40before40

It's no surprise to me that this made the list - I've always had a bit of a thing about space (continuing my interest in topics that usually appeal to 8-year old boys!) I think for children of our generation it seemed that space was still the ultimate frontier. My childhood was punctuated by news reports of cosmic happenings and brave astronauts, continuing the extraordinary path of exploration that was pioneered by the likes of Gagarin and Aldrin. I remember being ushered out into the garden at night to see Halley's Comet, looking for shooting stars and gathering in the school hall only to be horrified by the explosion that destroyed the Challenger rocket. In more recent years I've become fascinated by the Apollo missions and haunted by images of the original moon landings, not least thanks to this rather brilliant book by Andrew Smith. It is beyond my understanding that any of our fellow human beings dare to propel themselves into space on the back of a roaring mass of fuel, much less live there on the ISS. What bravery!

Bringing us back down to earth for a minute, I recognise that I don't have a shred of the daring required to ever make my own journey to space, so #20 for me was a way of taking my interest in space to the next level without risking my life in the process. Stargazing at an observatory sounds ridiculously tame in comparison to making the journey in real life. #20 is also a brilliant example of the ways that I believe this list has guided and changed my life over the past 11 months. I couldn't believe my luck when I realised that my trip to New Zealand could include a visit to a Dark Night Sky reserve at Lake Tekapo - a protected site and one of the 5 best places to view stars in the world. The lake itself is bright turquoise thanks to galcial deposits on its bed:

Mount John sits next to the lake basin and the observatory on its peak is a well established scientific research facility. This means that there's no light pollution on the summit. The bus taking us up there drives the last few meters of the road without headlights (definitely not dodgy at all) and we're all issued with red light key rings to help us see where we're going. In the end, we don't need them at all. One of the greatest surprises about the trip for me is how bright the moon and starlight is once your eyes are accustomed to the dark. Our guides from Earth & Sky, a brilliant bunch of astronomy geeks, plug co-ordinates into a series of telescopes and share their enthusiasm for the night sky of the Southern Hemisphere. We get close up with the craters of the moon which, at a mere 380,000km away is almost painfully bright through the telescope. We learn how to navigate from the Southern Cross. We head into one of the observatory domes and are lucky enough to see Jupiter, with 4 of its moons alongside it. It still looks small - but seeing a planet beats any expectations that I had of an observatory visit. They're where this interest started for me, after all. Without a doubt, the highlight was looking at one of the clusters of stars called the Diamond cluster - hundreds of thousands of light years away - and, in that moment, seeing a shooting star pass across the sky. A miraculous star far out in space and seen only by me. I make a wish and thank my lucky stars that I was able to find somewhere so wonderful to do #20.

The next day I hiked up to the observatory to see views that weren’t available to us at night - and wanted to share some of these wonderfully moody landscapes too. Lake Tekapo and Mount John are truly special places. Go and explore them yourselves!

I have never been an athlete. In fact, I have never liked any form of sport.

I have been scarred for life by memories of being last to be picked for school sports teams at primary school. By secondary school I was merrily getting my own back, by turning skiving sport into a sport in its own right. I wasn’t brought up to do sport and, in all my years growing up, I have never made sport a habit. More than that, I had convinced myself over the years that it was something I was bad at - and who wants to do something they’re bad at? Exactly.

And yet somewhere, in the recesses of my mind, I do remember the odd occasion when I was capable. If not a winner, then at the very least semi-proficient. My mother reminds me of a cross country running race that I came 5th in when I was thirteen - but by the year after that I’m afraid my teenage self had fully embraced misbehaviour and I came more like 112th. I wrote my sketchy relationship with sport off, believing it couldn’t do me any good.

I have always secretly envied my friends who have a ‘can do’ attitude to sport. I’m usually energetic and pragmatic - but the years of not believing that sport was for me have always stopped me applying these qualities to making a commitment to regular exercise. This is the backdrop for the challenge I set myself in #8. Whilst I realise that running a 10k isn’t an enormous achievement, for me it meant committing to exercise in a way that I’d never done before. 

