Task #42 COMPLETED: Beekeeping

I've not updated this for a year, but I have been slowly getting on with things. I won't complete, but I will get a good number ticked off my list - including this one.

Over the last weekend I was doing something new and exciting. I was looking after some BEES.

Ok, learning how to look after them properly rather than being, like, a babysitter or something. Which is harder than you might think. There's about a billion ways in which they can go wrong, there's disease, there's what to do if they swarm, or you accientally squash the queen, there's recognising the different things you find on a comb, and numbers and grubs and mites and the fact that ivy honey is vile, vile stuff.



There's legislation to read, and stuff to buy (or build, but in the first instance just cough up), and sites to find and people to notify. There's how to sell your honey (if you're lucky enough to get any) and recognising that bees are pets as much as a cat or dog. You have to learn how to spot an egg, and to stop pointing at bees going "there's the que- oh, wait no it's a drone".



Two days wasn't nearly enough, and it was done in the wrong order. So we were bombarded with terminology from the get-go which would be explained in later sessions but because we didn't know what it was, we asked the questions in too-early sessions. Beekeepers like to talk - well, this lot do, anyway - and so we'd get off topic and by the end of day one we were half an hour over and a session behind. Yes, we caught up on day two but we were still an hour over by the end of the day.



We got two sessions in the apiary; on neither occasion did I spot the (unmarked) queen. On the second, neither did the tutor, so that's ok. But when stuff looks like this:



then it's hardly surprising.

Basically, though, I loved it. I liked the bee suits, the hives, the way you can tell how annoyed the bees are after a couple of minutes being surrounded by them. The calmness that you absolutely must have before doing anything with the hive. The descriptions of diseases were a bit scary but being given hard data was satisfying. And extracting honey is a total joy (and I have a jar of honey from Temple Newsam that I extracted myself [well, partially]! And it's tasty!) even when you get flecks of stuff that looks suspiciously like bee bits floating around in it.

Am currently on the lookout for somewhere to deposit hives. I want city centre, but I will probably take anywhere...

(more photos from the weekend are here.)

Day 382: Run 5k, volunteer

Thank you, Penny:



The GPS got a bit confused as to distance because we were running through built-up streets and it kept losing signal, but I did the route (3 miles) in 36:48 with an average HR of 161. The first mile took 11 mins, the second took about 14 and I tried to run for more of the last mile than the second, but still took 12 minutes. Stitch, although not as bad as the last time, and I had to walk in a couple of places, but all in all I'm quite pleased by it. Emil beat me hollow, obv.

Seen on the route: two people in gimp suits (how the hell do you run in those things?), a bunch of firemen, a whole load of people juggling, hula-ing, some people walking their dogs, far too many people just wearing pants and a whole load of red paint, some bloke in a spangly thong (my eyes!), and loads of corporate teams.

I got a medal, which was nice. And a prune. But the queue for tea was far too long.

Right, I now have a PB; time to start training properly for 5ks.

And, thank you for sponsoring me. You're all good bunnies. I raised £145 and counting! Not bad, not bad at all :)

Just for the record, though: I'm not considering 44 & 45 to be done yet. I have to do much more training and my aim for the summer is to get a sub-30 min on the 5k route. On the other hand, I am considering task #20, volunteer for something, to be COMPLETED. So far in this 101things I've helped raise well over £200 for charity and I'm not intending to stop, but I think I can tick #20 off.

Ask me next week and I'll probably change my mind :)

Day 214, 041009

On Sunday I completed another one of my things; enter the Charlie Cake Competition. This year the theme was "Make, Bake and Grow", and I'd mentioned to one of the organisers that Tea & Cake would love to be involved somehow. By maybe having a tea stall, or something. And I could enter, too. We were given approval, and so after a swift half-hour planning meeting on Friday after work with Sam, Biscuit and J9 (at Zouk on Leeds Road, excellent masala chai) we divvied up the tasks, and met at Charlie Cake Park on Sunday.

I'd made a cake to enter into the competition; my usual chocolate and marmalade loaf cake, this time covered in chocolate and cointreau ganache - it was covered because I'd used cheap greaseproof paper and the cake had stuck to it, so I needed to hide the holes. So after we'd set up the table and got the kettle on to boil I registered, had a wander about the stalls, and went back to our shed to await the hordes.

The stalls, by the way, were very interesting. The new Leeds City WI was there, who are called "Buns & Roses". I'd join, if it weren't for the pesky Y chromosome. Average age is well below the norm for WI groups, and my mum (who runs her local WI) laughed in a very good way when I told her about it. We also had - it was obviously the day for puns - local crafty people "Fox Bunting". Made me laugh. And there was us, of course:

We had a near-constant hot water crisis. We went through about 40 litres of water, 160 insulated paper cups, "some" plastic cups for squash, two cans of gas, a tonne of teabags, half a jar of coffee, ten pints of milk and some sugar. We weren't charging a set amount, just soliciting donations for the Armley Common Right Trust, Water Aid and the WWF; people were asking how much, we said "no set price, put what you think it's worth into the bucket". In the end we ran out of hot water, cups and milk at about the same time, around 2:30 and decided to pack in early. Biscuit totted up; we had only the vaguest idea how many cups of tea and coffee we'd sold - we used 160 cups, but some people recycled cups and we didn't count the orange squashes - but we made £116.65, an average of about 73p per cup. Split three ways it worked out at £39 per charity; given that we only spent half an hour on planning this, I think that's not a bad result.

