Final Post

As it may by now have become apparent, I have given up on this amazing adventure. Not only have I now got very little time in which to complete all of the remaining tasks, I have also moved to a different house and hence have taken down the poster and I don't know where it is (I assume in the bin).

As much fun as it has been, I don't think I would have done them all anyway so it's probably for the best. The blog does make for a good read though! I hope you have enjoyed reading it and that it inspires you to similar, and hopefully more thoroughly completed, adventures.

14/50: Magnum, Pedalo

No, it's not a new TV detective series - it's yet another one of my quests. I am in London this weekend, enjoying various things, and today we enjoyed Regent's Park, in particular the picnic we had, and the frisbee throwing we did, and the BOATING LAKE WHICH HAS PEDALOS. We jumped in a pedalo and pedalled around for ages and ages, and scared some ducks but carefully didn't run over any. Here are lots of photos, including a picture of me eating a Magnum afterwards. Success all round!

13/50: Night of clubbing, Kebab

In addition to a wonderful five-a-side adventure, my birthday celebration also included a night out, which commenced with a meal in a sushi restaurant, and proceeded on to a bar crawl ending in a club. This almost certainly covered the remit of a night of clubbing, and the picture here pretty much includes everything you need to know about how the night went. In order to match this with a kebab, I waited for less than 24 hours and had one for lunch the next day, and this is pictured over here. It was a very nice pile of chicken and salad on freshly baked naan bread, and I can honestly say that now, around two hours later, it has not yet given me food poisoning, even though the last time I went to that particular kebab place, I did.

12/50: Football, Beer

This week it is my birthday, and hence I have organised various birthday-style shenanigans in order to celebrate this occasion. In fact the first and, some might say, most preliminary of these things was a five-a-side football match. This was not too much hassle to organise, since I already play regularly with some people from uni, and so it took no time at all before I was running around, making precise passes and one twos and keeping goalside of pretty much everyone. Afterwards we all returned to the flat in order to partake of an amazing buffet and some nice cake, and of course, some pints of beer. The whole thing was enjoyable, and I can now tick this one off as being done and dusted. Good work everyone, especially the goalkeepers.

11/50: Running, Gum

This morning, I went to get a paper from the newsagents. As I rounded the corner, I saw a bus coming and quick as a flash, I seized the opportunity and ran, as fast as I could, to the bus stop. I arrived there just before the bus, at which point I stopped running and carried on walking. I'm not sure what the bus driver thought.

This brought me to the actually difficult aspect of this task, which is to eat half a packet of chewing gum (I suppose, for the purposes of the task, in one go). Since the chewing gum is assigned a calorie value, I tracked down some non-sugarfree gum (Wrigley's Doublemint) and brought it home with me. I then unwrapped half of the gum sticks (the sickly sweet smell hit me immediately and was quite unpleasant) and then put them in my mouth all at once (see photo). I now pretty much feel sick, so if you'll excuse me I'm going to continue chewing until I feel as though I have absorbed 25 calories, and spit this out. This is a truly horrible experience.

10/50: Gardening, Pasty

Sorry for the lack of pictures on these posts, I apparently didn't take any. Having completed my epic mowing task, I set to on the rest of the garden - which hasn't been done since the end of last summer, and was looking a bit tired. I started by trimming the bushes at the front and back, especially where they overhang the road, and in the process got stabbed quite impressively all over my hands with thorns. I then set to trimming and pulling up all of last year's growth, much of which was pretty seriously dead, and nearly filled the garden waste wheelie bin in the process.

Finally, I had a bit of a go at clearing all the grass off the flower beds, and did about a tenth of the length of the bed before my knees and hands gave up. I dug a few holes, into which I planted some bulbs I got from the pound shop, which I'm assured will flower around June, and hopefully, if the ones I planted last year have survived, will make for a nice looking bed. The whole process took around 1 hours 50 minutes (give or take... since I went over time with the lawn mowing, I feel loose timing is justified here) and afterwards, I retreated to the sofa for a delicious tasty cornish pasty.

9/50: Mowing the lawn, Pimm's

Seems simple enough. Mow the lawn with an electric mower. Well, whoever devised this list of tasks has obviously never tried to use my new lawnmower, which I have had for a while but haven't used yet, since it's been winter (and grass, as all good gardeners know, doesn't grow very much in the winter). I suspect the makers of the mower had a keen sense of irony, since its name is the CHALLENGE XTREME. Yes, that's a real mower brand.

Not only is it awkward to push around, and the handle feels like it's about to come off most of the time, but this mower has an extra added annoyance noone could have anticipated: Its grass box holds approximately one square metre's worth of grass before it is full. That's not even a massive exaggeration. I mean, the grass wasn't exactly short (the picture provided by the poster is also a bit extreme) , but still - I must have stopped and emptied it thirty times before I'd finished the back lawn, easily filling my 37 minutes. Task completed (or should I say, Xtreme Challenge completed), lovely boyfriend got to enjoy a lovely cool glass of Pimm's and Lemonade, available in can form now apparently, while I got on with my next task...