I started as I usually do with matters of such grave import - by shopping. I researched running shoes, I went and had my gait analysed at Nike Town, I got over-excited and spent vast amounts of money in Sweaty Betty. I was LOVING sport. The recent sportswear/fashion trend plus my inherent love of neon took its toll. Before long I realised that I had to do something to justify all of this activity... some ACTUAL activity.

Crap.

Not quite yet, I thought, as I procrastinated by making myself ‘cardio’ Spotify playlists, by plotting routes on Map My Run, by telling myself that it was too cold/dark/rainy (delete as appropriate). 

Eventually I got going. I did 4k, then 5k, then 6k. One weekend I even ran 8k, in the company of my friend Alec. I read a book which articulated for me why I cry when I see everyone running the London Marathon each year. As an aside (and while I am not very keen on its title) I would heartily recommend this book to anyone thinking about starting to go running. It makes it seem manageable which, for me, was half the battle. Thanks Alexandra Heminsley!

In May, my friend Jo Taylor encouraged me to book a place on the Sure Run to the Beat 10k. At the time September seemed like a suitably long way away. I was pretty sure the summer would never end. More fool me.

I spent the summer running 5k regularly in the park and streets around Crystal Palace. I felt uplifted by ‘my’ dinosaurs (I realise I sound like an 8-year old boy!) I got faster and stronger. 

It was whilst tackling task #2 on the #40before40 list and visiting Copenhagen with my friend Small that I had a breakthrough. Thanks to her, one fine morning, I ran 7.5k (then we jumped in the harbour to cool off...) Two days later and unashamedly bribed by the promise of kanelsnegeln for breakfast I ran 10k for the first time - in a shade under an hour. Here I am clutching said cinnamon buns and looking delighted, if a bit red:

I spent the rest of my summer capitalising on the adrenalin and energy generated by taking on a new job and enjoying the sunshine, running two or three times a week. I did 10k a couple more times. By the time Sunday 13th September came around, I was ready.

Jo and I headed for Wembley. We enjoyed giggling (perhaps slightly unfairly) at everyone taking limbering up very seriously:

I giggled - and then shouted - when some poor chap burst in on me having a pre-race wee in a portaloo which I forgot to lock. We also giggled (even more unfairly) at the people who had enough technical running gear to tackle an ultra marathon. We half-heartedly joined in with the whooping and aerobics-style warm up which Sure had kindly put on to get everyone ‘in the mood’ while they waited for their wave of runners to start.

And then we were off:

And I genuinely never thought I’d say this, but the run itself was fun. I enjoyed every moment of the streets around Wembley stadium, even the hills and even the last couple of kilometres which took us through a rather unpleasant industrial park. Being overtaken by some dweeb for the final 500m was a bit irritating, especially he’d been walking along but then shoved and sprinted past me just as we approached the spectator path to the finish line. I got over it though. Check me out with my new sportsman-like attitude!

My finishing time: 00:57:09. Not as fast as I might have hoped, but still an achievement. Here we are at the finish line... (quite pleased that we don’t look vastly scarred by the experience vs the start line shot):

The revelation of #8 for me was that I can do sport. I am a runner and I can be the person who I want to be if I just put my trainers on and get out of the house a bit more frequently. 

I have to come clean: when I put seeing the leaning tower of Pisa on my #40before40 list, I did know for sure that a trip to Italy was in the offing this year. A group of us had been unfeasibly well organised and booked what we believed to be the ONLY villa still available in Tuscany this summer way back last year. Oh yes, I thought to myself. I’ll just pop into Pisa, take a comedy photo and nip back home again.  In reality we were a good 1.5 hour drive from Pisa. A drive which felt more like 3 hours in the context of Italy’s ridiculously narrow motorways and totally pazzo drivers.

A decision was made. The way to manage Pisa was simply to get up aggressively early one morning and make the pilgrimage. Luckily for me one of my besties (and the other half of Chattie) was ready to sacrifice a holiday lie in and come along for the ride. 

We made it to Pisa by 9.30 in the morning and, rather pleased with our efforts, set off into the Piazza dei Miracoli. Our first glimpse of Pisa - a rather lovely gate:

As we walked through the arch and into the Piazza, I had to admit that I did a little skip of excitement! I don’t know how anybody could fail to be delighted to see a building of such legendary status. What I hadn’t realised was how beautiful the whole Piazza is, or that the tower itself is part of this collection of medieval religious buidings. I’d also like to take a moment to point out how miserable lots of the reviews written about the tower are. Alright it’s not massive, but it does definitely lean. I’m a bit fed up of guide books being unnecessarily critical of national monuments (ref. The little mermaid in Copenhagen - read about that here.)