Also, look at Sam's banner on the side of the shed. It rocked.

I didn't even get placed in the competition, by the way. There was some excellent entries, and mine didn't look good compared to them. Leedsgrub entered a giant Crunchie! It looked and tasted fab, although apparently it was a nightmare to cut up.

It was a bloody brilliant day, and one well worth doing. Next time we'll double up on everything and rethink the hot water a bit, but I think we can be justifiably proud of what we pulled off on the spur of the moment. Much thanks to Emma and Michelle from The Culture Vulture for talking to us about it and providing a very helpful shed (and a loo, and kettle when we were really in trouble!), and the Charming Armley Tourist Board for putting the event on. Now we know we can do it, I'm sure we'll be giving this another try soon.

So, although I didn't get placed I'm going to count task #95 as COMPLETED. Yay!

Day 193, 130909

On day 193 I completed something I've been meaning to do for a good ten years. Task #63, climb the bell tower at Leeds Town Hall.

The clock tower at Leeds Town Hall is very high; Phill and the LHES managed to wangle a comprehensive tour a few years back (link, but his images aren't loading at time of writing) but we only had the mini tour, which didn't involve being crapped on my pigeons or falling through floorboards. First of all, this is what LTH looks like from the outside.

And this is one of the sets of stairs we had to take to get up to the clock faces.

There were 220 steps in all; thankfully there was a breather at 140 steps; the room where the chandelier above the vestibule is hung. I took a sneaky photo through the grating, but it's not very good (on the flickr photostream if you care). There is a huge pipe in this room, a flue from when the chandeliers were gaslit. Too dark to photograph. Boo.

The chap taking us on the tour was Eric, the FoH manager, a really nice bloke who knew the town hall inside out. The piano competition had been going on over the previous week (broadcasts start Friday, IIRC) and he'd been with the BBC taking photos of the town hall all lit up from various vantage points across the city, and was touchingly fond of the old building. He told us about how they change the lightbulbs in the chandeliers, the amount of pigeon crap they shovelled out of here over the summer (80 sacks! 80!), the various nooks and corners the town hall has. When we got past the bell tower (below the clock faces), we were in the clock mechanism, behind the faces, and I wasn't sure we'd be allowed out onto the balcony. Then he said "you can stay up here as long as you like, and the views are fantastic" and that was all the encouragement I needed. Outside, the clock faces look fantastic close up, with incredible detail nobody at ground level will notice...

... but really, he wasn't kidding about the views.

West:

South:

East:

North:


The clock mechanism itself is fairly simple and clockwork, and that's really all there is to it. Some cogs, some weights, and a mechanical winder. I learned that standard practice for all stopped municipal clocks is to set them to 12 o/c, as it's the time most people are bound to realise it isn't. They had a problem earlier in the year that needed the mechanical winder to be replaced by an electronic one, and replacing the bulbs in the clock faces is no joke. Replacing the bulb in the cupola is really not funny at all; we weren't allowed up there, because there's only room for one person and that person has to stand on the trapdoor.

The rest of the town hall is still a working building; the great hall is used for all kinds of events (recently the aforementioned piano competition)

But the cells, bridewell, and court are now just museum pieces (although all were in use until 1993). Interestingly, none of it is below ground; all at ground level, but behind so much stone it might as well be underground. I spotted one of those cracking mirrors that allows you to view around corners - presumably in case someone broke out of the cells, or was carrying prisoners and didn't want to bump into people - and selfportraited myself in it.


Eric, bless 'im, gave us an extended show round the building because I couldn't find the courts. He loves the building, and it shows; it is an easy building to love, with phenomenal history and stunning architecture. I was very pleased to have been able to take the tour and meet this tremendous chap with an incredible capacity and enthusiasm for the place he works.

So, task 63 is COMPLETED! Huzzah!

Day 159, 100809

Before I talk about this weekend, I just want to mention walkies from last Sunday (the 2nd) a bit. That particular Sunday I was up bright and early to go walking with Matt, Cathy and Mavis in the North Yorkshire Moors.

We met Matt at the Moorcock in Langdale End, possibly the most peculiar pub I've ever been in, and set off up a hill. Unfortunately Matt had to turn back about a third of the way in, and Mavis went back with him; Cathy and I carried on. It was a bit muddy, there were a lot of flying bitey things (I was bitten on the shoulder; it looks like I'm growing a second head), and at the turn-around point we had to ford a river and navigate through a whopping collection of of trail bikes all screaming around us; we couldn't find the path amongst all the routes the bikes had carved out of the ground and nearly lost a footbridge. Still, it was a pleasant walk and we made fairly decent time, picking Mavis up back at the pub (where I had a very tasty treacle sponge & custard).

This is the route:

The colour of the track refers to my heartrate at the time; the redder it gets, the more I was exercising. As you can see, there weren't many points where my bpm were particularly high, partially because it was ridiculously muddy and impossible to move very quickly. But, the views were nice:

and there was that really odd interface where two rivers, one clear but peaty, the other murky because of bikes churning up silt, met and mingled:

A good walk, overall, but probably not one to repeat.

