14.C Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Now i have a mild confession on this, I have read book one before however I had never read the entire collection because as I have said in a previous post I am not the biggest reader so decided that all five books would be a fitting challenge to be added to the list.

Now I was surprised going through the books that I did not enjoy all of them as much as i thought I would. I love the first book however the next two though still very much in the same vein as the first to me just were not as enjoyable to read. It just felt like I was reading it but not truly taking anything in. “So Long and Thanks for all the Fish” was however a great way to end the quadrillogy, it is a joy to read.

Now I have said end but it is not truly the end of the story, after Douglas Adam’s unfortunate death the contents of his Mac hard drive was collated after a herculean effort onto a CD-ROM and much of it was collated into the final instalment of the book “The Salmon of Doubt”. When you start reading you find a lot out about the character of Douglas Adams and how he became the person he became. Unfortunately while you are reading this section you are slowly wondering where the next section of the H2G2 story is, and i can tell you in my copy at least this starts on page 203.

However what starts on this page is not a hitchhiker book but a dirk gently book. A slight disappointment but never mind. This had lead to me now wanting to read the entire Dirk Gently series but that will probably have to wait till the new year!

2.B Ireland: Drink a pint of Guinness and do the Liffey Descent

Now just to get it out the way yes I have had a pint of Guinness before and I am not the biggest beer drinker so I am not overly fond of it but this was the first full pint I had ever drunk in Ireland.

Now that's out the way onto the Liffey.

The Liffey Descent is an annual canoe and kayak race which this year celebrated its 50th year. The race itself includes 11 or so “obstacles” including various different drops over weirs, rapids and a jungle area complete with rogue logs that like to jump out and surprise unsuspecting paddlers.

Now I was very nervous at the start of the race, even though we where not racing I do not have a huge amount of white water experience and was relying a lot on my team mate to get me down “dry”. Which after all I had head from the members of Staffordshire Canoe Club I was with was something that we should have been able to accomplish.

The race is divided into two with a portage (moving the boats out of the water) in the middle. The first half of the race features a few weirs and finished with “The Lake” which is a huge slog across open water which removes the last traces of energy you have, but after some lucozade, chocolate and a cereal bar I was ready for the second half.

The second half features what I believe to be the harder, or more terrifying, weirs. You start by getting into a boat and immediately trying to get through a set of rapids under a bridge, if you get this slightly wrong not only could you be swimming but you may end up with a boat wrapped round a bridge which isn't very useful to anyone. Once through you move down river dropping down each of the four remaining weirs. The most worrying weir we faced, which according to my team mate was the one on which we where most likely to swim was Parmeston. Once you drop you break through the first standing wave. once trough you can put in about 2 paddles before being thwacked head on by the second, at this point your sinuses are clear and the front man (in this case me) is completely hidden under the wave from the person in the back so if you are not read you are washed straight out of the boat and out of the bottom of the weir. Lucky we survived the waves sinuses clear and continued down the river.

In our Class we came in 55th place with a time of 3:43:26 but more importantly we got down dry! Which for my first Liffey was a brilliant achievement and my heart felt thanks goes out to all those members of Staffordshire Canoe Club that helped me in this endeavour.

There are a couple of photos of me in the boat which can be found here

Failure

Now I have completed another item on my list, however I felt I would write a general post before I updated the blog again.

It occurs to me that there is only three and a half months left of this year and I am imminently returning to university to begin my final year, this has lead me to think a lot about the possibility of failing to complete items on my list. Now this does sadden me but not as much as I thought it might.

You see I proposed this list to make myself get off my bottom and take my life into my own hands and make things happen to me instead of waiting for them to come along, and in completing all the things I have I have had a much more active and memorable year than any other on record. Now my hope here is that this will of course continue on into the future and I will not be limited to just 21 things to do in one year but instead hundreds of things across my(hopefully long and healthy) lifetime.

So as the clock strikes twelve this year I hope that I will not return to my usual depressive stupor wishing for something to come along and throw my life up and bring me some much needed excitement, but will instead look back at this blog and my accomplishments and will look forward to 2010 and all the new adventures it will bring.

1. Visit a New Country - Venice

So this i thought for a while would turn out to be one of the items I might fail at the end of the year. Turns out I was wrong.