Here we are, happy to have made it without dying on the Italian motorway and very pleased to see the Torre Pendente for the first time:

Before long we joined the ranks of other idiot tourists desperately vying to take the most realistic picture, making the most of the slant (that’s 3.9 degrees off the vertical, fact fans!) 

Those of you who know me IRL will remember how much I love a perspective joke. Il Torre Pendente, then is a gift. Undeterred by my lack of originality and after a few fairly rubbish attempts, we managed to capture this little gem. Look how pleased I am:

CASUAL.

We pottered out into the rest of Pisa, venturing behind the Piazza to find some breakfast. I think it’s fair to say that the Piazza was the hlghlight of our Pisa visit - the rest of the city seems to be fairly graffiti-ridden and just felt a bit ‘edgy’, but not in a good way. 

Pisa - done! And all by 11.30 in the morning. With so much of the day left to us, we decided to head on to Lucca for lunch. I’m so glad that we did.

Lucca is a walled city about 10 miles from Pisa and it delivers perfectly on the Italian Renaissance dream. We wandered around in the sunshine, visited the Cattedrale di San Martino and eventually headed for pizza (what else?) in the searing heat of the Piazza Anfiteatro - an unusual oval piazza on the site of Lucca’s original Roman amphitheatre.

Mosaics on a church wall:

Love the old school Italian shop fronts:

This summer I’ve been lucky enough to go on a few holidays - and have some other crazy things happen in between them. The timing of a week in villa high in the Tuscan hills couldn’t have been better - and with it some quality time with a group of great friends.

Equidistant from Florence, Arezzo and Siena, we found ourselves waking up each morning to an awesome view. 

Visible through the gaps in the olive grove down the slopes from the villa, it’s this view which accompanied our hot tub experience, elevating it from a bit of a luxury cliche to something unique. 

One sunny evening we donned our finest swimwear, cracked open a couple of bottles of champagne, squished all 5 of our gang into the hot tub (ha!), sat back and basked in our position high in the Tuscan hills. 

Swimming in Hampstead Ponds is a really good example of why I put the #40before40 list together. It’s one of those things that I’ve always loved the idea of and wanted to do, but never got my act together.

So it was one moderately sunny morning that I found myself wandering across Hampstead Heath in search of the mixed bathing pond. Summer holidays in full swing meant that the world felt mercifully quiet. I can only assume that Hampstead’s inhabitants had mostly left the city for somewhere in the South of France. I nodded hello at the odd dog walker, a spring in my step and a friend by my side, full of excitement about tackling another task on the #40before40 list.

The mixed bathing pond itself sits to one side of the path, so you walk past the far end of it before you curl around to the side of it to find the changing rooms. It looked lovely, but I can’t lie. By this time, I was starting to wonder whether or not I wanted to go swimming in a cold pond on a not-quite-Summer day.

The signage didn’t do much to lift my spirits. ‘Water is untreated, opaque and cold.’ And if that isn’t enough to make you feel that a dip in the ponds is, at best, an eccentric passtime: 'Deep silt’. Nice.

Undeterred, I paid my £3 and went to put on what can only be described as the most middle-aged lady swimming costume that money can buy. It felt only right to go for warmth (courtesy of some rather fetching ruching) over sex appeal. The male couple sunbathing at the side of the pond looked appalled - and rightly so.

It was time. No excuses left to us, we wandered along the jetty that leads out to the pond and made to jump off. One more successfully and rather quicker than the other, I might add. That’s right, reader - I’m ashamed to say that the promise of 'Deep Silt’ meant that I ended up going down the steps into the pond rather than braving a dive in. 

And the outcome? A swim in Hampstead Ponds is a completely lovely experience and one that I’d recommend to anyone. How often is it that you are able to swim amongst the trees with dragonflies darting to and fro? Even less so close to central London. I urge you to give it a try. 