So, this weekend saw a somewhat different walk. I had to be up at stupid o'clock on Saturday, S had to be up at less-stupid-but-still-very-early-o'clock, because we had trains to catch; S to London (to watch Phedre), me to Horton-in-Ribblesdale. Train departing at 6:19. Getting the train to Horton is really, really nice; it takes slightly less time than driving there, it's much more relaxing, a return costs about the same as petrol+parking for one (if there's two or more it's cheaper to drive, but what the hey) and it takes you through some fab countryside that normally you can't see because there's a bloody lorry ahead that's taking all your concentration. Plus lovely little towns that make you think "ooh! Can I jump off here and have a look around?".

Anyway, I got to Horton a mere 15 minutes late (points failure at Skipton) and once I'd sorted out my footwear and GPS, I started walking. As far as footwear went, I was in KSB trainers and lightweight hiking socks. Those socks are the most comfortable items of foot clothing I've ever worn; just putting them on felt fantastic. The trainers were because this was all about as fast a time as I could get, and they have better grip than my boots. Well, that may not be true, but I trust the grip on my trainers more than the boots, and I like to feel the rocks under my toes. Coming down P-y-G a couple of weeks ago was a bit hairy, not least because I didn't trust my boots enough, couldn't be sure of my stability and couldn't flex my feet enough, and was thinking "wish I had my trainers" all the way down the horrible rock scrambly bit on the south-western face.

Yes, I was going to Pen-Y-Ghent again, this time on my tod. When we - Mavis, Cathy, Matt and myself, the usual walking bunch - did it last our time was 3h 33m, and I reckoned I could knock the 33m off if I was sure of my footing and felt like running in places. Here's my trip:

See the red bits? Serious exercise moments. There's three bits on the downhill where I really was running flat out and keeping my footing, with a HR over 168bpm. I'm quite pleased with that. This time, rather than go up the steady face and down the startling bit, I decided to go up the startling face (which is a killer on the legs and lungs) and down the steady bit. I was passed by four people on the initial climb, two of which were fell runners, one was a 3-peaker (don't forget, it was only 8am) and one was a bit of a pikey kid carrying nought but a bottle of Buxton water^[1]. On the rocky startling bit I started passing people who were having trouble (thanks to my trainers I was actually having fun), and got a few nice snaps on the way.


(yes, the summit is in cloud. That was very changeable).



And on the summit? Were the views better than last time?

No.

But on the downhill, the cloud started lifting in a really pleasant way:

Clouds forming patterns on the fields. Lovely.

So I made it down, running for quite a lot of the way, and stopped the clock. My time? 2h 14m. I'd knocked an hour and twenty minutes off. Now, I'm very pleased with this; I would have been happy with under 3 hours, but this was excellent. However, now I know I can do it that quickly I want to knock the time down further; I want to get back to Horton under two hours; if the trains are running to time I can get off the train at 7:24 and get back on a train to Leeds at 9:21 if I'm quick enough, and be back in Leeds for 10:30. What sort of morning constitutional is that? "Just off to climb a mountain, dear. I'll be back for elevenses." As a heartstarter, I can't think of many things finer, or more civilised.

Saying that, though: when I got back home I was shattered. The rest of the day was spent snoozing, reading GPTF^[2] and fussing the cat who was wondering where the other twolegs had gone. And filling the 'fridge. And on Sunday my thighs were aching something rotten.

Anyway; I'm going to count task #96 as being complete, although I'm certainly going to be doing that route again to try getting my time down. 2hrs 14m is a good start, but I can certainly do better. I can add one to my walking with Matt total, too, despite his having to turn back.

1: On the downhill I found that bottle, screwed up and on the path, picked it up and nearly caught up to the kid (but missed him by maybe a quarter of a mile) where I would have presented it to him.
2: Guilty Pleasure Trashy Fiction, in my case Chris Brookmyre.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94+/365, stalling, not sure where I am with this), #13, #26, #37 (4/<34), #60 (11/50), #66 (72/250), #67 (1/>1), #81 (6/250) #85 (5/4) #87, #88, #97 (2/8), #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+), #96 (2/>1)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 10
Remaining: 91

Day 106, 180609

About two months ago I started an archery course, as part of task #68. Signing up with South Leeds Archers for a six-week beginners course, the first of the year, I thought I'd consider the task completed when I'd finished the course, not just after the first lesson.

Eight weeks later, archery is over, done and dusted, and all that jazz. What have I learned from it?

1. How to string a recurve bow.

This is harder than it looks, partially because it's counterintuitive. Fitting the limbs to the body is also counterintuitive, because they go on the wrong way 'round. When New World continent-conquering heroes had run out of bullets, they picked up the bows of their fallen enemies, and promptly took their own eyes out because they didn't understand the technicalities of recurve bows, and I can see why. But, get your head around the whole "you're doing it backwards" thing, and it's fine.

