Task 47: Make a beaded necklace and wear it for 60 days

As I'm sure you'll know by now, during the process of developing my sixtyat60 list I invited friends and family to contribute ideas, to ensure that the tasks pushed me outside my comfort zone and were as rich and varied as possible. When it was my friend Jenny's turn to cast an eye over the list, she quickly spotted a lack of creative activities (just as my potter friend Jane had done) and decided this must be rectified..... 

Two of Jenny's creative interests are drawing pet animals (see her lovely pictures of Alfie and Mabel below) and making beaded jewellery. Thankfully she didn't suggest drawing (at best my art could be described as primitive) and instead proposed a session of necklace-making. I thought this sounded a grand idea and then in a moment of mini-madness, I upped the stakes by declaring that I would wear the necklace for 60 days. 

Last Thursday I arrived at Jenny's house hot-wired for an afternoon of creative craft. I bore with me a tray of lime drizzle rasberry slices for the following reasons: 

1.  to show my gratitude to Jenny for helping me with Task 47 

2.  to test out the formula that I'd developed when I did my pot throwing task with Jane. Just to refresh your memory (and mine)......

                           Fun + (Frustration x Fear of Failure) x Friend + Food = Fulfillment

I walked into Jenny's dining room and there in front of me was a table festooned with beads of all shapes, sizes, colours, textures and patterns. 

Wow.....it instantly dawned on me what a mega-challenge I'd taken on. There was so much choice!!  And I had to come up with a design that would be appropriate for all occasions, including the festive season. If my finished necklace was a complete dog's dinner, I'd still have to wear it for a whole 60 days. Fear of failure (see formula above) began to creep in.

Jenny and I sat down at the table and I took a deep breath. Jenny placed a bead board (see below) in front of me and very patiently went through the principles of how to create a beaded necklace.  

I knew I wanted to create a simple necklace (Andrew rightly describes my sartorial style as 'understated'). Other than that, I had no idea of what to make.  Jenny handed me the piece of thread. 'Just try a few ideas out' she said. This proved to be very sensible advice. I soon learnt that small beads of very modest appearance when sitting in the hand could look fab when threaded.  Gradually the design of the necklace evolved. 

I found the process of threading the beads very therapeutic. It was exciting to see my embryonic necklace coming to life, and the need to concentrate 100% on what I was doing meant that I couldn't worry about the fact that I hadn't started my Christmas shopping (aargh.....)    

Once I'd completed the threading of the beads on the board, it was time to end the necklace using bead tips and a clasp. That all proved to be quite tricky, especially since my eyesight is far from keen these days. Ooh yes, I could definitely feel some frustration beginning to bubble up.......but Jenny zoomed in to lend a hand and the beads were soon safely anchored and fastened in place.  

And here's the finished article........I'm really rather pleased with it!    

As I began to gather up my things to leave, Jenny looked thoughtful. 'You know' she said, 'It would be rather nice if you had some matching earrings.....' and by the time I'd finished doing up my coat buttons she'd made me a pair - how amazing is that! 

With the necklace duly completed, I'm now wearing it for the 60 day stint. It's been out to dinner, coffee, tea and lunch (please don't get the impression I'm enjoying my retirement or anything), on dog walks, around shops, to a saxophone lesson, and even to a Crystal Palace football match (of course Palace won that day - the necklace clearly brought them luck).  Eight days down - 52 to go.......

A massive thank you to Jenny for a brilliant afternoon of beading.  I really enjoyed the whole experience and the formula developed during pot-throwing with Jane proved to be spot on  - fun....failure....frustration....friend....food......and as the necklace was admired by our supper companions last Saturday evening, I'm pleased to confirm that I definitely felt a whoosh of fulfilment!

I'm doing the sixtyat60challenge to raise funds for Shooting Star Chase children's hospice care. For further information or to make a donation please visit my JustGiving page at  https://www.justgiving.com/sixtyat60challenge/

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Task 31: Visit Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam

l was 14 years old when I first read Anne Frank's diary. I remember being very moved by it - especially so because I was the same age that Anne had been whilst she was writing the diary, and also because she was born just 18 months after my mother, who herself lived through World War II in the English countryside as a young evacuee. 

