Task 38:Write a 36-line poem describing my sixtyat60 experiences

I only have myself to blame for this penultimate task in my sixtyat60 challenge. I got a bit carried away. In fact in the first instance I specified that I had to write a 60-line poem. But then it occurred to me that a poem of that length might be extremely tedious for the poor reader to wade through, let alone a bit of a marathon to compose.  So days before the challenge began, I made a last minute decision to reduce the number of lines to 36. Super wise move Hunot.

Of course I wasn't in a position to make a start on the poem until the end of the sixtyat60 challenge was in sight.  With the end finally looming, I slipped into full-on panic mode. Where to start? What angle to take? What sort of scansion? I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed. Then as I was listening to Year of the Cat for the umpteenth time whilst rehearsing for my Saxophone Riff Moment, a cunning plan emerged from the outer reaches of my brain. The Year of the Cat is organised into 7 verses containing 33 lines. That's almost 36 lines. And the title contains the word 'year'. Hmm......

And so it was that I came to shamelessly steal and adapt the lyrics of Al Stewart's great song. In my version of the song I can only describe a small number of the tasks - and I've had to slap on another verse at the end to ensure that I meet the 36-line criterion. But that's poetic licence for you. One word of warning - the scanning of the lines is quite quirky, in line with the original song lyrics...... 


Year of the Tasks
(with sincere apologies to Al Stewart & Peter Wood)

On an evening at the Globe Theatre
In the audience there's not a peep
Actors stroll onto the stage in As You Like It
And Michael falls asleep

She comes past Worthing Pier in her lycra running
And sees Jonathan is waiting there
He drags her by the hand to the finish
With only seconds to spare.

In the year of the tasks  

She doesn't take no for an answer
A lindy hop class is a must
Though they dance without a sense of which direction
It's a YouTube clip or bust 


By the muddy walls in the dairy stalls
With Iris, cows and Moo Man too
Today, she says, I'll squeeze some teats
And watch the milk come running through

The year of the tasks 


She looks at the wall so coolly
Whilst a small heart is tattooed on her hip
Liz comes in and says 'Tell me truly
Will it hurt me, to have a boat on my foot?'

The year of the tasks 



Well morning comes and still no passport
Lucy can't get on the Stockholm flight
She's thrown away the chance to meet Anna Ternheim
It's a really sad plight 



The painful strains of the sax remain
And the dogs still howl loud every day
You know those notes she's bound to mess up
But for now she's going to play
The year of the cat


She's sixty one today and shattered
She's done glamping in the cold night air   
One last blog and she can finally nail the challenge
If she can stay awake to share

In the year of the tasks

 

And that's it guys - with this final blog, Task 38 is also completed and my job is done. Time to put away my laptop and get on with everyday life. But not before saying a huge, sincere and warmer than warm thank you to everyone who's been involved in my sixtyat60 challenge through support, companionship and/or donations over the last year as I've worked my way through my crazy list of tasks.  People have been wonderfully willing, kind, generous, helpful, fun and thoughtful in a myriad of different ways and I'm so so grateful to you all.  My special thanks, love and hugs go to Andrew who not only has been by my side for many of the tasks, but has also proof-read nearly every blog before I publish it. Hope you approve of this one H!

My plan is to send you an update in about 4 weeks' time, when I hope to be able to answer the question that has been on many people's lips recently - 'So what are you going to do with yourself once the challenge is finished.....?!' 

Until then I'll leave you all in peace, with one last gentle reminder that I've been doing the second half of this challenge in memory of a very special little girl, Thea Redford, and that if you had it in mind to make a donation to Shooting Star Chase, the charity that supported Thea's parents Annabel and Rob through many wonderful but challenging times, there's still time to do so at: 

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sixtyat60challenge

Task 46: Glamping at the Hay Festival, Wales

Now if there's one thing I've learnt - and I rather wish I'd learnt it sooner - it's to be a little more flexible in my approach in life. Sticking to rigid rules come what may isn't necessarily a good thing. Like for instance when I said in my last blog that I would be publishing my blog on Task 46 live from the Hay Festival, it seemed a very reasonable idea at the time. However.....oh but I'm jumping the gun again.

