Gareth, on other hand, had no problem and won hands down both times. I trailed way behind, still wondering whether the white camel might have been a better bet:

Nick had to move on as he was booked to take part in an ongoing marathon of an all-male game - interestingly nearly everyone in the cafe was male - and Mark immediately took his place. We switched to a game called Dixit, again chosen by Celia, which is apparently fairly new to the market. I was told it featured killer rabbits, which sounded tempting. I loved this one, as it involved collections of images and having to second-guess which one might be closest to what the lead player had in mind, allowing for the fact that he/she would be trying to mislead some but not all of us. For most of the game my blue rabbit was bouncing ahead, until Gareth and the others swept into the lead:

After two goes of that, Mark produced another new game which he'd brought with him, called Coup. It required, amongst other things, an ability to lie convincingly and to guess which of the other players might be lying. As usual I came last, but not for want of trying. After all, who would have guessed that as well as my two cards being Ambassadors, Celia also had one - and that it was Mark who was the fibber? And as for the rugby-shaped Gareth being a Contessa... I enjoyed it enormously and would love to play it again, but it does need at least 4 players.

By then it was time for me to go home, having stayed twice as long as I'd intended and knowing that Peter would be expecting me for a martini. Although alcohol is available at the Library Pot, most of us were having soft drinks - cardamom tea in my case. Meals are also available and while the men were downing hearty stews and the enviably slim Celia a massive burger and mountains of chips, I succumbed to a slice of chocolate fudge cake. The portion was enormous and it was delicious.

I went upstairs to pay my bill, wondering how they would have kept a note of what I'd had, since I hadn't signed for anything and I'd moved to different tables. Possibly there was a note behind the counter on what the old trout had consumed, but however it was done, in principle everything was noted by your first name. That meant Emily had to remember everyone's name, which she did apparently effortlessly - another friendly touch.

As I was waiting for the payment to go through, she told me more about the Library Pot, which has only been around since early last year. As well as games (no video games allowed), it has a "meet-up" community with over 1,000 members, most of whom live locally. This offers a range of activities including long walks, which are free, skating, tennis and learning Japanese. If you're in your 20s or 30s, it's an excellent way of meeting new people and having fun.

My only hesitation about returning to the Library Pot is that my skill level is so low, I wouldn't want to spoil the experience for anyone else. Being so much older than all the others really doesn't matter - they simply take you as you are. I do fancy having another go at those killer rabbits...

Task 20: Grow a vegetable

2017-07-17T21:23:00.000+01:00

On the whole I enjoy gardening and I like the feeling of being in tune with nature - apart from slugs, worms, stag beetles and most other creepy crawlies. It's satisfying watching something that you've nurtured grow into an attractive plant, or at least survive without too much blight, and add colour and scent to the garden. In principle the same should apply to growing vegetables - arguably more so, as you can eat the produce - but I've always doubted that it's worth the effort. You only have to watch allotment owners staggering under the weight of their courgettes, all of which seem to come on stream at the same time, and eagerly handing out supplies to anyone who doesn't already have more than they need, to wonder why they bother. Maybe if I liked soup it would be different, as I'm perfectly happy to help deal with a superabundance of fruit, but I just can't get excited about loads of bulky and not particularly flavoursome vegetables.

Maybe it was time, though, to see what the attraction was and try it for myself. After all, I had been keenly disappointed when a slug had eaten all my chillies overnight, on the plant I'd bought from the supermarket. (No doubt it too had quite a surprise as it digested its plunder.) On that basis I included growing a vegetable as one of my challenges. In case that slug was out for revenge, I decided to aim for three different types, reckoning that at least one should make it through to harvesting. Having done some googling and asked friends with allotments which were the easiest, bearing in mind I'd be using containers as the soil in our garden is rock hard and almost solid with builders' rubble and tree roots, I settled on baby beetroot, spring onions and potatoes:

I didn't exactly feel like an earth mother as I planted them out in early April, but still there was a definite frisson of excitement. Unfortunately none of my pots was really large enough for the potatoes, so what was meant to be repeated "earthing up" during the growing process, in practice amounted to no more than three small extra coverings before the rim of the pot was overflowing. I'd assumed that the new potatoes grow underneath the ones you plant, so I'd allowed lots of space for that, and by the time I was told it's the other way round, it was too late. Still, something was certainly happening:

Baby beetroot seedlings

Spring onion seedlings

Potato seedling

With daily watering during the dry spells, everything seemed to be flourishing:

I knew I should remove more of the beetroot and spring onion seedlings but I couldn't face taking out more than this, even though it left them clearly overcrowded. A quick death by lifting out or a lingering life of malnourishment? The latter at least held out the possibility of survival and seemed less cruel. Daft, how maternal I was becoming about these vegetables.