So what about that moon? Well, I wandered down to the ladies bathing pond to see what it was like (gorgeous!) only to be greeted by the sight of a rather fulsome naked bottom. Chortling to myself, I headed back to the main path and a walk up to Kenwood House. #3 - done!

(Note: selfie purposefully cut off at the neck to avoid sharing the swimming costume of doom.)

For my 39th, way back in March now (I’ve really got to get on with this list!) my friend Jo very kindly bought tickets for us to go and see Matthew Bourne’s ‘The Car Man’ at Sadler’s Wells. Excited at the prospect of ticking off new experience #21 on the list, Jo and I met up for a quick dinner before heading to the theatre. 

First seen in 2000, The Car Man is one of Bourne’s company’s most requested shows and is enjoying a revival in Bromley (not so glam!) and Sadler’s Wells this Summer. It’s based on the Bizet opera, Carmen, so the score is instantly familiar. Less so the staging. Carmen always conjures up the idea of a crazy Hispanic chick with fruit improbably balanced on her head. Not so.

The stage set is urban, gritty, full of (dare I really say this?)... cars. It’s a little bit Grease, a little bit West Side Story, a little bit Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. Lots to love.

The show opens with the full cast on stage and a billboard welcoming you to ‘HARMONY’ - a small town context, cleverly set so that it can be broken apart and put back together. It’s the feeling of a small community, intense personal relationships, frustration and heat which creates such a powerful environment for the action to unfold in.

If you are familiar with Carmen then you’ll have an inkling of the story already. If you’re not, I don’t want to risk spoiling this show for you, so I’ll stop there. 

If you want to get a flavour for it, I’d heartily recommend checking out the trailer video:

Watching the dancers do their stuff, I found myself wondering how they manage to recreate the production so faithfully years after its first performance. How is the dancing, which seems so freeform and instinctive, noted down so that someone else can follow it at a later date? What freedom do the dancers really have to play out the emotions as an actor would? 

All questions which sadly failed to be answered in the bonus Q&A after the show, which saw Matthew Bourne himself and four of the principle performers take on audience questions. The most interesting fact we learned was that the principal playing Luca (the rather delightful Marcelo Gomes) was only playing the role for the fifth time, which seemed extraordinary given the combination of physical strength, emotion and comedic acting which made his performance so enjoyable.

First things first. It turns out that watching all 3 seasons of 'Forbrydelsen’ (that’s The Killing, to you!) doesn't actually make you fluent at speaking Danish. This is a great disappointment to me. I was pretty sure that knowing the words ‘tack’ and ‘soforlich’ (sp?!) would mean I could converse brilliantly with all the beautiful Danes in Copenhagen. Not true. Instead they mainly looked perplexed as I attempted to throw in some Sarah Lund style looks while ordering wine.

That aside, I am pleased to report that Copenhagen is far from the bleak set of the gritty Scandi crime dramas that we obsess over in the UK. It has all the good bits: a mix of old & modern architecture, interior design to die for, long bridges and glistening seas - just much less death and angst (to the naked eye, at least).

Having decided that Copenhagen would make the cut on the #40before40 list, I was very pleased when my friend Small decided to come with me. We booked ourselves an unusual spot to stay in, in the form of a totally ‘hygge’ houseboat in the South of the city’s canals. Marianna welcomed us with real warmth and shared some top neighbourhood tips, so we already felt like locals when we stepped off the boat and went to procure ourselves some of the finest dutch city bikes that money could buy. 

Look how pleased I am! This continues...

On Wednesday night we treated ourselves to dinner at Koefoed, the sister restaurant to Bornholm - I won’t dwell on this, as you can read all about the exciting new fish that I tried there in my previous post.

Thursday saw us start to explore the city in earnest. Powered along by some not insignificant smugness about how Danish we looked on our massive bikes, Laura and I set out to tick off sight number 1: the mermaid. Lonely Planet rather scathingly describes her as ‘small and underwhelming’. Not so, I tell you! I found it impossible to resist her romantic charm - despite having to dodge a gazillion tourists and take all photos quickly before another enormous sightseeing boat passed behind her. 

I still look pleased. And rightly so - there’s much more to come.

