50 experiences and challenges to welcome and embrace the new decade of my life…
I tried wood carving for the first time during last weekend’s camping adventure! As part of a small group my friend Mark used his expertise and showed us how to create wooden masterpieces from small branches! I used a sharp knife and two hours later was the proud owner of my very own hand made spatula:
As I mentioned in my ‘being grateful‘ post I enjoy camping as much as staying in a 4 or 5 star hotel. Sometimes the home comforts and luxuries you experience in a decent hotel are a lovely and welcome treat. However many hotels and especially branded hotels are all the same and… they are all a fairly bland square box of cream and beige! They don’t beat the real sense of adventure you experience in the great outdoors… sitting around the campfire with great friends, chatting, banter, wine and a BBQ…
Chris and I have just spent a brilliant weekend at the edge of the Brecon Beacons on a wild camping bushcraft weekend! Full details will be available on our travel blog in due course…
It is July already and with such a busy 2018 I don’t think I’m going to get to the west coast of Wales this year. I therefore changed this challenge from the Pembrokeshire coast path to the South West coast path.
OK, so I did only a tiny fraction a couple of months ago and had just a taster of this amazing 630 mile walk. I would love to do the entire South West coast path at some point and I’ll try and get to Pembrokeshire next year…
Details of my short experience of a section near Weymouth and Lulworth Cove of the South West coast path can be found on frombluetogreen.com
So… a shared celebration with my best friend! We’ve just returned from a wonderful and relaxing holiday in Cuba to celebrate that we are both 50 this year! My lovely friend Bridget and I have known each other since we met at school when we were about 13 and through the ups and downs of life we have remained good friends ever since!
A full update on our Cuba fun and frolics are available on my travel blog frombluetogreen.com 🙂
Hurrah! I completed 1050 miles of 2018 walking yesterday, Monday 9th July!
The final mile was completed during a fabulously warm 30 degrees summer evening during a short local walk near to my home. As Google Maps (above) shows, this is almost as far as walking from London to Rome!
Here are a few stats:
Average miles per day: (1050 miles / 192 days) = 5.5 miles
Average miles per week: (1050 miles / 27 weeks) = 39 miles
Average miles per month: (1050 miles / 6.3 months) = 167 miles
Keeping a record of all of these extra miles walked has been really motivating and has encouraged me to walk more miles each day and has definitely helped to keep my weight down… I’m planning to continue totting up my daily and weekly mileage and will post updates from time to time… maybe I can reach 2000 miles within these 12 months?
Having just returned from a week of all inclusive indulgence in Cuba I was a bit anxious about this month’s weigh-in… however… I have managed to maintain my weight of 8 st 3 lb!!! Yay!!! How did this happen???
I spent last week consuming numerous cocktails each day, lazing around reading books on a sunbed and doing virtually no exercise… on the basis that any excess calories over the 1650 necessary to keep my weight at 8 st 3 lb, and given I was probably averaging a calorie consumption of around 3000 a day, in theory I should have put on about 3-4 lb… but no! I didn’t put on a single lb!!! Hurrah!!!
I’m not sure if this is a delayed reaction and I’ll suddenly expand at some point this week so I’ve gone back to my usual routine of not over eating and doing lots of exercise… all is good so far… and this was my gym weight this morning i.e. on heavy duty ‘proper’ scales, after breakfast and with my clothes on…
Given that I’ve managed to stay at 8 st 3 lb I’ll soon amend this challenge with the aim of sticking to 8 st 3 lb throughout the rest of 2018. This is a weight I am comfortable with and while I either have to stick to 1650 calories each day or do a large amount of extra exercise to enable me to eat more, it is all manageable at the moment…
Week 26 walking progress:
Nearly there… I did quite a bit of evening walking this week… the lovely warm summer evenings continue in the UK which makes it a real pleasure to spend them walking!
Week 27 walking progress:
So close to reaching my target but only around 12 miles walked for the duration of this week… I was on a relaxing holiday in Cuba! A couple of these miles were walked during a short guided hike from the hotel (above pic) and another couple were walked in the gorgeous Havana… I did a local walk on the Sunday evening when I returned but the rest of the time my walking consisted of to the pool; to the beach and to one of the numerous dotted bars around the hotel!
A short mid week update as today I passed the 1000th mile walked so far in 2018 🙂
The weather in the UK has been awesome this week… temperatures up to 30 degrees C and endless blue skies… perfect for clocking up several miles in these gorgeous evenings.
I walked a total 16 miles today:
These miles don’t include miles when I am milling around the office or popping out to get some lunch or wandering around at home. They are miles walked over and above what is necessary to conduct my day to day life. I wasn’t originally going to include gym miles but as I work so hard to achieve them I felt they should be included. I estimate that around 25% (or 250 miles) would have been gym miles.
As of today I’ve walked a total of 1,007 miles so only 43 off my personal target of walking 1050 extra miles this year and in only 6 months rather than 12!
I’m doing more and more miles each week and its getting easier and easier to walk around 15 miles some days… I haven’t been this fit in years, if not decades! Previously, after a 10 mile hike I would collapse on the sofa for the rest of the evening. Now, after 15 miles I feel I could keep going on and on and with no aching muscles in the mornings. (Although this would be a different story if my hikes included hills or mountains… the area in which I live is very flat…)
Week 25 walking progress:
Under 100 miles to go! Yay! And I completed the most miles this week so far this year 🙂
To achieve a total of 71 miles walked in one week:
The weather has been cracking this week… beautiful and sunny and during this time of the year, it doesn’t get dark until around 10 pm. I’ve therefore been making the most of being outside and increasing my walking mileage! Today, I had made plans to continue decluttering and tidying up around my home this afternoon but instead decided to go for a second lengthy walk of over 9 miles in the sun! Decluttering can wait for a rainy day 🙂
Book number 9
Book read: High and Low: How I hiked away from depression by Keith Foskett
I really like the way Keith writes… descriptive enough to make the book interesting and conjure up a suitable image in your mind but without being too over the top…
This is the second of Keith’s books that I’ve read and I was interested to learn more about the links between hiking and depression… since I’ve been doing so much exercise for the last 6 months I feel I’ve been on a permanent high… However I can see that even if you do a lot of exercise, this can surely help to lift your mood but it isn’t a cure for depression. Reading the book through the eyes of someone suffering helped me to understand the condition.
Book number 10
Book read: Together by Julie Cohen
I picked up this, the first paperback book I’ve read in years, at Heathrow Airport to take on my recent Seattle and Alaska trip. This is also the first ‘story’ or fiction book I’ve read all year… or for several years in fact… I wanted to look further than travel adventure books this time!
This book is, in many ways, a heart-breaking love story about a couple called Robbie and Emily… the book begins with the couple in their 80’s and is a wrenching account of Robbie dealing with Alzheimers. The story jumps back to different times in their lives and the struggles they’ve faced together over the years. I enjoyed reading it but it has a weird and somewhat uncomfortable twist at the end…
Book number 11
Book read: Five Years from Now by Giovanna Fletcher
This book was the second of the ‘Buy One Get One Half Price’ Smiths airport deal… and another about relationships… it took some perseverance for me to get into, but once I did, I quite enjoyed it. The book is set in Cornwall and follows the life journeys of its main characters, Nell and Van. There are a few twists and turns and several thought provoking sections… and much of the book is actually quite sad…
I did enjoy reading these two fictions books… but I’m back onto another travel book again… about another cyclist attempting to cycle around the world…
Fifty at Fifty 