Googling about what to expect next - I honestly had no idea - I was pleased to read that the leaves of the baby beetroot were edible and made a pleasant addition to a green salad. What I should have realised was that the leaves were at their peak then, and would proceed to get scorched and wilt. So, an opportunity missed. Meanwhile, however, the plants seemed to be going from strength to strength, and all without any added chemicals of any sort:

Just as one of the potatoes was coming into its prime and flowering, it suffered a bit of a setback. Looking at it one morning I noticed that it seemed to have keeled over and the thick stem was broken. I wondered whether the foxes had knocked it over, although that seemed unlikely as it was very heavy and nothing else had been touched. Then I spotted a large sprinkling of potting compost on the lawn and realised that one of the workmen replacing the leaking conservatory roof must have accidentally hit it with his ladder. He'd bundled the remains back into the pot and presumably hoped for the best. Oh well, at least I had a second potato that was still intact.

Having stupidly thrown away the seed packets and forgotten to make a note of when I'd done the original planting, I wasn't sure when the plants would be ready for harvesting. I knew what the leaves of full grown spring onions look like, so that wasn't a problem, but how could I tell when the potatoes and beetroot were done? Friends advised that I should wait until the potato flowers had disappeared and the leaves shrivelled. As one plant was now broken and horizontal, and the other wasn't looking too chirpy, it wasn't that easy to tell. I took a chance on the beetroot and pulled one up a few days ago. By then it was supposed to be the size of a golf ball. It was only about half that, but we had it as part of a Nutribullet drink and it tasted OK. Today I pulled up a few more for a friend who actually likes beetroot, and they were about right. I proudly displayed them, along with the spring onions she'd agreed to take (by now I was in allotment mode, with too much available all at once):

The big moment came late this afternoon, when I delved under one of the potato plants and was delighted to find 3 healthy looking potatoes. There were more to be dug up, but I only needed three for dinner so I left the rest where they were, ready for another day. I also lifted a baby beetroot - definitely golf ball size - and several spring onions, to go with our salmon:

I was looking forward to savouring the taste of really fresh new potatoes and felt inordinately proud of my haul. However pride cometh, etc, and I must admit they didn't taste any better than average supermarket produce. The spring onions were an improvement on the type we normally buy, as they were slightly milder and very crisp. The baby beetroot disappeared into the Nutribullet so I can't say how it compared to the norm, though the drink tasted fine.

Over the three months it took to produce these vegetables, I derived a great deal of pleasure from watching them grow and they were very little trouble, apart from remembering to water them most days. I now understand why allotment owners are so keen on doing this, despite the doubtful economics and the hassle involved if they aren't on your doorstep. I'd be tempted to give it another go next year, but I think it's only worth it if I can do a deal with someone so that between us - or preferably about four of us - we grow and share a wider range of vegetables. Otherwise I'd simply end up with a glut, at a time when they can be bought easily and cheaply at the Sainsbury's on the corner.

Task 58: Go to a games cafe and join a game

2017-07-17T12:50:00.000+01:00

Stepping inside, I felt I was entering a different world:

The group on the left invited me to join them and as I watched them playing a game that looked like a combination of chess and Risk, I felt rather apprehensive:

Task 3: Go by boat to the Thames Barrier

2017-07-15T16:18:00.000+01:00

Although I admire the Thames Barrier as being both functional and stylish, those sinister metal hoods have always given me the creeps. The idea of getting close to them in a boat rather than on dry land is even more scary, as it would make me feel decidedly vulnerable as they loom closer. Being travel sick, going anywhere by boat is my least favourite form of transport. I can - and have been - sick on shore simply looking at the waves. So for several reasons this trip was not one I was looking forward to.

As Peter and I were at the bus stop, about to set off, I realised I'd forgotten to bring my travel sickness wrist bands and tablets. I couldn't be bothered to go back and get them, and doubted anyway that it was necessary - after all, it was only a river trip, not a voyage on the open sea. Big mistake.