Why glamp at a festival in the first place? The finger is firmly pointed at Jonathan this time. 'Any ideas for a task you'd like me to add to the sixtyat60 list?' I asked him breezily at some tube station near Islington in March. As we stood on the platform and he jumped onto the train (we were heading in different directions) he turned round and said 'Attend a festival Mum!' As the doors were closing and memories of being at a muddy, cold and miserable pop festival in my late teens were flashing through my mind, I said 'Only if I can glamp'. 

The original plan was for the whole family to go to a music festival somewhere sometime during last summer. But because of the word 'glamp' (and this was non-negotiable people) the costs over a 3-day period for the 6 of us were simply astronomical. Besides which I had quite a lot of other tasks to do. So the festival task was shelved until this year, at which point we realised that the festival season doesn't really get going until June. There were just two glamping options open to us on the final weekend of May:

1.  Three days and nights of cover bands mayhem at Glastonbudget
2.  One day and night of literary and musical sophistication at the Hay Festival

Guess which one we chose.

To keep costs low, the Hay Festival visit was limited to just Andrew and me. We duly booked our Bedouin tent (with the promise of Turkish Delight to be left on our pillow), courtesy of Tangerine Fields (so hip.....so chic...we thought), and bought tickets to several events. All sorted.

Yesterday our Hay Day dawned. We packed our bags, threw wellies, coats, extra trainers and a rug into the boot of my car and off we headed. The weather was glorious - hurrah! The M25 was the usual road to Hell but we arrived in Hay in good time.

We found Tangerine Fields camping site (in truth not so hip and not so chic as indicated on their website) and there was our bedouin tent awaiting us.....well, actually it wasn't as it turned out someone else was sleeping in our tent (not literally at that moment). But eventually a new tent was located and made ready for us. And here we are soaking up the whole Arabian Nights vibe.

 

We made our way to the Hay Festival hub, which was heaving with people of all demographics and various degrees of sunburn.

The first highlight for us was a brilliant interview with two African writers (from the Hay's Africa 39 Project) called HJ Golakai and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, who have written two completely different books in setting, style and storyline but with similar themes of trauma and its effects. We bought their books and had them signed by the authors, who have both themselves experienced trauma during their upbringing in Liberia and Nigeria respectively, and said that they've found it helpful to process such issues through their writing.

 The second highlight was seeing the amazing singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega in concert - Andrew and I are both massive fans of hers, and she was as brilliant as ever. It's a very poor photo but just to show we were there....

With our Hay Day completed, we headed back to the campsite feeling well satisfied with life. The only small cloud in my mind was the inefficient Festival wi-fi connection, which seemed unlikely to let me publish my live blog the following morning. By now it was 11.30pm and the air was freezing. Would it feel less parky in our tent? We undid the flap and stepped inside. Nope, not a single degree warmer. And the power (we were glamping remember) didn't work. We managed to find our torch and were a little taken aback to discover that we could actually see our breath. Oh and a band was playing at a venue up the road - but it was so loud that it might as well have been playing outside our tent. We looked at each other by torchlight. 'So this is glamping' I said. 

We retired to bed, wearing three layers of clothing topped by the duvet, our rug and 2 bath towels. I put up the hood of my hoodie to keep my head warm (Andrew was very envious). The band was still playing.....and playing.....and people were cheering....and yelling.......until finally, at 2.30am, all went quiet. I heard an owl hoot. That made me smile. And I think I must have drifted off into some kind of sleep as the next thing I knew it was light in the tent. Crows were cawing, sheep were baaing, hedgerow birds were singing and a baby was crying. Hurrah - we'd survived our night without turning into ice sculptures. 'What time do you think it is?' whispered Andrew, who was also awake. 'About 6.45am?' I guessed optimistically. 'Er no, it's actually 5.25am...' came the reply.  'I'm tempted to leave now' he added. I pondered for about 5 minutes in silence. Did he mean he was going to leave without me? Had I fulfilled Task 53? Did I really have to publish the blog live from the Hay Festival as I'd promised- and in any case would I be able to publish it given the dodgy wi-fi?  Was some flexibility in order at this stage in the sixtyat60 game?  