Twenty years ago I attended a conference in Rotterdam and joined a group of colleagues taking a train to Amsterdam for the afternoon in the hope of visiting Anne Frank's house and museum. However the queue was unusually long that day and we ran out of time, so I returned to Rotterdam disappointed. Nevertheless it remained etched on my mind as an important place to return to one day, and it very quickly found its way onto my sixtyat60 list. 

Since the flight from Gatwick to Amsterdam takes just 45 minutes, Andrew and I decided to visit the Anne Frank museum as a day trip. We boarded the plane at 8am and by 10.30am we were in a electrically-powered taxi gliding silently and smoothly along the uncluttered streets of Amsterdam. Apart from my brief foray 20 years ago, I haven't spent any time in Amsterdam and I hadn't realised what a beautiful city it is - I was transfixed by the quirky and characterful townhouses and the tranquil canals.

 

Outside Anne Frank's house the queue was already stretching around the block - even in December, it seemed that people were drawn from all over the world to hear her story.

 

The museum told Anne's story very clearly and with great sensitivity, beginning with her birth in Germany in 1929 and her family's subsequent move to The Netherlands as their lives became increasingly threatened by anti-Semitic government policies. The next part of her story came to life as we walked through her father's offices and up the steep staircase into the secret annex where the family hid for two years. And then we heard about the family's betrayal by an unknown person and Anne's eventual death from typhus in Bergen-Belsen in March 1945, just before World War II ended.

Anne's diary was of course the lynch-pin of the museum. Anne was given her first diary on her 13th birthday, two months before the family was forced into hiding in Amsterdam. Throughout their time in the secret annex, she continued to write her diary in a number of notebooks. Many of the entries were addressed to her imaginary friend Kitty. Here's a page from her first diary below.

One of the most significant and ultimately tragic items we saw in the house was the bookcase that disguised the entrance to the secret annex - still in place 71 years after the two families were arrested and deported.

An extraordinarily poignant sight in the secret annex was the collection of picture postcards and magazine clippings of film stars that Anne had stuck on the wall in her bedroom to make it look more cheerful.

Anne's father Otto (the only survivor from the two families living together in the secret annex) was given Anne's diary after World War II ended, and having read its contents, made the difficult and courageous decision to publish it. In a 1967 interview he said, 'My conclusion is, since I had been on very good terms with Anne, that most parents don't really know their children'.  I wondered whether this conclusion would be a valid one for today's parents?

Quotes from Anne's diary were displayed throughout the museum. I was struck by Anne's hopeful and optimistic view of the world, especially given the terrifying and restrictive circumstances in which she was living. Here are just a few examples:

' I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart'

'How wonderful it it that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world'

'What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it happening again' 

'Whoever is happy will make others happy too.'

It's wonderful to think that the messages contained in Anne Frank's diary continue to be communicated across the world.  Anne said in her diary 'I want to go on living even after my death'.  And truly she's doing just that.

After leaving Anne Frank's House, Andrew and I didn't want to do anything else other than have a quiet wander along the canals. The sun came out and the city had a gentle buzz about it. We agreed that we must return to Amsterdam soon for a longer trip. We walked towards the station to catch our train. We reached the station and stopped for a moment in absolute amazement in front of a vast mountain of parked bikes with fine old-fashioned handlebars. Eat your heart out Boris.

In summary, it was a memorable trip to Amsterdam, which has given us loads of ideas for further trips to The Netherlands and beyond - and more importantly than that, has enabled us to pause and appreciate the fact that we have the freedom to do so. 

I'm doing the sixtyat60challenge to raise funds for Shooting Star Chase children's hospice care. For further information or to make a donation please visit my JustGiving page at  https://www.justgiving.com/sixtyat60challenge/

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Task 35: Read War and Peace

In my last but one blog, published on Friday 27 November, I shared with you the encouraging news that I had at last immersed myself in War and Peace and was working my way through it like a dose of salts.  The deadline I'd set myself for completing it was Tuesday 1 December......and with 618 pages to go, a serious readathon was required.  