After coffee in Richmond we had an easy journey by tube to Westminster and then straight to the Thames River Services pier. With our travel cards, which give you a 50% reduction, it was remarkably cheap at only £8.50 each for a three hour round trip. Arriving at noon, we had half an hour to wait for the next boat, so plenty of time to ponder what was in prospect and to imbibe the fumes of two river cruisers next to the open door of the waiting room:

At least we had the advantage of being first in the queue and therefore able to choose our seats when we boarded. With no rain forecast and keen to get the best view - if I was going to face the fear of seeing the Barrier up close, I wanted to go the whole hog - we went right to the front, on the upper deck:

There was an entertaining and interesting commentary by one of the crew members all the way there, highlighting how much the Thames riverside has changed in the last 30 years, with massive high-rise housing development - much of it bought by foreign investors. When I was about three and my brother seven, my parents took us on a similar trip and looking at the old cine film, I can see how the docks were still active and the river alive with tugs, barges and other boats plying their trade. Now it's almost deserted, apart from the Clipper water buses and a few river cruisers.

It was fascinating seeing the remaining old buildings from an entirely different perspective and learning more about the role of the Thames in providing transport, trade and employment. Execution Dock provides a grim reminder of criminal justice in the past, while by contrast Helen Mirren has a beautiful Georgian 15 bedroomed house right on the waterfront at Wapping. Not far from there we saw a seal swimming in the river, which was an unexpected pleasure.

The trip would have been enjoyable, if it hadn't been for the prospect of nearing the Barrier and my increasing nausea. By the time we reached Greenwich, I was feeling so travel sick that I asked Peter if he could get me a brandy from the bar, as I'd remembered that my friend Kathy used to find that helped. In my case it didn't. And then I got my first sight of our destination:

It didn't improve as we drew closer. Those gleaming metal hoods were looking increasingly sinister:

At this point my anxiety levels were clearly rising:

Now we were almost alongside and I found it less scary, as I could see more of the construction and how the system worked:

I also reminded myself that many years ago, while I was working in the Industry/Education Unit in the then Department of Trade and Industry, where one of our aims had been to encourage more girls to take up a career in engineering, I had had a meeting with a young woman working as a civil engineer on the Barrier. She had been engaging and likeable, and definitely not someone who had gone to the dark side.

Largely completed in 1982 and officially opened in 1984, the Barrier when raised is as high as a 5-storey building. It's sobering to think that it has already been deployed almost 180 times - and last winter it was unable to prevent localised flooding in Greenwich and Kew. Each of the individual 10 gates can be raised within 10 minutes, but it takes an hour and a half to get the entire Barrier raised and fully in position.

As we went past it, I found myself feeling quite relaxed about a structure that was there for our protection and had amply proved its effectiveness:

Unlike the passengers sitting behind me, who were Spanish and feeling the cold, I was relatively chirpy:

Many of us, I imagine, were wondering what happens to the land on the eastern side of the Barrier, when it has been raised. Do they get inundated? Normally not, as the height of the defensive walls lining the river bank has been increased to provide the same level of protection as for the area to the west.

As we approached the Barrier from the rear and looked towards the city, it was striking how vulnerable it would be to devastating flooding if the Barrier didn't exist:

By now, my pleasure at having completed another challenge was rapidly being overtaken by nausea:

I was feeling pretty awful and my discomfort increased when we arrived back at Westminster Pier, only to find there was a queue for a docking space and we had to drift to and fro for nearly half an hour, once again breathing in the fumes from the other boats. Luckily I just made it home before being copiously sick. It took over a day to get back to anything like normal - although I still can't face the prospect of having a martini, which must mean I'm still not right. On the other hand, a day of abstinence is probably no bad thing.

I would definitely do this trip again, as there's a lot to see and I'd like to look round Greenwich, as it's quite a few years since I last wandered around that area. Given the recent rate of development, it would be interesting to see how the river front changes over the next five years or so. Next time, though, I would be tanked up with Avomine and sporting my travel sickness bands!

Task 38: Take part in a mindfulness meditation course

2017-07-10T21:35:00.000+01:00

At university, a friend who had been on a transcendental meditation course - all the rage then, amongst the vaguely hippy group - taught me the basic technique and I found it extraordinarily effective. The only downside was that it required total silence and if interrupted, it gave me a splitting headache. Weird. I fully intended to make it a regular practice, but lacked the self-discipline and gave up within a couple of weeks. However the memory lingered and I was keen to include meditation as one of my challenges.

The type I'm particularly aware of, having done some work as a fundraiser in the area of complementary medicine and breast cancer, is mindfulness meditation. Its benefits are potentially wide-ranging and I like the idea of learning to focus on the present, rather than fretting about the past or worrying about the future.

Looking at options of what was available locally, I noticed that an easily accessible adult education college had a 5 week course on mindfulness meditation, with an hour and a half every Monday evening. I signed up and started in June.