Fifteen minutes later we were on our way. The car was blasting glorious waves of heat around our feet. Life was good again. We paused to take photos of the campsite in the early morning sunshine, as evidence that we really did stay a full night - well, pretty much anyway!

 

The M4 and M25 were almost deserted and we were home by 10.30am. And so now I'm writing this blog in comfort, admittedly having only slept for 3 hours. Our verdict on Task 53? The Hay Festival is fantastic and we'll definitely go again - only next time, we'll find ourselves a nice little boutique B&B at least 2 miles outside Hay-on-Wye. And one important acknowledgement.....to those courageous people who go camping at Festivals, I salute you all - you're clearly made of much sterner stuff than us!


I'm doing the sixtyat60challenge to raise funds for Shooting Star Chase children's hospice care in memory of a special little girl called Thea Redford. 

 

For further information or to make a donation please visit my JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/sixtyat60challenge/   

Task 58: Become an Alzheimer’s Society Dementia Befriender

When I started out on my sixtyat60 challenge almost a year ago, the focus of my fundraising was on Alzheimer's and dementia. As I described at the time, Andrew and I have witnessed Andrew's mother Grace and a number of other family members living with the effects of dementia. Added to which I've seen neighbours and close friends supporting spouses and parents with dementia, often through many years of slow decline. It's a tough, distressing and challenging situation for the whole family. 

I've had it in mind for several years to do some volunteering following my retirement, and was keen to work for a charity that helps people with dementia. I'd heard about the Dementia Befriending service run by Alzheimer's Society through a newspaper article and was immediately drawn to it.  The service provides personalised companionship for people with dementia, either in their own homes or during outings and activities. It helps people with dementia to feel less socially isolated and lonely, and gives their carers some much needed respite. It's such a fantastic idea! But it is a commitment, so I decided to hold fire until towards the end of my sixtyat60 year, with a view to seeing clients once the challenge was completed.

I began the application process to become a befriender in mid-March, and was offered an interview with the local support officer, Wendy Hannay, in early April. Wendy was lovely - very warm and enthusiastic and full of common sense. She explained that there are very few befrienders in the Sussex area. Apparently a lot of young people offer their services but then leave home to go to University - and older people are more increasingly working until later in life or are a little reticent about 'looking at themselves in a mirror'. It reminded me of what a gift it's been to be able to retire at 60, and it's great to think that I might be able to use my, well, relative youth to be of service to Alzheimer's Society.

To my delight Wendy gave me an instant thumbs up to become an Alzheimer's befriender. With all the forms duly completed, I then had to wait for the Disclosure and  Barring Service (DBS) checks to be processed. Amazingly that's only taken 4 weeks (in the old days of CRB checks it used to take at least 6 months).  So now I just have to finish working my way through all the online training Modules - and then I'll be put in contact with my first client. 

Wendy and her colleague match befrienders up with clients according to mutual interests and preferences.  Amongst other things I've highlighted my love of music, reading, dogs, walking, travel/culture, jigsaws (really??) and, ahem, football. But I've told Wendy I'm honestly game for anything - hmmm....on second thoughts I might just draw the line at someone who keeps snakes.  Or there again, perhaps I wouldn't (after all, Arthur the corn snake was really quite sweet....)

Now back to the e-learning - there are still a fair few Modules awaiting my attention....

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COUNTDOWN TO 30 MAY DEADLINE

Three more tasks to complete and just 3 days left!  Those last 3 tasks are:

35. Write a blog, adding an entry for each task

49. Write a 36-line poem describing my Sixtyat60 experiences 

56. Glamp at a Festival  

I've almost completed the 36-line poem, I'm glamping at the Hay Festival tomorrow (Sunday) night, and Task 35 will be ticked when I write my final blog. So my plan is to write two blogs back to back on Monday - one live from the Hay Festival in the morning (expect rambling prose and loads of typos) and the other when I arrive home on Monday evening. Come what may, that final blog will be published by midnight on Monday 30 May - and that's a promise!