On Saturday morning I headed back to the sofa and picked up the story again. The fortunes of the Rostovs and Bolkonskys continued to ebb and flow (a lot more ebbing than flowing, it has to be said). I was completely absorbed. And then Page 1177 took me by surprise. A certain French commander received a name check. 'Andrew, look, Tolstoy's just mentioned a top level French soldier called Marshall Junot' I said excitedly. Andrew didn't bat an eyelid. 'I've told you about him before,' he said, 'he's that relative of mine who went mad at the end of the Napoleonic wars and used to march up and down the streets of Paris wearing nothing but his sword and epaulettes.' I always knew I'd married into a noble but eccentric line.  

One final war, invasion and subsequent retreat from Moscow later, I made it to the epilogue. That was on Monday afternoon. I loved Part 1 of the epilogue. All my favourite characters had survived to make an appearance and there were some relatively optimistic plot line endings - much more upbeat than East Enders.  Part 2 of the epilogue was a different matter. It contained a 41-page in-depth analysis of the Napoleonic wars..... I skim-read it dutifully for Tolstoy's sake (he'd obviously worked very hard on it) but I rather wished he'd wrapped things up 41 pages earlier. 

On Tuesday 1 December, at 5.15pm, I finally reached the end of Tolstoy's epic tome. By coincidence, The Times featured an article on War and Peace that day to highlight the forthcoming TV series. The author of the article, Professor John Sutherland, expressed the view that because W&P is so long no one has actually read it, describing it as 'the Everest of unread fiction'. Well excuse me!!   Although as I read through his very entertaining Cheat's Guide to War and Peace, I found myself from time to time questioning the accuracy of his synopsis, which begs the question - has Prof Sutherland himself ever read it.....?

My copy of War and Peace is now filed away in the bookcase. That's thirty tasks duly completed at the halfway mark of my challenge - just another thirty to go!  

So now it's time to move the focus of my fund-raising from the older end of the age spectrum to the younger end. For the second part of the challenge my chosen charity is Shooting Star Chase, a leading children's hospice charity caring for babies, children and young people, based in Guildford and Hampton. I've set up a new JustGiving page dedicated to Shooting Star Chase, which is at: https://www.justgiving.com/sixtyat60challenge   

If you visit the new page you'll find it features a gorgeous little girl, Thea Rose Redford, who is the inspiration behind my decision to raise money for Shooting Star Chase. It'll be my pleasure to write a more detailed post about her in my blog very soon.

Always remembering Thea: 2012 -2013

  

Task 6: Go ice-skating at Somerset House in London

As you'll know only too well if you've been following my blog over the last six months, some of my tasks have gone swimmingly, some have encountered the odd mishap and a few have proved to be ever so slightly calamitous (my trip to Stockholm to meet Anna Ternheim springs to mind).  Prepare yourself dear reader - this task definitely falls into the third category....... 

Allow me to just set the context for you. As a 10-11 year old, an absolute favourite holiday treat of mine was to be taken on the train to London to visit Queens Ice Club for a day of ice-skating. I owned my own pair of white leather ice-skates and I wore a little skating skirt. I could skate backwards and dance a basic foxtrot. I even started doing very short spins. The best part was that my mother always let me take a friend or I would accompany a friend and her mother. When we weren't fearlessly whizzing round the rink, we'd be having snaps taken in the photo booth (cutting edge technology in those days) or we'd be in the cafe eating massive ice cream sundaes.  Two of my special ice-skating buddies were Louise and Annabel, with whom I first became friends at Miss Day's nursery school when we were four years old. I can't find any photos of the three of us at Queens, but here we are as 10-year olds singing at a concert organised by our ballet teacher (Annabel and I are standing first and second left and Louise is standing first right).  

My ice-skating obsession gradually faded as I moved into my teens, but from time to time in adulthood I've found myself hankering to have another spin on the ice. Hence ice-skating at Somerset House was an instant candidate for my sixtyat60 list. 

