...and in June

This is a screenshot from my phone. It relates to doing a good turn for a stranger and this is even better because I never met the person I helped.

I was walking along the Cromford Canal when I saw a dog lead atop a wooden post. The owner(s) had had the foresight to have a mobile phone number embroidered onto the lead, so I texted the number and a day later received a reply to say the lead had been retrieved.

I can put this alongside all the other and regular acts of road gallantry I bestow upon the motoring world.




An unexpected opportunity arose to build sandcastles with two out of the three grandchildren, not at the seaside but in Crich. A special event "Beside the Seaside" was on at the Tramway Museum and so Sue and I were able to amuse them for 4 hours there and spent some time in the sandpit.

We did. also, go on the trams, even though that wasn't one of my 60 tasks.







One of my tasks is to have a photo taken with someone famous, though, of course, this is going to depend greatly upon happenstance.

As an alternative, I have managed to elicit a FB response from Katie Hopkins: "Wow, you are a sad-looking bastard". I'm particularly pleased with this.





Over the last 10 weeks (April-June), I've been doing an excellent online course about Shakespeare and, through that, undertaken to try to write a sonnet.

I've never written such before and looked online at various forms but they all advised that the basic form of the lines was iambic pentameter. Anyway, for good or ill, I came up with what's written here (to the rt) and you can judge for yourself its worth.






So, all in all, fewer achievements than I hoped for - I'm trying to do 5 a month, but not a bad return. If my children's point was to make me active, that's being achieved and I'm sure I'll catch up in July.

May Progress

One month in and the following things have happened:

I have begun documenting my 61st year, via this blog;
I have begun saving £1 a day and now have £31 deposited in my piggy bank;
I have done something nice for a stranger (although this was achieved via courtesy whilst driving);
I have begun learning a circus skill (diabolo - more challenging than it looks);
I have written a letter to Brian Blessed and posted it.
I have worn nail varnish in public - 2nd May, I wore it all day.

So I'm on track - 60 things in 12 months is 5 a month. Some of them are begun but not complete and some of them will be revisited.

The one that's truly complete, though, is writing a letter to Brian Blessed. To help that process, some of my birthday presents were a writing pad, a pack of envelopes, a Parker fountain pen and Brian's autobiography "Absolute Pandemonium", so I wrote him a short two-side letter, telling him why I was writing and asking him some questions based upon what I had read in his book. There's a photo of the handwritten letter on FB. I have no expectation of him replying - I had to write to him via an address his FB page provided - but we'll see.

I'm writing this in a cafe in Melton Mowbray, footling away a day whilst waiting for Sue to enjoy her day of pampering at Ragdale Hall. The footling is supposed to involve some marking and it will. But not till I'm really bored.

More next month...