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I'm doing the sixtyat60challenge to raise funds for Shooting Star Chase children's hospice care in memory of a special little girl called Thea Redford. 

 

For further information or to make a donation please visit my JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/sixtyat60challenge/ 

Task 4: Attend a Zumba class

Ay caramba - it's Zumba-time!! Zumba was developed in the 1990s by a celebrity fitness trainer called Beto Perez in Colombia. The story goes that Beto forgot to take his aerobics music to a fitness class one day. However he happened to have some of his favourite Latin salsa and merengue music tapes in his kitbag, and decided to improvise the fitness exercises around those tracks.  Zumba (it's Colombian slang for 'fast-moving') emerged from that impromptu class.

I've been planning to attend a zumba class for a long time (I know I know.....) The idea of doing a high-intensity dance-based exercise routine was certainly an appealing one. I just needed to knuckle down and do it. The good news for the purposes of the sixtyat60 list was that I only had to try out a single class. After weeks of lindy hop lessons, months of cycling training and almost a year of saxophone practice, not to mention an aeon of jigsaw struggles, that was a bit of a relief.

My friend Kara's dancer daughter Cristina had previously recommended the brilliant Matt Blacklock to us for lindy hop lessons. It turns out that Matt also runs Zumba classes in the Brighton area. Kara was keen to attend one of his classes with me and all we had to do was get ourselves along to one.  Matt recommended his Wednesday morning class, which he said was composed of a very friendly group of ladies of all ages up to their 70s.  Perfect!

Several months went by and for various reasons, our arrangements to attend a class kept being deferred. The 30 May deadline was approaching fast. My final opportunity to nail it was last Wednesday morning. Sadly Kara had to cancel at the last moment due to illness. But I knew I had to go, even if I had to crawl over the threshold on my hands and knees. 

I arrived at St Richard's Hall in Hollingdean, took a deep breath and walked into the room, where I found Matt and a group of 25-30 Zumba enthusiasts. I found my place as close to the back of the hall as possible and stood next to a lovely lady who told me she does 4 Zumba classes a week. Wow, definitely an expert. She advised me to watch the feet of the  girl in front of me if I couldn't see what Matt was doing. The music started and we were off as one. Well, as one, apart from me.  Just as I started to copy a move with a degree of accuracy, the class moved onto another one.  Those ladies were amazing!! And they all seemed to be having a great time too. I spotted a few moves from my lindy hop lessons ( a bit of charleston here, a touch of cha-cha there) but most of the steps and moves were hip-gyrating, leg-pumping, hand-clapping, arm-windmilling Latin rhythms. And it was fast. Definitely lived up to its name....

At the end of the hour I was completely exhausted, partly because Zumba is clearly a full-on cardio and muscle conditioning workout, but also because I had to work so hard mentally to follow the moves. Matt said to me afterwards that a key challenge for beginners is how to maintain focus for a full hour. I couldn't agree more Matt! Here's a selfie he took of us at the end of the class (I'm glowing away).

At the time, I couldn't say I was actually enjoying the Zumba class, because of the effort it took to try and keep up. But I know that I will really enjoy it, once I've become more familiar with the routines. I've promised the class I'll return as soon as I can to have another go. They're a great bunch of girls with the best of instructors and I intend to keep my word! 

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COUNTDOWN TO DEADLINE

A total of 56 tasks completed - JUST 4 MORE TO GO - 4 days left.........

So far donations to Shooting Star Chase total £960 (that's in addition to the £1800 already donated to Alzheimer's Research UK), which is fantastic! I've raised the target from £1000 to £1200 as I enter the final furlong..... 
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I'm doing the sixtyat60challenge to raise funds for Shooting Star Chase children's hospice care in memory of a special little girl called Thea Redford. 

For further information or to make a donation please visit my JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/sixtyat60challenge/   

Task 11: Descend into the sewers of Brighton

Back in October I described my attempts to pay a visit to a non-Western toilet whilst on holiday in Goa (thanks again for that suggestion Lucy Hunot!!), for the purposes of completing Task 11.  Seven months later, the time had come to confront my sewerage-related fears once again with a visit to Brighton Sewers, the pride and joy of Southern Water. The sewers' construction dates back to the 1860s and they're a feat of Victorian engineering. Southern Water organises tours of the sewers from May to September every year and they're hugely popular with the general populus of Sussex. 