Fifty years on, Louise and Annabel are my oldest friends and the three of us meet up for annual extended lunches (no ice cream sundaes these days but we still take photos of ourselves). When these two stalwarts heard about my sixtyat60 challenge, they decided to nominate themselves as companions on one of my tasks, and it didn't take long to alight on ice-skating at Somerset House as a very fitting one. I booked three slots for us to attend a twilight session last Saturday and we prepared to roll back 50 years to those halcyon days at Queens Club.

And so it was that after a sustaining lunch at a restaurant off the Strand and as dusk was upon us, the three of us set out for Somerset House. At the rink, things were very well organised. We put on our hire skates and prepared to go onto the ice, along with about 100 other people of various ages, shapes and sizes. 

 

The gates opened and whoosh - everyone took to the ice.  Any thoughts we might have had about holding onto the barrier for a few circuits were out of the window as at least 90% of our skating companions had the same idea. So we wobbled our way gingerly around the rink and gradually each of us began to regain a smidgeon of that balance, flow and confidence we had enjoyed as 10 year olds.  After about 40 minutes, we were well into the zone. I mean just look at Annabel and Louise - Torvill and Dean or what?

A team of marshalls were patrolling the ice and we got one of them to take some photos of us in the middle of the rink (yes, we were that brave!), against the backdrop of a twinkling Christmas tree.  It all felt very festive. 

Isn't this all fab! You must be wondering why I seemed to be inferring otherwise at the beginning of this post? 

Our session was an hour long. We paused briefly after 50 minutes of skating - 'This is brilliant' we said to one another, 'It's so much fun!' Then just 5 minutes later, in the twinkling of an eye, Annabel slipped and fell (rather gracefully I should add).  And so now the story changes tack......  

Poor Annabel was experiencing a lot of pain in her left wrist, and started to feel very faint. Then she did faint. The marshalls were summoned, emergency procedures were actioned, a wheelchair was whisked across the ice and she was taken pronto to the on-site medical room for an initial examination, whilst Louise and I hovered in the background like a pair of extremely concerned and anxious parents. It was clear to all that Annabel's wrist wasn't looking as it should. Next thing we were in a taxi hurtling towards St Thomas's A&E Department, where x-rays revealed a Colles fracture (a very common injury in old girls like us).  Annabel insisted on us taking photos to document the story properly. Here we are trying to look chipper as Annabel awaits the arrival of a medic.

 

Annabel was wonderfully stoic throughout the entire episode, both in terms of putting up with various procedures (she was a brave soldier that evening I can tell you) and the potential implications for her work as a textiles conservation/restoration expert (not to mention her 60th birthday celebrations this week!!) Surgery lies ahead followed by many weeks with an incapacitated left wrist. 

How on earth do I sum up Task 6?  Bringing disaster upon myself during the course of doing a task goes with the territory but it feels very different and so upsetting when a much loved friend comes a cropper. I decided the best thing to do in this situation was to ask Annabel for her thoughts on it all and this is what she says:  

I couldn't have asked for 2 more caring companions, either in the fun bit of skating, which was spectacular, or in the aftermath, equally spectacular in its own way.  

We missed the hot chocolate at the pop-up Fortnum & Mason cafe, to which we were going to treat ourselves afterwards, but luckily we had had a tasty and sustaining lunch. 

You know who true friends are when the going gets tough, and Vivien & Louise proved to be just that. Although we generally only see each other on an annual basis, the extra time we spent together that Saturday night, proved what a strong sisterhood we are, and I couldn't think of better friends to join me in A&E. And Vivien's medical knowledge was an added bonus.

We all decided to join in with the skating task as consenting adults, and it will still be one of the highlights of my 60th birthday celebrations, as there cant be many groups of friends who can come together after knowing each other for 56 years, and still have such a ball.

So thank you Vivien for organising it, and I'll look forward to the punting next year!

And PS I'll bring my own life jacket!

I agree totally with Annabel that the unexpected consequences of Task 6 highlighted the quality and strength of our 56 year friendship - we shifted seamlessly over the course of the day from fantastic fun/enjoyment to support/deep concern, with a sprinkling of shared black humour, and that's something to really celebrate. So a huge heartfelt thank you and a big hug to my Miss Day sisterhood for a very memorable day on many levels.