The first session was frankly disappointing, partly because it was far too crowded. The previous course members had lost their last session because of the bank holiday so it had been decided that they should join ours. It was an unsatisfactory solution to a clearly foreseeable event (as you can see, I have a long way to go with learning to be non-judgmental).

The tutor radiated calm and composure, which was encouraging, but English is not her first language and I found it difficult at times to understand what she meant when she was trying to explain metaphysical concepts. The same difficulty applied to her written handouts, eg "He universe will always won't to help and your duty to yourself is to have an incredible capacity for self observation and course correction in real time observing and listening while in stillness are keys".

I also bristled when I read "Our power is so strong that whatever we believe comes true". Oh really? So if someone with cancer believes they don't have it, it will disappear? To be fair, she may have been thinking more in terms of having the power to choose how we react to events, and how we think and feel, which makes a huge difference to the impact they have on us. Choosing to be positive, accepting and calm rather than negative, sad and angry - and making that a habit - can be life-changing. If we could all consistently do that, the world would be a much better place, but it still wouldn't mean that whatever we believe would come true.

Possibly due to my hackles rising, I found that my neck and back started hurting fairly soon after the meditation began. As the tutor gently intoned "Your shoulders are smiling. The back of your collar bone is smiling", I was thinking that this really wasn't for me. However my challenge as stated refers to taking part in a course, so I resigned myself to four more weeks of this.

Fortunately the second session was a significant improvement on the first. Simply having some flowers in a water bottle on the floor helped to create a calming atmosphere:

With only ten of us in the group, now that the previous course had finished, it was easier to relax. I felt physically more comfortable and more receptive mentally to ideas about the importance of showing compassion and kindness to oneself and others. As the tutor talked about being non-judgmental, I noticed that one of the participants who had seemed rather spiky the previous week was now visibly more at ease and had an engaging sense of humour. I liked her more and more each week and realised I had been far too quick to view her as someone I was unlikely to get on with. It was just that she had had a particularly difficult time at work and at home during the first week, was irritated by the overcrowding and felt even less inclined to open up than most of us did. Being less judgmental was something I really needed to embrace and practise.

At a rather gruelling three hour session at the dental hospital a couple of days later, I tried using the breathing and relaxation techniques, and found them very helpful. The effect vanished once the pain kicked in, but the rest of the time I was able to drift along and was almost dozing at one point, which - for me, at any rate - was remarkable.

The third week marked a further improvement, as we were beginning to gel as a group. With only 8 of us there, we had just enough space to use mats on the floor and lie down for one of the two meditations. I didn't find that very comfortable - probably not helped by having wolfed down a roll and an indulgent tiffin bar half an hour earlier for dinner - but I enjoyed the sensation of allowing the floor to support my entire weight. It was interesting how that impression, gently intoned by the tutor, gave a feeling of safety and being nurtured.

Unfortunately things went pear-shaped in the penultimate session. It had been a very difficult week and I was hoping that the guided meditation would help me to put some distance between me and my worries - acknowledging they existed, but no longer feeling rather overwhelmed by them. Instead the first half hour or so was spent listening to a few in the group discussing politics (mainly Brexit and Trump). I was surprised the tutor didn't try to move the discussion on but as a non-UK European she was perhaps interested in hearing their views. Eventually she suggested that if people were more compassionate and less quick to criticise politicians, they would feel less harassed and defensive, and the outcome would be better for everyone. Initially that seemed unlikely with someone like Trump, but it's an interesting idea.

The conversation then drifted towards the experience of intense grief and how it had affected us at the time and since. It was the last thing I felt like discussing and I found myself thinking "Beam me up". One person recalled a very poignant experience and how she had felt as though she was holding her grieving friend's soul in her cupped hands, beating gently like a butterfly. She was clearly sincere but the image grated with me as being too airy-fairy, and my longing to leave intensified.

At last we began the guided meditation but for me it was an unlucky choice of subject. We were asked to visualise a rucksack, into which we packed unhappy and troubling memories of times when we felt we had let someone down, and not been kind or compassionate, or when someone else had been like that to us. Once the rucksack felt really heavy, we should imagine helium balloons attaching themselves and wafting it up and far away. By the time the meditation ended I was still busy packing, immersed in misery that I would far rather have left in the past. It was lovely, though, as I opened my eyes and saw how a number of the others in the group were looking so much more relaxed and assured.

The final week was a definite improvement, steering clear of issues that were too emotionally troubling to be appropriately dealt with in that environment and focusing instead on a long, deep meditation. I still couldn't subscribe to the advice that we should lean against trees to absorb their energy, and the phrase "it has been scientifically proven that" continued to make me twitch with scepticism, but I certainly found the meditation and the breathing techniques helpful. So too was the gentle insistence on being kind both to oneself and to others.