I should just mention that this task almost didn't happen. I had arranged to do the tour in August last year. And then things went horribly wrong. The weather in Sussex had been truly awful all summer, with endless rain showers, thunderstorms and localised flooding. Finally the Brighton sewers could take it no longer. After yet another flash flood, they imploded (don't even go there), causing major structural damage. Tours were cancelled for the rest of the season. Task 11 was put to one side and I had to keep my fingers tightly crossed that the sewers would re-open before the end of May this year.  If all else failed, Plan B was to visit the sewers of London instead, but I really hoped I wouldn't have to resort to that. After all, if I've got to be confronted by sewage, it might as well be locally sourced sewage.

Two months ago Southern Water announced that they would be re-opening the Brighton sewers to the public in May, 'Hurrah!' I thought. I paused for a moment to celebrate my positive attitude and then booked places on a tour in double quick time. Our friends Judi and Howard were keen - yes, keen - to come with us. Judi featured in my Task 12 blog as my non-Western toilet advisor - as the CEO of a charity that supports projects in developing countries, she's very knowledgeable about many aspects of water-related functionality. Which made her an especially fine companion for Task 11.

Judi, Howard, Andrew and I convened with a group of 20 other people at the entrance to the Sewers near Brighton Pier last Tuesday evening, dressed in sensible shoes and comfortable clothing. A team of guides ushered us to the newly restored lecture room and gave us all hard hats and protective gloves. Could we detect a certain aroma swirling around us?  Do you know, we couldn't really. And it was nice and warm too. I began to calm down. 

After a brief introduction, including key messages about what we shouldn't be flushing down loos and pouring down sinks, we were divided into two groups.  'By the way' said our guide, as we started heading towards the first tunnel, 'Don't be surprised if you see a rat or two along the way'. Judi's eyes widened. 'I don't like rats' she said. 'Oh and if anyone has problems with claustrophobia, let me know,' added the guide. Howard gulped.  'I'm not keen on being in enclosed spaces....' he muttered. Then Andrew confessed that he was on high alert for cobwebs and spiders. And it's no secret that I was having to steel myself for the sight of raw sewage products. Despite this cornucopia of fears, the four of us bravely headed off into the darkness.  

For the next 45 minutes we followed our enthusiastic and well-informed guides through a myriad of spooky but surprisingly clean (phew) and relatively reek-free (phew again) tunnels......

.....over channels and grids bearing liquids of various colours and densities.....



.....and into large echoey caverns showing off Victorian brickwork at its best.....

......until finally we emerged, blinking, into the evening air.

 

The narrow passageways and tunnels didn't faze Howard at all. ...we didn't see a single rat or spider.....and very little, ahem, solid sewage. I think I may have even turned a corner - or a U-bend - in this particular phobic tendency of mine.

We went to Jamie's Italian for supper to celebrate. Diners began to sniff the air as we arrived and the restaurant suddenly emptied. I'm joking. But I did have a long hot shower when we got home. My thanks to Judi and Howard for being brilliant and brave buddies down the Brighton sewers. And well done Southern Water for getting the sewers back on track so quickly.  Now remember dear reader - no flushing wet wipes and dental floss down the loo. And try and avoid washing away left-over sauces, milk and yoghurt down the sink. I've seen the end result......!

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COUNTDOWN TO 30 MAY DEADLINE!

A total of 55 tasks completed -JUST 5 MORE TO GO - 8 days left.........!!

So far donations to Shooting Star Chase total £960 (that's in addition to the £1800 already donated to Alzheimer's Research UK), which is fantastic! I've raised the target from £1000 to £1200 as I enter the final furlong..... 
_____________________________________________________


I'm doing the sixtyat60challenge to raise funds for Shooting Star Chase children's hospice care in memory of a special little girl called Thea Redford. 

For further information or to make a donation please visit my JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/sixtyat60challenge/