As Annabel says, there's talk of the three of us doing the punting expedition to Granchester (Task 52) next spring. Good idea to bring your own life jacket Annie - and do you know what? I think perhaps we'll let someone else do the punting....

    

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Task 34: Make crab apple jelly and eat it with bread made in Task 33

Did you just have a Groundhog Day moment when you saw the title of this post?  Perhaps I'd better do a quick recap on Task 33 (which I've already completed) and Task 34 (which has been on the back burner):

Task 33: In September, my older brother David gave me a fabuloso masterclass on bread-baking and jam-making in his contemporary high-tech high-spec kitchen and I wrote the jam labels/scoffed everything. Easy peasy. 

Task 34: I am required to replicate David's efforts in my 15th century low-tech shamefully low-spec kitchen, having had one complete failure at bread-baking 38 years ago and being a complete novice at jam-making. Humiliation beckons.
  
So how did I get on with Task 34? Let's start with the crab apple jelly.......

Eighteen months ago we planted three crab apple trees in our garden, along with a beautiful flowering cherry, in memory of one of my oldest and dearest friends Sue.  Earlier this year, I was sitting at my desk looking out over the garden and trying to decide what type of jam to make for Task 34. My eyes alighted on the crab apple trees. Could they......would they.....produce enough fruit in their second year with us to be able to make a batch of crab apple jelly? I decided it was worth a shot, even if I could only eke out a single jar of jelly. And the gamble paid off - come early October just look at the volume of fruit they produced!  I picked more than 4kg of apples, which I think is an impressive harvest for 3 baby trees. Sue was a very gifted gardener and I feel sure she was working her magic on them over the summer.

With the crab apples harvested, the next step was to jellify them. Here they are simmering away nicely in the pan on my aged Aga.

I left the juice to drain through a Heath Robinson-like jelly bag contraption overnight. Thank you for that tip Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.  Next step?  'Boil the syrup until it reaches 106c on your jam thermometer,' said Hugh. I followed his advice to the letter, poured the syrup into 4 jars and oh my word.....it set immediately! 

The four jars of jelly sat on the dresser for 6 weeks, waiting patiently for that big moment of having their contents spread thickly over a piece of chunky home-made bread. Last Friday I decided it was time to confront my fear of failure and get baking. Out came David's recipe for a classic white loaf - and the master baker himself was on standby to provide me with remote support by email or phone if required.

David suggested putting the bread dough on top of the Aga for the first dough proving.  Well..........!!!  In contrast with that first attempt of mine when a sad-looking lump of dough remained on strike in my airing cupboard for 2 hours, this time it went completely crazy and doubled its size in half an hour. I was too amazed to remember to take a photo. I knocked the air out of the dough as David had instructed me and placed it in a bread tin. It clearly hadn't taken offence at the rough treatment because it blew up like a balloon again. Into a very hot oven it went. The Aga worked its socks off - and here's the result 30 minutes later. 'Beeeauuutiful' as Paul Hollywood would say. 

  

I laid the table in preparation for the all-important Tasting.  Do please note the containers I used for the crab apple jelly and butter - I'm proud to say they're the pots I made with Jane back in August, which Jane has since baked and glazed for me (photo on right shows the complete set - such a beautiful finish, thank you Jane!) 

  

Now for the million dollar question - was the lightly toasted bread spread liberally with crab apply jelly actually edible? I think the best person to tell us that is Andrew. 

 

His verdict? 'Wonderful!'  That's very kind of you Andrew. Except that he's already worked out the savings that can be made over a year if we don't have to buy ready-made bread and jam any longer - I have a nasty feeling that the success of Task 34 may have just backfired on me......

A big thank you to David and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for collaboratively guiding me through my first jam/jelly making session ever (I really must buy one of Hugh's recipe books as a gesture of gratitude) and to David for giving me the inspiration and confidence to have another go at bread-baking - I promise I won't leave it 38 years until my next attempt.

I'm doing the sixtyat60challenge to raise funds for Alzheimer's Research UK. For further information or to make a donation please visit my JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/Vivien-Hunot  

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