A few weeks ago I decided I had had enough of being the one stuck at home and would go away for a weekend with my girlfriend. So I started looking round the internet for a few deals eventually I found a nice deal in Venice. Well what we thought as Venice but actually turned out to be a half an hour train ride from Venice.

So we packed our bag boarded our plane and where on our way to Venice. The first night we took a wonder around the area of the hotel and realised that there was nothing around! So we got a Pizza (I ordered in appalling Italian but we did get what we asked for) and went back to the hotel.

The second day we where going into Venice so asked for directions to the train station and started to walk. After 2 hours of walking around, asking 3 people in Italian for directions and then meeting a very nice man who drove us to the station, he was also kind enough to tell us that our hotel was terrible, and we boarded a train to Venice (without a ticket!).

Now Venice is a beautiful City there was lots to see and we walked around for several hours in the gorgeous Mediterranean, however we soon realised that we had basically seen everything! Now as i said it was all very beautiful and I am very glad I have seen it (before it sinks) but we soon realised that this was by no means somewhere to spend a weekend. So my advice is that if you want to see Venice then definitely go, but only as a day trip when you are touring other parts of Italy.

Our third and final full day in Italy was a Sunday, now unfortunately as a catholic country (and because our hotel was naff) everything was closed. We spent the day in the hotel room playing cards mostly popping out briefly for a walk around the streets of closed shops. This was also the day I finally worked out the Air conditioning system, which we could have done with when we first arrived!

In all it was a good trip, however it has also taught me a lot about booking your own holiday and hopefully next time I will be able to book something slightly less eventful!

Photo’s to follow!

Silly Me…

I have had a revelation… this blog as the title suggests was inspired by my 21st birthday this was now just over a month ago. There was a party and celebrations, however I didn't blog a single minute of it!

Now as I have blogged (read moaned) about before I fell ill just before my birthday so the day itself was actually a complete cop out, sat around all day and had a happy meal for lunch and one whole slice of pizza for tea. Because of this the party was going to be the big birthday bonanza (it had been in planning for around 6 months).

The party in the end was brilliant, I ended up completely ragged out by the end of it, and was only on the lemonade, but it was worth it. The DJ was booked after a bizarre and unfortunate chain of events and I had no idea what to expect. Though I do not think anyone would have expected the evil Cuban dwarf twin of the chuckle brothers to turn up!

We danced, we drank (those who could, and some that couldn't!), and ate a wonderful buffet. From all the feedback I heard people had a genuinely good time including me, so until the next time I will hang up my party planning beret and move onto my next brilliant scheme!

Before I sign off a quick thank you to all who attended, gave presents, worked, couldn't make but sent well wished, and everyone else involved in the party!

16.c Try a new type of Transport, Horses

Yesterday saw me take on possibly my scariest challenge yet as I attempted to ride a savage and wild horse, well lazy and stubborn.

Now I hadn’t ridden before so when the idea for this particular challenge came around I had no idea how to start, luckily for me my girlfriend used to be a keen rider and new both where the stable was to go riding but also had a vague idea of how to ride too.

We arrived at Courtlands early one Saturday afternoon to join the adult riding lesson, with me as the most in experienced rider brining up the rear. First I learnt how to walk, and lead Tommy, the lovely horse which was unfortunate enough to be given me as a rider, around the school.

After a while, and the teacher apparently being quite harsh on me (though I hadn’t noticed), it was time for me to take a step forward and learn how to trot. Now this was an insane feeling as I got bounced up and down and tossed around everywhere, but slowly as the lesson continued slowly I could feel myself beginning to move up and down instead of Tommy making me bounce.

All in all I had a great time so thank you to Courtlands for the experience, which I may have to try again at some point.

Firsts…

Now this year was meant to all be about firsts, things that I have never done before. Now this got me thinking about some of the things I have done this year which I have never done before. This made me think about the list, so I have added a few things that have happened to me so far this year that I have never done before.

For example, I had never (in fact no-one in my family had ever) spent a night in hospital. Unfortunately due to the glandular fever and doctors worrying more about swine flu than what was actually wrong with me I got to this year. Not a great experience but definitely an experience. (Number 17)

We will just have to see what I can organise, or what comes up in the rest of the year to complete the last four items on the list.

Apologies for the short post, especially as it is long overdue! However I am off horse riding tomorrow and hopefully all being well I shall blog that!

P.S. I wonder if i should try vlogging one of my posts :S