8/50: Skiing, Fondue

It's been a while since I've completed any of these, since I was ill for a few weeks and then had lots of catching up to do, as well as other exciting new things which I don't have to tell you about. Anyway, I thought I'd crack on with some of these, and why not go for the big ones - 49 minutes of downhill skiing and 6 pieces of cheese fondue? I found out about a (happily 50-minute) skiing lesson available at my local indoor ski slope, and since I've never been skiing before and have no idea how, this was a sensible place to start.

Having arrived early, I spent a while getting changed and trying to figure out where to get skis and ski boots from, and then further how to put the boots on - they seemed really tight around the ankles, but eventually a man helped me to clip them closed, and assured me it's supposed to hurt like that (his precise words - 'They're not dancing shoes'). The lesson itself consisted of familiarising ourselves with skis and how to put them on and take them off, as well as stepping sideways up hills, turning to face down the hill without setting off (it's all about the big v shapes) and then how to not shit yourself when sliding forwards down the hill. You can't really see me very well in this picture, since it was hard from the viewing gallery, but I'm assured that the blob in the picture below is definitely me.

We didn't get much further than that, although we did get a good five or six runs down the short training slope. On each run the instructor told us to do a different thing, notably once 'heads, shoulders, knees and toes' to accustomise ourselves to being at different heights (and not looking at our feet, which is what makes you fall over). I, however, using my amazing skills (or should that be skiils) managed to fall over anyway, twice in fact, and got snow down the back of my pants. The rest of the time was spent marvelling at the presence of a great big pile of snow, somehow, inside a building, as well as the sheer quantity of shops and restaurants they managed to tack on in order to extract money from the hordes of people milling around comparing expensive ski paraphernalia.

When we got home, the fondue was broken out, and since I also don't know how to make fondue, and wasn't keen on putting wine or kirsch in, we had to make do with an approximation of fondue which the internet assured me could be made with chicken stock and using a bowl on a pan of water, in the absence of a fondue set. We ended up with a substance not entirely unlike fondue, but more akin to melted cheese living in a creamy soup, which was fine for dipping bread in, and substituted nicely in the absence of any chefs or Swiss people. Altogether a tiring but fun day, and hopefully now I can use this impetus to push on and complete this challenge.

7/50: Piano, Cappuccino

I approached this task with mild trepidation, due to two undeniable facts: one, I don't play the piano, and two, I don't like coffee. Undeterred, I set off with gusto, being timed by someone else (who also kindly took photos) I grabbed one of two nearby books of piano music, which was the sheet music to Ben Folds' album 'Rockin The Suburbs', and began my epic 54-minute jam session.

The first couple of minutes consisted of me familiarising myself with bass clef ('Oh, what? That's a G?') and then working on my left hand only, and then eventually it was joined by the right hand in a clunky, fragmented rendition of 'Fred Jones Part 2' (the song which looked the easiest), leaving out the intro which I had a go at but it's off the beat and my hands could barely deal with doing two different things at the SAME time, let alone different times. At first, I stopped after every note, then after every bar, then managed to get some two-bar passages fairly smooth. Just as the 54 minutes came to an end, I managed to play the whole thing through up to where the chorus starts. It was still a bit wrong in places, but I think pretty impressive for someone who has never even pretended to play the piano.

At this point, my cappuccino arrived from a nearby coffee shop, presenting me with my second challenge: I don't really like coffee. Given that under the terms of the challenge, the alcoholic beverages may be consumed by a nearby useful person, I ensured someone was nearby who would be able to drink it for me. I then, with the best possible intentions, tried the cappuccino. Well, from this moment onward, coffee is no longer one of those things which I don't drink just because I've never tried it and didn't really fancy it - I really did not like it at all. I'm assured it's an acquired taste, but to me it just tasted of burnt mud. It's a shame, because I know a lot of people really enjoy coffee. I'm sticking to tea, thanks.

6/50: Fishing, Jam Donut

This week I am ill. Not only does this mean I'm not able to get on with any of the more active components of my calorie offsetting mission, I also am unable to do any of the other things I should otherwise be doing. Not only does this suck, I'm also ill. It's a horrible vicious circle, and in order to break out of it, I have decided to use my time sat on the sofa doing nothing more productively - that is, complete another of my hilarious tasks.

Now, you may wonder how it is that I've managed to go fishing from the comfort of a couch/duvet combo, but the answer is of course, thanks to Nintendo. Wii Play features what I am assured is a highly realistic fishing simulator, complete with lifting the rod when you've got a bite, and fish of different levels of jumpiness and quickness to bite (which are, conveniently, different colours). 75 minutes of fishing is required to offset one jam doughnut (which my lovely boyfriend will be bringing home with him, because he's nice like that), and I can tell you 75 minutes is a very long time in fishing. Not only have I mastered the art, I have also attained a high score of nearly 3000, and obtained the bronze, silver, gold AND platinum medals (somehow, even though I'm the only one playing).

Hopefully normal service will resume next week, at which point I'll feel better and will attempt one of what people are referring to as 'the big ones', i.e. something which will involve more considerable time/expense/effort/embarassment than any of the tasks I've done so far. People have been questioning my commitment. They will see.