2. Consistency is everything.

Seriously, for three weeks it was all about "get your arrows in a good grouping without thinking about the golds". Then we moved onto using sights, which changed the grip and position, and that really threw me for a week. But, they're right. Concentrate on getting the arrows in the same spot, every time, then we can work on moving where that spot is. Changing your position on the bow, even a tiny bit, can make a huge difference to where the arrow will strike. I spent a week not realising that I should be touching the bow string into my nose and under my chin, not just under my chin; having two reference points is a huge help.

3. This is a survival skill.

Someone put a picture of a squirrel up on a target one week. It freaked me out a little. Reminders that really, this is a method of killing something did make me take a step back, because I'm not mad on the whole taking life away thing (I get guilt killing greenfly on my roses, which probably makes me some sort of big girly wuss). There is a huge element of skill involved in this, and it's skill I like to have, but the fundamental reasons for having the skill in the first place is something I have to think about.

4. Archers are nice people.

Generally, yes, people who carry weapons are quite nice to other people who carry weapons. The South Leeds Archers are fun people to be around, although social skills aren't necessarily a high priority. Not unlike geeks, really.

5. Arrows hurt.

Dropping the arrow off the guide rail onto your hand makes you go "ow". Doing it twice in quick succession gives you something that looks like fang marks and bruises that'll last a week on the back of your hand just above the thumb. Forgetting to put a bracer on your arm and then not holding the bow quite right means you'll get a bruice on your forearm that stings a bit. Not wearing finger tabs means your fingerprints will be worn off by the end of the session and you'll spend the next week wondering why the skin on your fingers is flaking off. Thankfully, nobody shot me, so injury was restricted to those things.

6. What all those bristly bits on pro bows are.

Stablisers. They're there to add weight to the bow, to make it move less when you're holding it. Of course, you have a fine balancing act between the amount of weight you need to provide inertia, and the amount you can hold without giving way. I added a stabliser and my grouping became much tighter; they are useful things to have.

7. How these things are scored.

It can be nuts complicated. It can also be very simple. Decide early on which way you'd like it to be.

8. Yellow = gold.

No matter how many times you call it yellow, and no matter how much it looks like a primary colour, someone will always correct you and call the centre circles the gold.

9. I enjoy the sense of peace.

You have to concentrate when shooting. Really concentrate. I would have enjoyed it more, I think, if there weren't two kids on the course constantly talking (or arguing with their Dads about how much money they'd get for hitting the target). However, in the brief moments where they were keeping quiet I could feel my concentration narrowing to a fine focal point, just in front of the arrow tip or on the other side of the sight, and there was an almost zenlike quality to those moments which I enjoyed. Concentrating at that level for any amount of time was very therapeutic and I really appreciated those moments when they came. Invariably, those moments came on shots where I hit the gold. It felt right.

So, that's that. I enjoyed doing it, and it's a skill I appreciated learning, but I think I'm done with archery for the time being. I'll be glad to get my Friday evenings back, and not have to keep an eye on the weather (out of a six week course, two of those weeks were rained off and one cut short) quite so much. I may go back to it, and if I get the chance to shoot I'll certainly keep my eye in, but for the time being I'm done.

Unfortunately, I'm putting task 3 on hiatus. I'm not keeping up with my photo-a-day thing, and so I might have to change it to "take 365 photos that represent a year's worth of shots over the course of the experiment". We'll see; I might pick it up again where I left off, but the "consecutive days" element will probably fall by the wayside.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94/365, stalling), #13, #26, #37 (2/<34), #60 (11/50), #68, #66 (61/250), #87, #88, #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 9
Remaining: 92

Day 104, 160609

Strictly speaking trauma isn't really what happened over the bottom half of last week, except in one particular incident. But to use the modern sense of "trauma" to mean "nerve-wracking" then yes, we had that by the bucketload. First, some background: my parents-in-law are somewhat disorganised, have a flexible approach to time, attract drama like a theatre company and my Mother-in-law (let's call her M*) has a serious wheat allergy so we have to be very careful with her diet, whereas my Father-in-law (G*) has had a laryngectomy and can only talk in a whisper, and only when he has a valve in his stoma.

Chronologically, let's go back to Wednesday. S headed to Brum during the afternoon, checked into her hotel, and awaited the parental arrival. The reason S was back in Brum was the public workshop, where professionals take on the writings from those engaged in the MPhil in Playwriting and put them on stage. S is one of those who had a play on (the one about bees, if you read the press release). In fact, S was the last play to be put on over the two days, Thursday and Friday, which could be seen as a great honour; the headline act, if you will. It was referred to as "the headliner" repeatedly by her classmates. On the other hand, it just gave her more time to get twitchy. Her folks were attending the whole public workshop, to see S's play and to observe the rest of the competition. However, they were using a satnav to get from Norf Norf London to Brum, and were travelling after work. G* apparently spent most of the trip flicking V-signs at the satnav whilst M* was trying to keep him calm and drive after a busy day at work. They get lost in Brum's one-way system, but eventually park in the Pallisaides and try to find their way to the hotel.

They can't. They get lost.

