A family week in Croatia

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Chris, me, James, Conor, Zoe, Elliott, Annabelle

Chris and I have just returned from a brilliant week in Croatia with our family. Full details will be available in our up-and-coming travel blog post!

 

 

Week 37 walking update

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Barton Hills (12 miles on Sunday)

Running total (to week 36): 1,459

Miles walked in week 37: 53

Total walked so far in 2018: 1,512

Good effort this week! 53 miles is an average of 7.5 miles walked each day 🙂  As a little snapshot, this was my mileage for this week:

  • Monday = zero (quite unusually these days for me not to walk anywhere)
  • Tuesday = 11 (walking to and from work and the stations and using the treadmill and cross trainer in the gym)
  • Wednesday = 11 (same exercise as Tuesday)
  • Thursday = 13 (same as Tuesday and Wednesday but I had an extra walk into our local town and back this evening)
  • Friday = 4 (walk to retail park and back)
  • Saturday = 2 (walk into town and back)
  • Sunday = 12 (walking with local walking club)

 

 

 

50 of my favourite songs

These tracks are in no particular order and I’ve tried to list each artist only once… but found it difficult to narrow it down to one track in many cases… never mind…

  1. Kissing a fool or maybe Spinning the Wheel or perhaps Cowboys and Angels… all classics by George Michael… I love the intro to Cowboys and Angels about 45 seconds in and also the smooth mellow saxophone instrumental at the end… Oh, and Fast Love and December Song, Georges ‘other’ Christmas song…
  2. Space Oddity or maybe Fame or maybe Aladdin Sane by David Bowie: legend…
  3. Corner of the Earth by Jamiroquai: awesome track which reminds me of trekking in remote places
  4. Sunny Afternoon by The Kinks: love this… chillin’ summery F*** it kind of song… also like ‘Tired of Waiting for You’… how cool were the 60’s?
  5. Tainted Love by Soft Cell: brilliant and classic 80’s track
  6. Gloria; Sunday Bloody Sunday; New Years Day… I’m a big fan of early 80’s U2 tracks. Oh yes… and Party Girl… silly but fab song!
  7. Could You Be Loved? One of Bob Marley’s brilliant tracks…
  8. Light my fire by The Doors: always been a fave; together with People are Strange…
  9. Club Tropicana by Wham! You can feel the holiday vibe with this
  10. Pass out by Tinie Tempah: love the instrumental bits in this
  11. California Dreaming by Mamas and Papas: bunch of hippies singing about one of my favourite places… love it!
  12. Bohemian Like You by Dandy Warhols
  13. Spaceman by Babylon Zoo… slightly weird
  14. Blue Monday by New Order: reminds me of the 80’s
  15. Valerie by Amy Winehouse: brilliant track… or Back to Black? Maybe Back to Black pips the post of my Amy faves… a bit depressing but Amy at her best…
  16. Happy by Pharrell Williams: a real uplifting song… in fact probably the most uplifting song I can think of
  17. Hawaii 5-0 theme tune: one of my favourite instrumentals; reminds me of Hawaii
  18. Green Onions by Booker T and the MGs: classic… ‘nuff said…
  19. Paint it Black by Rolling Stones: a classic Stones track… closely followed by ‘The Last Time’… love this too…
  20. Echo Beach by Martha And The Muffins: gotta have a beach track or two in here somewhere!
  21. Don’t stop the Music by Rhianna: I like a few Ri Ri songs but this is probably my fave…
  22. Livin La Vida Loca by Ricky Martin: maybe a bit cheesy but I still love this track from old swivel hips!
  23. Smile by Lily Allen… bit of attitude from Lily… Love it…
  24. The Real Slim Shady by Eminem: one of many excellent Eminem tracks
  25. Feel by Robbie Williams: by far the best Robbie track… spine tingly brilliant…
  26. Aint No Sunshine by Bill Withers
  27. Wonderwall by Oasis… classic
  28. Smells like Teen Spirit by Nirvana; one of my favourite bands
  29. Mambo Italiano by Sophia Loren: love a bit of latino Italiano…
  30. Mucho Mambo (sway) by Shaft… more latino… makes me want to get up and dance about… sorry, one more… also Lambada by Kaoma… want to find a beach bar and do the lambada all afternoon with easy access to a jug of caipirinha… sigh…
  31. Thriller by Michael Jackson: have heard this hundreds of times but never get tired of it… well its either Thriller or Off the Wall… I love Off the Wall too, real boppy stuff…
  32. Black Velvet by Alannah Myles: sultry…
  33. Gypsies Tramps And Thieves by Cher: best Cher track… so original… actually not usually keen on her songs but this is an awesome track…
  34. Age of Aquarius by The 5th Dimension: my birth sign and another hippy track!
  35. Mrs Robinson – Simon & Garfunkel… fantastic classic film! Scarborough Fair and Sound of Silence are more awesome tracks…
  36. She’s not there by The Zombies
  37. The Pirates of the Caribbean theme tune… love this and could listen to it over and over again… fabulous piece of music
  38. Hips Don’t Lie by Shakira: Sassy… wish I could shake and swivel my hips in the manner of Shakira…
  39. Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns N’ Roses… awesome track especially towards the end where it goes… ‘Where do we go… where do we go now…’
  40. Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc: an absolute must have in my list!
  41. Love and Pride by King: not the best vocals but a brilliant tune… another classic 80’s track and really uplifting
  42. Lady Gaga – Telephone ft Beyonce… love this song!
  43. Call Me – Blondie… brilliant 70’s track…
  44. Hung Up – Madonna… what is it with telephone songs??? Am I weird??? No… while I like this Madonna song I think Secret is probably my favourite Madge track…
  45. Ticket to ride; Twist and Shout; Love Me Do… a few classics from the Beatles
  46. Message in a bottle by Police…another real classic
  47. Baggy Trousers; House of Fun; Night Boat to Cairo… love a bit of early Madness…
  48. Down Under by Men at Work… a guilty pleasure
  49. Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mya, Pink – Lady Marmalade… Hey sister go sister…
  50. Hotel California by The Eagles… another brilliant track which I could listen to over and over again…

 

 

50 future adventures

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Milford Sound, New Zealand

Oh yes… I am going to have fun with this one!

