High time for an update

Wow, it's a whole six weeks since I completed the last of my sixty tasks. High time for me to provide you with that promised follow-up...... 

Not withstanding the recent seismic referendum result, life here post-challenge is gradually settling into a nice rhythm, punctuated by whizzy weekend trips to Paris and Valencia, Italian greyhound puppy-minding duties (go Bobby), a nail-biting mens' quarter-finals day at Wimbledon and a 10-day episode of acute lower back pain. Am I missing the buzz and excitement of the sixtyat60 challenge?  Do you know what, I'm really not!  In truth I'm relishing the peace, space and freedom from juggling multiple tasks. But it was a wonderful experience, and I already have a fantastic album (thank you Lucy) crammed full with memories of my various escapades.

And now the million dollar question - which of those sixty tasks am I continuing to embrace?  In no particular order, here are my top five current 'retainers'.

1. I've stuck to my guns and am continuing to learn the saxophone. I've put Year of the Cat firmly to one side now and have started focusing attention on my Grade 1 pieces (yay!)  Although I have to confess I'm finding the improvising sections quite a challenge. Added to which I've been very remiss about practicing between lessons over the past few weeks (in my defence, back pain and the sax aren't ideal companions) and I've started behaving a bit like a stroppy teenager when I show up at my teacher Sarah's house - 'the dog ate my sheet music Miss' and so on. Talking of dogs, Alfie still howls manically whenever he hears me play.  If only I could get video clips to work in this blog....you can't really tell he's in full flow in the photo below, but trust me, he's loud!

2. Since tracking down my grandparents' house in Aberystwyth in April, I've become a committed Cymru-ophile. I was hugely excited when Wales reached the semi-final of the Euros, and as you can see from the photo below, the charming Wales manager Chris Colman and I are now firm friends (well OK, it was just a chance meeting on East Croydon Station last October after a Palace match....)

3. I'm really pleased to say that our memorable Wales Coast Path adventure in April has inspired me to do further Big Walks. Andrew and I are taking on Snowdon at the end of this month as part of Andrew's training programme for tackling Kilimanjaro in August. We're going to be accompanied on the Snowdon trek by Michael (who's going to be climbing Kilimanjaro with Andrew), together with Liz, Jonathan and Bobby the Italian greyhound.  Jonathan intends to power-walk his way to the summit, Bobby is planning to hitch a lift in someone's backpack and I shall probably be bringing up the rear. But I'm really looking forward to it - beautiful mountains, time with my family and those historic Welsh breakfasts.....

4. Running has been off the agenda whilst my back has been misbehaving, but I tried out a very gentle 5k yesterday morning, and was extremely chuffed to discover that I was able to complete my usual circuit without collapsing in a heap. However I can see that it's going to require real discipline on my part to keep up the running, so I've decided to sign up for another 5k or 10k Fun Run in October to help maintain my motivation. And in the meantime I'm going to continue with Pilates classes to keep my back on the straight and narrow.

5. Our mini vineyard is keeping us busy with pruning, spraying, weeding, canopy management and the like. After the incident with those pesky pheasants last September, we're ready to wage war with them this year, newly sourced protective netting at the ready. Although we hadn't reckoned on further unwanted visitors.....three weeks ago a couple of greedy deer managed to find a way of circumnavigating our 'deerproof' fencing and proceeded to feast on the yummy new shoots. Fortunately they didn't munch their way through the entire crop but it looks likely that the harvest will be a modest one again. We will not be beaten - next year we're determined to keep pheasants and deer at bay!!

That's my top five for now. Of course there are many other retainer tasks waiting patiently in the wings.....for instance the Valencia trip I alluded to in the second paragraph was booked with a view to me putting my newly learnt Spanish to use. We had a memorable weekend (it's such a beautiful city), but sadly I lost count of the times I failed to find the right word to use, prompting Andrew to say in a bewildered fashion 'But I thought you could speak Spanish now.....?'  That said, when I pronounced a paella dish as 'riquissimo' in one restaurant, the waiter's face lit up like a Christmas tree. 'Muchas gracias senora, y muy bien!' he responded joyfully.  My six lessons were worth every penny for that moment alone. Will I sign up for Spanish lessons at my local Adult Education Centre in September? Watch this space guys. 

And now the most important question of all - how much money have I raised for my two chosen charities? To date the grand totals are:

1. Alzheimer's Research UK - £1867
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Vivien-Hunot

2. Shooting Star Chase Children's Hospice Care - £1415  https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sixtyat60challenge

I'm so grateful to everyone for their kindness and generosity - I really can't thank you all enough.  I'm going to keep both of my JustGiving pages open until Sunday 24th July and would dearly love to reach a final total of £2000 for ARUK  and £1500 for Shooting Star Chase. So if you know of anyone who might be interested in reading about my completed challenge and/or making a donation to either charity, do please feel free to forward on the link to my blog  http://sixtyat60challenge.blogspot.co.uk/ 

One final observation.  From time to time over the last year, I've had some lovely people say to me, 'So when are you going to write a book about your challenge Vivien?'  Reader, I am considering my options. It would certainly be a nice way to  try and raise more money for the two charities. I shall keep you posted....

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/