Eventually they get hold of S, who gives them directions to a spot where she can meet them and get them to the hotel on foot. This is a good job, because the car park had locked up and M* couldn't get the car out of it. Then they get to the hotel, only to find that their room had been overbooked and the duty manager was being a c0ck; "I can't magically build a room out of nothing" was one of the phrases allegedly used, along with "there's nothing I can do" despite the room having been paid for in advance and checked no less than four times over the previous fortnight. Thanks to S knowing the trade, she was able to get past the muppet of a DM to speak to the GM (who was, astonishingly, still on site at 10pm), who went white at some of the commentary S was able to provide. Despite having to book them out to the Etap that night (the hotel was the 4* Burlington), they provided taxis, comped breakfast, upgraded their room for the following two nights and eventually bent over backwards to help them out. M* and G* decamped to the etap, and S phones me to get all this lot out of her system.

Thursday morning, M* & G* get back to the Burlington for breakfast. M* has a kipper. Unfortunately she missed a bone, and ended up with a fishbone in her throat. The best cure for a fishbone in the throat? A piece of dry bread. To which she's allergic. They needed to be on a particular train to Selly Oak, so after M* got herself sorted out after that, they went to the car to find G*'s jacket. Except they couldn't remember where they'd parked the car. S, at this point, throws up her arms in despair and runs to catch her train, after giving directions on where to go ("turn left at the firey demon, and you'll end up in Hell" was what she didn't say). They eventually make it to Selly Oak, an hour after S had been there watching some quite interesting pieces.

Eventually, after all of this I arrived, was told all the gory details about how the last 24 hours had taken 24 years off S's lifespan, and was given ten minutes to wash-and-brush-up before going out to dinner and afterwards we arranged to meet in reception at 10 the following morning.

Friday morning - yes, this isn't a week's worth of stuff, it's about 36 hours by this point - we got up in good time to get to reception, waited around for a bit for G* and M*, then said "fine, they're not here, let's go" and off S and myself went. We had a pleasant trip to Selly Oak (I'm still amazed by the train station more-or-less in the middle of the BU campus), then a walk up the road to the George Cadbury Hall, and I was shown off - sorry, introduced - to the classmates (I am no longer just "Mike", but "Mikeasseenontv", apparently) who were saying "oh, we're just the support act, S is headlining", and we saw the morning's worth of plays. Solely my opinion, but they were... ok. There was a post-Auschwitz play that was interesting, but the other two were competent, perfectly decent pieces of theatre (and I've seen worse put on by hardened professionals), but failed to grab me by the throat.

Lunchtime, and I wandered off to find a Private Eye and a sandwich, then met Mavis at the train station, as S was engaged in schmooze. On my way to the station I found M* & G*, who were walking somewhat slowly; it turned out that they weren't at reception on time because M* had fallen out of the shower. She'd hit her head (twice) on the tiled floor, and had an eight-inch bruise down her calf. She wasn't feeling too well, had practically given G* a heart attack, and he couldn't phone for help because his valve had come loose and he hadn't had time to fix it properly, so couldn't speak. Eventually they got some help from the day manager (who was a bit of a charmer), and M* decided - in spite of feeling sick and headachey - to struggle on and go to see S's play. So, they told me all of this, then said "but for goodness' sakes, don't tell S until it's all over."

Apparently, M* had gone to Boots to get some arnica tablets for the bruising and shock; she got them, then had trouble opening the box. After a couple of minutes of this she went back inside and asked the girl on the counter to help. After a couple of minutes, she couldn't get into it, so phoned head office to find out how this lid worked. M* was offered a refund - "I don't want a refund, I just want my tablets" - and it turned out that this batch of arnica tablets were sent out in faulty packaging, and M* was the first purchaser of this batch. The whole batch was taken off the shelves, as M* tried to find another Boots.

Mavis and myself headed up to the theatre, chatted for a bit waiting for S to finish schmoozing, and when she came out, all sparkly-eyed, M* and G* turned up having stopped in the pub for a bracer. Then we went into the auditorium, and sat through a play about a metaphysical detective (which was fun), and a (somewhat) kitchen sink drama by the writer of Another Paradise, before the headline act came on stage, The Bee Charmer by t'missus.

Not wanting to give anything away; it was excellent. I know I'm biased, but the writing was stunning, the performances were wonderful and expansive, and the director was over the moon to receive the script. They had a lot of fun putting it on, and I felt that S's writing had engaged the actors' imaginations. There was pindrop silences in the theatre, people rapt, their attention on the stage. It didn't feel like half an hour, but it zipped by. The writing reminded me a lot of Douglas Adams, where every word means something. The headline act was deservedly in the right place, in my opinion.

We decamped to the library next door for drinks and nibbles, where the writers were asked to attend a ten-minute individual panel interview with the invited guests. I thought there would be about half a dozen people on this panel. S was the last play, so she was the last one to attend. The previous day, the panel were a bit up themselves, giving the impression they weren't really expecting to find anything of note; one person said "send us your play when you submit; we'll probably read it and we might give you feedback. What will never, ever happen is that we'll put it on." So, S goes to the panel, opens the door and sees 19 people sat in a big circle. An involuntary "oh my god" escapes her lips, and a chuckle runs around the circle. The course director says "so, who wants to start?" and they were off. Everybody *loved* it. These are the great and the good in the theatre world, those people who can make or break careers, and they had a few criticisms, but all were making comments like "completely charming", "spellbinding", "captivating"... and before too long, ten minutes were up.