Next up: the Design Museum. Here we learned lots about the beautiful lights by Poul Henningsen that many Danes have cunningly defining hygge spaces in their open plan homes. We saw an exhibition of children’s design through the ages. We even looked at a room full of beautiful chairs. The highlight of this episode: the MASSIVE chair. So brilliant!

Nothing to see here. Just another perspective joke. (So pleased.)

Then more cycling and an attempt to pose with some royal guardsmen in the back of our photos. Then Nyhavn (gorgeous but full of hideous tourists. Oh.) This really is the spot that most people recognise in Copenhagen:

And then some shopping. Royal Copenhagen, for their beautiful crockery and Hay, for some cushions. By now I really want to be Danish. In fact, I probably *am* Danish. I am definitely referring to Copenhagen as Kobenhavn. Surely that’s all the proof you need?

Everyone that we had spoken to about Kobenhavn told us that we simply must visit the Tivoli Gardens, so that was where we headed for the evening. I’ll say up front that it wasn’t my favourite moment of our trip, but it was definitely a great experience. I’ve never been anywhere that better helps the modern world understand the appeal of the ‘pleasure garden’ of days gone by. Tivoli is a wonderful blend of old and new: vintage roller-coasters (yes the Alpine made me feel sick!), open-air comic ballet performances, truly terrifying air-swings, refreshments galore. You get the picture - and yet you SO don’t if you haven’t been there. Small braved a roller coaster in the slightly sinister China Town zone (I held the coats). I made Small sit and drink beer with me. So far, so Tivoli.

Day 2 dawns and Small (who is actually the sportiest person that has ever tolerated me as a friend!) decides that the time is right for a nice long bike ride. She’s not wrong. So it is that we set out to go BEYOND THE MERMAID and cycle the 20km or so to Bellevue Strandbad. Despite my trepidation, it’s actually a really enjoyable bike ride, mostly along a coastal road and past some astonishing houses which I start to fantasise about living in. Bellevue Strand itself is lovely and a great place to get out of the city and hang out on the beach if that’s your kind of thing. From there we board the train, massive bikes in tow, to head to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. 

Put simply, Louisiana is a must-see. Art is displayed in a spacious, beautiful, well-lit space (interior design again!) and the building is set in a sculpture garden with views out to sea. For added amusement, feel free to try to spot the random strangers that I was ‘hiding’ behind the sculpture when I took the photo. 

Dinner that evening - at a restaurant which was probably my favourite place (bar one) of Kobenhavn. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the wonders of Host. I honestly cannot sing this place’s praises highly enough. We ordered a beautiful 3 course Host menu and were given something more like 7 courses, with little surprises in between each beautifully designed and delicious dish that was featured. The staff were friendly, attentive and kind. The open kitchen, quite frankly astonishingly calm and un-sweaty. Don’t these Danes ever get riled?! Here are the surprise scallops... no words.

All this said and done, if you had to ask me for my favourite spot in Kobenhavn, I’d have to say that it was sitting out on the front of the Gea, our houseboat, enjoying a glass of rose during the golden hour of early evening. This spot. This experience. Kobenhavn - I’ll be back.

So, those life lessons? Oh yes:

1. Watching telly is not the same as going somewhere

2. Rose wine is more delicious than I remembered

3. Exercise is actually quite good for you (I know)

As most of you know, I’ve spent the past week in Denmark and the past few days in Copenhagen getting to grips with #2 on the #40before40 list. More of that to follow... What I hadn’t realised was that Denmark, a country with 7,310km of beautiful coastline made up of 406 individual islands, would be the perfect place to eat seafood. I know. Anyway, the surprise benefit of this trip is that I've been able to tick off another #40before40 challenge and have (drumroll) tried a new fish.

So it was that I found myself having dinner at Koefoed with my friend Small, surrounded by beautiful stripped wooden floors, wooden chairs with sheepskins and photography of Bornholm (the location of Koefoed's sister restaurant and a key part of the Danish foodie scene).

Then the opportunity I’d been waiting for - a main course of Turbot, served with a beurre blanc sauce, mini carrots and that crazy Romanesco broccoli. A thing of beauty, despite my photography skills:

As part of my quest to deliver on #26 I joined the ranks of a London based rock choir called Some Voices. It’s the brainchild of the extremely talented Laura Howe, who writes totally fresh arrangements of current and past tunes then teaches them to 3 or 4 evening choirs a week for weeks on end. 