5/50: Supermarket shopping, Chocolate muffin

Immediately in the wake of my victory with the washing up, I set off with an empty trolley and a long list, in order to complete my epic shopping task. With some judicious wandering around and lots of putting things in the trolley, the minutes seemed to fly by. Before I knew it, I had done my shopping and it was time for lunch. In an amazing example of good fortune, the cafe in Sainsbury's was almost closed, and they were giving away free muffins! Sadly, none of them were chocolate, so I made do with this apple and cinnamon masterpiece, which I enjoyed with a nice cup of tea.

4/50: Washing up, Bucks Fizz

A slightly delayed write up for this, since I've been busy and it's a slightly boring one, but the fact is, I did 40 minutes of washing up (that's a lot of washing up, and there weren't quite enough things dirty so I used the last five minutes to wipe down all the kitchen surfaces and tidy up) and then, for reasons mentioned earlier in the blog, gave the glass of Bucks Fizz to Paul, which we enjoyed with a nice risotto.

3/50 : Housework, Bagel

While my house isn't necessarily untidy, I can certainly find 82 minutes' worth of cleaning to do even at the best of times, so I took advantage of my free Saturday to give it a once over and complete this task. I started upstairs in the bedroom, with a plan to work my way round the upstairs then continue downstairs. I tidied, hung up clothes, cleaned windows and mirrors, sorted piles of clutter, hoovered, changed the bedsheets... My 82 minutes were up before I'd even finished the bedroom! Ah well. My time completed, I broke for lunch (a delicious, if I may say so, salmon and cream cheese bagel) and then afterwards finished off the other rooms, taking me well into the afternoon. In a way I'm glad I had to do this, since it gave me the impetus to get a lot of things done. Plus the bagel was really nice. It didn't look like the one in the picture, though. It looks like it'd be fairly difficult to do that using cream cheese.

2/50: Walking, Garlic Bread

I thought I would get on with the next challenge, and since the various places I live and work are either less than half an hour's walk apart or more than half an hour's drive, I had to specially arrange a half-hour walk - so, I dug out my gym card, a pair of trainers and a book, and went and sweated a half-hour stint of speed walking on the treadmill. While I initially intended to be discreet about this, the treadmills in the back of the gym were all on the blink, so I resigned myself to being stood in the window where everyone could see me power-walking. Not that I'd notice anyone looking at me - I was engrossed in my book the whole time. Once I'd finished, it felt like I wasn't properly walking on the floor for a few minutes. Mental. I then proceeded to the university refectory for a well-earned lunch, accompanied (of course) by a lovely piece of garlic bread. Action shot here shown - see, I'd just had a shower and everything.

1/50: Watching television, Chocolate Biscuit

A gentle start, I will admit, since I
thought it was better to get started rather than wait until I can get some of the proper ones sorted out - so, as my first act of carb-offsetting, I took along a packet of chocolate biscuits to our weekly viewing of as many episodes of The Wire we can watch before we all fall asleep (when I say we, I mean my The Wire watching club) and shared them out, making sure I savoured my chocolate covered digestive biscuit (accompanied by a cup of tea), and then burned it off shouting 'OMG McNulty you cad' and clapping and whooping whenever Omar came on the screen. We also had a good laugh/cheer when Clay Davies was surprised by something, and said 'shiiiiiiiiiiiiit'.

New Year's Resolution: Do more silly things

This week The Times, which I buy for the crossword, published in the section of the paper conventionally referred to as 'the bit you throw away', i.e. the bit that's not the crossword, an informative poster in an attempt to be The Guardian.

The poster, entitled 'Offset Your Carbs: The Wallchart For Gluttons; listed fifty things which people commonly eat, alongside an activity, giving the amount of time you need to do that activity for in order to burn off the number of calories found in said item of foodstuff.

While some people might interpret this poster as a light-hearted take on the dieter's obsession with calorie counting, and others might follow it like a bible, I have chosen to take it as a challenge, Dave Gorman-style. While I don't expect this will be massively entertaining to many people, I shall certainly aim to be edified, if not bankrupted, by the amazing list of new activities I shall have to perform (as well as some which I used to do but haven't done for a while).

The rules of the game are as follows:

- I will select an item from the board, and must complete the eating of the food and the doing of the activity one after the other, in whichever order I choose. They must take place on the same day, but not necessarily at the same time (for practical reasons).

- Being, as I am, a damned non-alcoholic, six of the fifty items are not an option for me. In these cases, the task may be completed by myself in addition to a surrogate person known to me, and then I will buy them the drink.

- There is no time limit on when or how quickly the tasks must be completed, except that I must have completed all of the tasks by the end of 2010. This averages to one a week, not including the first week of 2010, which I have already missed (wasted), and one week off. My incentive to keep doing them will be this overall time limit, coupled with the fact that the chart will be stuck on the wall and I'll see it quite often.

This is not going to be easy. But it may well be fun. Here will follow 50 posts, or thereabouts, listing successes (and failures) and of course, including photos.

Wish me luck!