Steve wrapped things up - "thank you for coming, we can go & get drinks now" - and left, expecting everybody to leave with him. I saw him come down with a couple of people, and thought "oh, that's the panel", not expecting there to be 19 of them. S didn't appear. Hm, I thought. Maybe she's talking to the play director. Then another half-dozen came down. Another ten minutes went by, and then this mass of people, S at the rear, came back. She grabbed a drink, and:

"after Steve wrapped up, I was expecting everybody to go with him; that's what's been happening on previous sessions. Instead, almost everybody wanted to talk to me, and rushed my seat like a tidal wave; they were queueing up to talk to me. The woman from the National who said they will never put it on was saying that she could see it on a huge stage, a massive performance in a big theatre, and it was tremendously exciting work..."

There were people from radio being excited, our local theatre, the Rep, agents... No kidding; they loved it, and her. Clare, her director, said that she'd never seen or heard of anything like this happening before and was stunned.

So after that, Mavis left, M* & G* left, and S and me went for a pint by ourselves, then joined up with the remainders of the class for a (bloody good) curry. Back to the hotel, we picked up G* from their room and took him for a pint to get him out of M*'s increasingly painful hair. M* had at least a mild concussion in my opinion, but wouldn't go to A&E to get it checked out, she just wanted to sleep and there was no arguing to be had.

The following morning was reasonably calm; M* was feeling much better, so gingerly got into the shower, whereupon the shower head - an 8" whopper - dropped off the wall. Thankfully, not onto M*'s head, so she wrapped it in a towel and dropped it onto Reception. Then they came to find us, asked me for help shifting bags (which I did), and before too long we were all checked out and ready to depart. Some coffee and a muffin, a walk to the war memorial (which is lovely), and then I wandered into the museum while the others went shopping. I had a good poke around the museum, then went to wave off M* & G*. S and myself pottered around Brum, I took S up to the museum to see one particular artwork that fascinated me (Jacob Epstein's Lucifer), then it was time for our train home.

Seriously, this has been one of the oddest weeks I've had in a while (for many more reasons than I've mentioned here) and I've had some odd weeks recently. The next five days will be a cakewalk in comparison.

(Thanks to spending four hours on trains I'd been able to read Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, based off a film rec by my sister; yes, it's good. Not great literature, but not Dan Brown either. If you see a copy in a secondhand bookshop, you might enjoy it. I don't mention every book I read, or even one in twenty, but this is worth a thought or two. Beware, though: the subject matter may be triggering.)

This is a huge entry, and doesn't even contain photos. Tut. There are a couple of photos to come, though.

Anyway, this means task #82 has been completed! I have seen a play written by someone I know (and adore, quite honestly), and it was great.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94/365), #13, #26, #37 (2/<34), #60 (11/50), #68, #66 (57/250), #87, #88, #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 8
Remaining: 93

Day 90, 040609

I have been remarkably remiss in updating the blog over the past month. Very poor indeed, in fact.

Just about keeping up to date with the photo-a-day malarky (task #3), although I've not uploaded all of this week yet. Exercise has fallen by the wayside a little after an attempt at a very long walk, swimming pools and libraries have stalled somewhat, although I hope to pick them up again in a couple of days, and I'm being a bit rubbish about the plants; they're surviving, but I've not planted them out in growbags yet, and if this is all the summer we're going to get, they won't really do much.

On the other hand, I've got one more archery session to do, I've done four Exposure Leeds events, chocolate making continues apace and I'm doing some filming next week too. I'm keeping on top of the eat more fruit, remember breakfast and make lunch things, and plans are well underway for "get gently squiffy with as many friends as possible" later in the summer. My volunteering task has a serious number of contenders all clamouring for attention and going walking with Matt might happen before the end of the month.

Details, then.

Archery has gone well; the beginners sessions end tomorrow, and then we have to decide whether to join the club or not. As much as I have enjoyed the sessions I think this will be the last one I go to, at least for the forseeable future - I have too many other things going on, and the equipment is sufficiently expensive to require a "do I really need this?" conversation with my bank account (and would turn it into a "buy stuff" task, which I want to avoid). The element of calm archery provokes is therapeutic, but to do it justice I need to think hard about my reasons and have suitable kit, and I just don't feel it quite enough.

Exposure Leeds number 4 (task #85 was last night, and my last one for the purposes of 101Things. Unlike the archery, though, this one will be carried on way past the paramters set out here; I have thoroughly enjoyed every single one of the sessions that we've had. Last night we had a talk from Nick Efford about high dynamic range (HDR) postprocessing using Photomatix Pro, or whatever other tools there might be out there. I had a little tinker with Photomatix using Nick's suggestions, generating pseudo-HDR from single RAW files - really you should have a sequence of them with different EVs, but you can fake it as long as it is a RAW - and came up with one I'm really quite happy with.

Pardon the watermarks, but it's because I've not coughed up for the software yet! Speaking as someone who has gone "No! No! No!" in the style of Ian Paisley whenever HDR is mentioned in sensible conversation, last night opened my eyes considerably. It's not all about garish effects and nightmare saturations, but more about bringing closer the massive variance in contrast viewing between what we see and what technology is capable of displaying. Shame much of the stuff on Flickr is all about the former, really.