Repertoire is themed each term so that the end of term ‘gigs’ break away from any concerns that I had that we’d be contributing to a slightly lame community choir concert.  

Our Spring term theme included some tracks that were new to me (Hozier - ‘Take me to Church’) and some that were old favourites (The Waterboys - ‘The Whole of the Moon’). I enjoyed the weekly learning process, but had completely under-estimated how much I would love the experience of performing as a member of a 200+ strong choir, accompanied by a professional session band, full lighting, firework cannons.... I could go on.

Video here if you’re interested to see more (I love it, but the sound quality is pretty horrible): 

To be honest, this task on my list has been so easy that the only question I’m asking myself is why it took me to put it on my list to get around to doing it! Ridiculous.

This morning saw Jo Taylor and me catching the Overground up to Shoreditch High Street and walking the short distance to Columbia Road. 

The flowers speak for themselves, really, but it was the patter of the market stall holders and the banter they had with each other and their customers that made me smile even more. All the chat and proper, solid East End accents - it feels as though there is something of the real spirit of London still about this market, despite the street itself being overrun with hipster homewares shops and Monmouth coffee outlets. 

Distracted from the flowers by the rain, we also ducked into Nelly Duff, where I accidentally seem to have bought myself an original lino print. Designed by Chris Bourke, it’s the swallow tattoo that I never had. At least now it can go on my wall.

And they had this utterly hilarious and disconcerting piece, which I couldn’t really imagine living with:

And we wrapped our Sunday morning up with brunch at Laxeiro.

The biggest lesson for me: make Columbia Road a regular haunt. Oh yes, and get up early on Sunday mornings more often!

¢One of the first people to email me with encouragement when I published my list was my lovely friend Victoria Trow. She immediately signed up to join me in my quest to try Korean food for the first time and, despite at least one attempt to meet up which was thwarted by my lack of control over my diary, last week we made it happen. 

The location for this triumph? Kimchee. It’s a Korean restaurant on High Holborn, listed as one of the best places to try Korean food in London. (Apart from New Malden, apparently! Who knew?) 

http://restaurant.kimchee.uk.com/

The other reason I was keen to try Kimchee was that the original encouragement for this particular challenge on my list was borne of a conversation with my lovely Korean beautician. She waxed, both literally and lyrically, about the joys of Korean barbeque and recommended Kimchee as the best place to head on out for a Korean feast with friends. High praise, indeed!

I’m no food photographer (these pictures are the inevitable proof) but I *can* tell you that Kimchee exceeded expectations. We ate kimchee (kind of spicy pickled cabbage - and possibly my new favourite pickle!), smoky pork, beef bibimbap and lots of other delicious things. 

And the evening ended with me forcing Trow to join me in a photo to record the event. The awkward result of this also included for your amusement.

#24 - DONE! Let’s hope the other things on my list are just as delicious.

One of the most brilliant things about publishing my list has been the response that I’ve had from so many of my friends (thank you!) - both in terms of general encouragement and interest and also in terms of offers of help. With this last in mind, I found myself having a chat with my friend Fern today about #30 (be the model at a life drawing class - what do you mean you haven’t memorised my list yet?!)

It turns out that Fern’s an avid life drawer herself and, while neither of us fancy the idea of me being *her* model, she did have some words of wisdom to help me think about tackling this challenge:

- Most good life models are yoga or pilates enthusiasts and the physical strength they have helps them to hold a pose for hours at a time (oh shit!)

- Being a yoga/pilates/mediatation enthusiast also helps good life models zone out mentally for a few hours at a time. I assume that this makes the whole experience less boring (who ever stays still for that long?) but also that it helps them deal with people viewing and discussion their physicality in an objective way during the class. 

- Most people that model in a life drawing class end up looking much better with their clothes off than they did with their clothes on. Contrary to my notes above, this isn’t because they all have amazing yoga bodies, it’s because most people just look more beautiful with their clothes off (the human body is an amazing thing) and also because most artists view the body in a real attempt to appreciate and understand its beauty, rather than in critical analysis. This, my friends, is HUGELY reassuring.

- Doing a life drawing class yourself helps you get a feel for what makes someone a good model to draw...