For the future, I think it would be worth making the effort to practise meditation - for a few minutes each day - and also to see whether there are any useful videos on YouTube. I watched one that had been recommended and found it unappealing, with its tone of rather smug evangelism by the US businessman and owner of the brand. Between that and the tree-hugging type, and given the many hundreds available, there should be some that are just what I'm after. If I can become less judgmental, I shouldn't have a problem finding them.

Task 42: Make and paint a papier mache bowl

2017-07-06T09:25:00.000+01:00

The only attempt I ever made to create something out of papier mache was when I was about eight years old, using instructions from a book that had been handed down by my brother. I think it was supposed to be something like a model railway tunnel, but it bore so little resemblance to anything recognisable that it went straight in the bin. More recently I've become aware of the potential of this medium and it seemed natural to include it as one of my challenges - though with the aim of making something more attractive than a Hornby could-have-been.

I started by searching Ham library for a book that would provide idiot-proof instructions. Surprisingly I found only one that even mentioned papier mache, and as it involved cutting and interweaving layers of precise triangles of coloured card, I wasn't optimistic. The fact that I renewed the loan 3 times without tackling the project didn't bode well.

Maybe the solution lay in YouTube videos? I watched a number and felt rather dispirited that they were mostly aimed at the toddler+ age group, and even so looked rather difficult. There seemed to be a key choice of method: either soak a mass of paper strips in flour and water (or switch the flour for wallpaper paste, which I didn't have) and squeeze the water out until you had a massive clump to mould into shape; or take each strip of paper and quickly soak it in flour and water, sweep off the excess gloop with your fingers and lay it across whatever you were using as your mould. The second option seemed likely to produce a less lumpen end product, so I plumped for that.

Having prepared my strips of paper - twice, as I reckoned the first batch was too wide - I needed to find a suitable bowl to use as a mould. I'd thought that would be easy, but it wasn't. Most had either a pronounced lip or feet on the base, which I doubted would translate well once covered in gooey paper. Eventually I found a plain metal one, together with an old plastic bowl for mixing the flour and water. I covered the metal bowl in cling film to make it easier in due course to free it from the papier mache, put it over a glass to keep the rim clear of the table, set the most appropriate YouTube video going, and I was ready to start:

The first strip of paper went on easily, although it became harder to keep it all smooth and wrinkle-free as I tried to cover the whole surface while using unbroken long strips:

Eventually I completed the first layer. As you can see, it wasn't exactly a thing of beauty:

According to the video, it had to dry out completely, over several days if necessary, before I could add another layer - and it would need at least 4 layers. Another video said the papier mache should be about 1cm thick but I decided I didn't need or want such a chunky bowl, and anyway at the rate I was going, that would take months. Luckily the weather was hot and I was working upstairs, so it only took a couple of weeks to finish this stage:

It was now ready to be trimmed and eased off the metal bowl:

Removing it from the bowl was a bit fiddly, as the cling film - which I'd hope to use to pull it off - tore as soon as I applied any force. I gingerly used a plastic palette knife, working it around the rim, and suddenly it came free. I rather liked my new bowl in its raw state and it almost seemed a pity to paint it, but that was a requirement of the challenge so it had to be done:

Originally I'd intended to paint it as the open face of a sliced orange or possibly a watermelon, but I decided that was likely to look too bright and garish. I wanted either the effect of waves pitching and swirling, or something delicate. Fortunately with acrylic paint you can always go over it again, so having done a base coat of white to hide the print, I tried painting the inside as a rolling, tossing sea with blues and white. I found it very difficult to achieve that effect within a bowl shape, and I'd already decided - because the bowl was quite shallow - that I wanted the main impact to be on the inside rather than the outside. Perhaps a delicate look would be better?

After a lot of re-working to produce a soft, calm and paler image, it was an improvement overall but was too bland and dull. It needed something to lift it and I remembered I had some silver paint I'd never used before. It's not exactly as I'd like, but for a first attempt I'm reasonably happy with it:

Making something out of papier mache takes much longer than I'd expected, particularly using the layering method, but it's an absorbing process and I love the idea of creating a potentially useful and attractive object out of old newspaper, flour and water. I plan to try it again, maybe using a larger bowl as a mould so that I have more options when it comes to the painting. I'd also like to have a go at using decoupage and varnish rather than painting, using attractive old stamps, bits of maps, etc. A whole new hobby could be opening up....