We were doing a print swap, too; bring a print, swap it for someone elses. It worked, too - someone took away my print from Spurn Head, I picked up someone's print of mountains.

After the HDR session was me speaking (again!) on "What Next for Social Documentary in Leeds", a somewhat cumbersome title but one that carries significance. We have a great local history scene here with plenty of resources available, but one or two could be improved upon... and this is where one of my volunteering projects comes in (#20). I don't want to talk about this too much at the moment because it's still a bit fragile, but I'm writing a scoping document as to how we could go forwards with this in the community (with local group backing, too), and soliciting opinions from the communities I would like to become users of whatever I come up with. Yes, it'll be Web-based, and it'll involve the Google Maps API, but before I start tinkering with code I want to get a decent project spec done and approved by the other parties involved at this stage.

Chocolates continue apace; I was asked to come up with a chocolate "involving blackcurrant and chilli". So I did;

They're a layer of chili jam (boil 3 chopped red chillies in 200ml cider vinegar for 15 minutes, strain, add 3g of sugar per ml of liquid, bring to a rolling boil for 2 mins and add 50ml of liquid pectin, take off the heat, leave for a minute, then pour onto a sheet of bake-o-glide with something to stop it pouring off the edges) and a layer of blackcurrant ganache (130g double cream, 25g glucose syrup, 70g blackcurrant pureé, 500g white chocolate, boil the cream and glucose, pour onto the chocolate, leave for at least a minute before you start sirring, then stir into an emulsion and add the blackcurrants), dipped in chocolate and with drizzled coloured chocolate on top. Things I need: caramel rulers and a guitar cutter. The rulers are reasonably ok to get, but the guitar is a huge thing that I don't have space to store.

In recent weeks I've also done many things not on the list: attended BarCamp (brilliant, frankly), walked from Marsden to Cragg Vale (was supposed to be Hebden Bridge, but we had water and feet issues and needed a minor rescue), am getting involved in podcasting with a very nice chap called Daag (details will be forthcoming), and had T&C's birthday party. Enormous fun! I made a cake, which all went:

and we're hoping to have a repeat event later in the year.

I finish another thing tomorrow, next week I get to see my delightful lady wife's play on the stage (#82), and things continue apace!

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (90/365), #13, #26, #37 (2/<34), #60 (11/50), #68, #66 (40/250), #87, #88, #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 7
Remaining: 94

Day 54, 280409

(I have a couple of things to write up, but it'll be in separate entries; this one is a biggie.)

This week has all been about the chocolate. And commuting to Whitefield, but aside from saying that I've never been so road-ragey in my life, least said the better.

Task 8 is "learn how to make chocolates". I didn't really know what I wanted out of this, as I've made chocolates in the past but really wanted to learn how to make them properly; the week-long course I've just finished did this in spades.

Slattery's is a fab place. It's a choccy and cake shop, where they decorate cakes in the back room, have a cafe on the first floor and a school in the attic. A former pub, this place is a brilliant building and it's still too small for them; the shop is enormous and still they're short of space. People are in and out all the time, between two sites they employ 60 people and 14 saturday staff, they're seemingly unaffected by the current economic climate and make some pretty stunning stuff. They also sell ingredients in small batches, which is bloody brilliant from my point of view.

So, day one was making stuff in moulds; bears, boxes, truffle shells. We also made a quick ganache - simple truffle mix - and learned that you can temper chocolate by careful use of a microwave. And a huge chocolate lolly. We learned about presentation being important, too, so it was put together on a baseboard with choccy scribbles, and cellophaned.



Day two was more about truffle mix; flavourings, expiry dates (quick ganache needs eating in 6-10 days, the one we did today was good for 6 weeks), practicing filling moulds, more tempering, making circular boxes out of cooking rings, lids, and decorative techniques; hand-rolling, dusting, transfer sheets, how to make dominoes, the importance of cocoa butter and colourings (shiny!), and more presentation.


Day three was shoes and handbags; these things sell for astonishing amounts of money. This was more coloured cocoa butter, decorative techniques, piping, care and attention to detail and contrasts, all arty stuff you pick up over the years by osmosis. This was probably my least useful day, and I'm not terribly happy with one of the pieces (the handbags are rubbish), but still fun. Unfinished the shoes looked like this:

Finished, they looked like this:

We ended the day with a talk on packing and legislation that was fascinating and very useful.

Day four was cake decoration. Nearly everybody started with the idea of making a cake suitable for a wedding, so we ran out of white chocolate (seriously, 15 Kg of the stuff). We learned how to make chocolate paste (alternative to marzipan), pouring ganache, chocolate fans and ruffles, marbles, more (neater!) dominoes, curls, twists, pillars, and how drawing shapes on sugar can make some lovely effects. My cake ended up looking like this:

See the cigarettes on the right-hand side? I'm very proud of them; two-tone, they're not something you normally see on cakes or in shops.