Dream time as I plan 50 adventures for the next 50 years in the manner of a travel bucket list…

  1. Climb Kilimanjaro… pencilled in for 2019…
  2. Scotland Hebridean island hopping
  3. Explore Madagascar
  4. Trek Jordan (completed May 2019)
  5. Annapurna trek similar… did a 2 week remote Himalayan trek in Northern Nepal instead in Oct 2019
  6. Travel overland from Cartagena (Colombia) to Quito (Ecuador)… really keen to explore much more of Colombia, and we didn’t get to Ecuador during our 2016 travelsUPDATE: we visited northern Colombia in Jan 2019 although didn’t go to Ecuador on this trip… 
  7. Galapagos Islands
  8. Australia Great Ocean road trip + a week of trekking in Tasmania
  9. Fiji and the Cook Islands; keen to visit more South Pacific islands after an amazing time in French Polynesia
  10. Grand Europe road trip or two, or three… Northern Europe (Scandinavia); Southern Europe (France, Spain and Portugal); Central Europe (Switzerland, Germany, Austria)…
  11. Spend 6-8 weeks walking the entire length of the South West coast path
  12. Walk a section of the Italian coastline (COMPLETED in Jul 2019 when I walked the Amalfi Coast)
  13. Kerala yoga retreat
  14. Canada Rocky Mountains hiking and road trippin’
  15. US National Parks: 3 month road trip
  16. Explore more of Africa: Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda…
  17. Northern India: maybe an overland trip from Kathmandu (Nepal) to Delhi?
  18. Sandals Bahamas: after getting married in Sandals Whitehouse Jamaica, Chris and I have planned this little indulgence for our 10th wedding anniversary
  19. Chillin’ in St Kitts or and Tobago… or and Grenada (tick)…
  20. South Africa and Namibia: travelling up from Cape Town to Windhoek?
  21. Greek island hopping: 3 – 4 weeks of getting ferries between the islands
  22. A grand tour of China
  23. Norwegian Fjords cruise
  24. Andorra activity holiday
  25. Hiking in the Dolomites, Italy
  26. Myanmar
  27. Taiwan and South Korea
  28. 3 weeks exploring more of Japan
  29. Cruisin’ from Boston to Quebec
  30. Exploring the ‘Stans: Kazakhstan; Turkmenistan; Uzbekistan
  31. Exploring Mexico in detail!
  32. Hike the Samaria Gorge in Crete
  33. Spend more time in Central America; Nicaragua’s Corn Islands and a bit more time in Costa Rica; and maybe another visit to Guatemala
  34. A month or two in Hawaii, one of our favourite places in the World!
  35. Explore Armenia and Georgia
  36. Zanzibar, the Spice Island!
  37. Trek the West Highland Way in Scotland
  38. More backpacking Europe by train
  39. Caribbean cruise
  40. Trekking in Patagonia
  41. Cruising the South Pacific… something for when we’re older…
  42. Grand Scotland road trip
  43. Norway: Lofoten Islands
  44. Summer trip to Iceland to drive the Icelandic ring road
  45. Exploring the Balkans: Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro…
  46. Trans Siberian Railway: Moscow to Beijing
  47. More chillin’ and beach-life in Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand
  48. Walk the Camino de Santiago
  49. More weekend breaks in the UK and Europe!
  50. More islands: Azores, Cape Verde, Corsica, Capri (tick)

I’m generally going to focus on the more active trips (such as the treks) first and leave the more leisurely ones (the cruises) for later!

There are so many exciting places in the World although I don’t think some of these trips will be possible until Chris and I retire… it would be fantastic to have another career break but at the moment this doesn’t seem very likely due to a) getting agreement again from work and b) lack of money! I wonder how many 60 somethings walk the entire South West Coast Path in one go? But never say never… I’ll try and experience as many of these as possible 🙂

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Looking forward to Portugal

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Lagos

Travelling is the greatest passion of my life so many of my 50 challenges and experiences this year will be travel related. The first one is to Portugal’s Algarve for a few days with Chris, my husband.

My Dad and step-mum retired to the Algarve a few years back and live in a lovely spacious apartment in Lagos. I’ve been to see them several times and January is often a great time of the year to visit. If we’re lucky we will experience a little slice of warmth and sunshine and an escape from the usual cold grey English weather. (Although even if it is cloudy,  January in the Algarve will be at least 10 degrees warmer…)

Compared with the busy summer months, January is also lovely and quiet with few tourists. The beaches west of Lagos are breathtaking with wild sweeping sandy bays and spectacular rock formations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to my blog!

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Argentina road trip

Thank you for visiting ’50 at 50′ where to celebrate the year I turn 50, this significant milestone in my life, I decided to set myself 50 experiences and challenges.

Follow me on the journey through my year of turning 50 where I will post regular updates on each of the 50 challenges.

And hurrah… the first part of my first challenge i.e. setting up this blog is now complete!

The above photo was taken in November 2016 during an Argentinian road trip from Salta to Cachi. More information can be found at From Blue to Green

Do please leave any comments…