#30 list

If I’m honest this one kind of crept up on me without me realising it. I had always planned on doing this on holiday and sleeping on the beach under the stars. You know, the classic cheesy Hollywood moment. But we have actually had some sun for once in England, so we decided to have a spare of the moment camping trip down in Abersoch. So we headed down on the Saturday morning we set ourselves up and then did the usual camping stuff we had BBQ’s, played football, drank cider and sat round the fire.

Then it dawned on me why not sleep under the stars tonight. The weather was good, the stars were out and the drinks had been flowing. So I grabbed my sleeping bag, moved some firewood next to me so I could keep the fire going if I woke up cold and used my backpack as a pillow. To be fair I did have a good night’s sleep I didn’t wake up once due to the cold but I did get woken earlier than I had planned by some very loud cows which were in the field next to me.

No. 17 - Sleep under the stars. Done

So I've been working on my cooking & cocktail making skills and I've got to say I have enjoyed doing it. Safe to say It has not been all peachy along the way from ridiculously slimy spicy chicken tagliatelle  to horrendously soggy shredded chicken nachos, there has been some truly terrible culinary experiences I've put my victims through. And that's not even mentioning a the Bee's Kiss cocktail that was thicker than custard and some Knock-out strength pumpkin pie shots.

In possibly embarrassing speed I have now completed my IMDB film list. I set out to watch 150 of the top 250 films of all time, and that's what I did. I completed it a lot quicker than I thought I was going to. For a few months I was watching a good 3-4 films a week and made very quick progress through it. 

When I picked my films for the the list I must be honest I vetoed a lot of the much older films. This may have been missing the point slightly but some of them really just didn't appeal to me at all. Saying that I watched some films which I didn't expect to like but did quite enjoy. Final film on the list I watched was Silver Linings Playbook. (Hence its inclusion on the pictures) 

I've learned a couple of things from this list though. 

- Westerns are really not my thing, I've had to watch a fair few now and I've enjoyed none of them.

- Hitchcock is the man.

- The classics aren't always classic. There were "Classics" on the list which I really didn't like Scarface and Taxi driver.

- Monty Python just isn't funny

Done. This might have been the hardest thing I have ever done. I Finished it in 2:04:32, by no means a great time but its a lot better than I thought it was going to be before hand.

I signed up for the Liverpool Half Marathon in November with 2 mates. I started with the best intentions I had a proper running schedule and bought all the proper running clothes and trainers, but training never really got going. First the start was delayed by my snowboarding trip so I only started just over 2 months before the race. Then when I got back and tried to start training but we had terrible weather and it was snowing and icy and freezing so it kept getting in the way. Then I kept on picking up injuries in football and had other commitments and we went on holiday a week before the race and well it training never really went to plan. So in the end my longest run before the race was only a very slow 8.50 miles.

But enough of excuses. On the day as you might imagine I wasn't feeling massively confident, leading up to the race i was aiming for a sub 2:00:00 time but it I knew that was very ambitious so I would just settle for finishing. Whilst i was on the first few miles i felt ok but by the time i'd got to mile 6 i was already feel a bit tired. But I kept on going and just trying to distract myself from what I was actually doing. It was when I got down to the prom that I really started to feel it with just 3 miles to go. The last two miles were so painful, my legs and toes kept cramping up making it really difficult to try and build up any speed. I managed to get to a sprint for the last about 0.25 miles when everyone was on either side of you applauding.

Okay so I've got a couple more updates and amendments. First off the list items in progress, I just got my results for my most recent chartered exam which I passed. So that’s another exam down 8 to go. Also I'm currently in training for my half marathon which is on the 17th March. I'm really far behind on my training and really need to step up, I don’t think I'm going to be able to make it with such little training so I might have to postpone, which really wouldn't be good. On a lighter side I only have 20 films left on my list, so that should be done soon.