Day 5 was insane; we had individual oval cakes, truffles, truffles, more truffles, more dipping, decorating, rolling and tempering, caramels, Q&A, more truffles, shells, gathering everything together and buying ingredients. As I have no need of 10x10kg sacks of chocolate I was happy to pay a bit extra to just buy the 2.5Kg ones. Just some of the stuff I made on Friday looked like this:


I loved this week. It was outstanding, the food was good, the students lovely, the tutor knowledgeable (a former patissier) and an excellent teacher, the staff incredibly helpful and willing to chat to us no matter what was going on. I'm stunned at how happy everybody there was, and it's all down to the management, who is a couple of people who have known the business since it was four people selling hand-rolled truffles. No kidding, if you're at a loose end for a week and have the money to do it, this is an outstanding course to attend. If you don't have the money or the time, do the 2-day chocolate excellence course instead. Really.

So, I'm looking into getting the kitchen up to the sort of standards an environmental health officer wouldn't have a problem with. This might take a bit of thinking about.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (53/365), #13, #26, #66 (19/250), #85 (2/4), #87, #88
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 6
Remaining: 95

Day 36, 100409

I love bank holidays. Being off work is huge fun, especially when it's a weekday and you're (i) not ill and (ii) not using a day's leave.

So what can be better than updating my blog with what I've been up to? Let's see, now...

On day 34, April 8th, I popped into the Art Gallery on the Headrow in Leeds to get my "visit all the museums with a LS postcode" task (#57)started. After leaving werk I found myself in the not uncommon situation of going "oh, I've not taken a photo yet today. What shall I snap?" and found myself outside the art gallery. There's quite a well-known statue by Henry Moore outside the gallery, so I photographed that, and then popped in to see what they had on.

There was an exhibition called "Rank". All about social orders on a local and global scale, it contains works as diverse as the frontispiece of Hobbes' Leviathan, cartoons from publications in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, an edition of Polyopoly, some of the maps from those lovely people in Sheffield Uni's geography department blown up to enormous sizes, and print 18/20 of Chad McCail's Compulsory Education.

I've come across Chad McCail before; his work freaks me the hell out. A couple of years ago I saw Snake in the Baltic in Gatehead, which was complex social commentary reduced to a poster that wouldn't look out of place in a schoolroom, despite the context and imagery being utterly beyond kids. Compulsory Education is no exception to this; he's back to using robots again, very stylised based on those capable of taking orders, those who pass on orders, and those who make the orders in the first place. I like the juxtaposition (concept vs design), but at the same time it really does give me the wig. Not as much as Snake did, to be fair, but still. About a year after I first saw Snake I wrote:

"I'm not sure what I make of it, or even whether I like it or not. It's a disturbing piece of imagery and I need to ask myself... do I enjoy being disturbed?"

Five years later, I'm still not sure.

Anyway, if you get 10 minutes one lunchtime and you're in Leeds, go & see it. The exhibit finishes on April 26th, so there's not much time left.

Oh, and the picture?


I failed at looking at the Atkinson Grimshaws in the LCAG while I was there, but ran out of time. Another day.

Today I've been out for a run (although I'm not comfortable enough to say that I'm in training yet), and turned my handwriting into a font. Yes, I've finished another task, this time #71. I tried doing this last week and came up with something that approximated my handwriting, but was even less legible than usual, so I re-did the process and came up with something better.

The process: go to YourFonts.com, download a template, print off the template, fill out the template, scan the filled out template and upload the scanned, filled out template back into their website. Provided you've followed all the instructions on ink, scanning and how to stay inside the boxes, about 40 seconds later you'll end up with a TrueType Font (strictly speaking, it's an ODF with TTF wrappers) that looks like your handwriting, and Word is intelligent enough to bold and italicize it if you so wish. Seriously, this is everso cool and I can't thank Emmy enough for pointing me at it. Give it a try.

My handwriting looks like this, eventually:


Nifty!

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (36/365), #13, #26, #66 (15/250), #85 (2/4), #87, #88
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 5
Remaining: 96

Day 32, 060409

Tropical World (item 23) is fab, let's get this straight. Forget the parking, the location, the traffic, the insane number of people and the fact they had no ice cream. It was a total delight. I'd never been before, and was looking forwards to it after C* suggested a trip earlier in the week. After eventually finding a parking space we headed in (free for Leeds Card holders), where it got progressively warmer and warmer and warmer. The first room wasn't too bad; plenty of butterflies, some turtles, interesting plants, koi and ants. There were some vivaria in the next bit, then it got warmer again and more, well, tropical, where there were fish and a waterfall and ducks and birds and all sorts of stuff. We had a dark room with fruitbats (yay!) and other nocturnals, some degus, lizards, and snakes. They had golden lion tamarins! And meercats! A huge blue iguana, and a brilliant gecko with stunning red and blue colouring. It was warm in there, although with such a name it's hardly surprising.

There's a pile of photos on Flickr, but one I particularly wanted to share was this one:


So, that's another thing completed! I know 23 was supposed to be part of 22 (visit Roundhay park), but the park is so big I'm going to have to take more time to have a poke around in there.

It's day 32, so I need to Wordle the blog (item 37). Yes, I said I was going to do it every 30 days, but there's no difference between day 30 & day 32 in terms of content, so I'm safe :)

From Wordles

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (31/365), #13, #26, #66 (15/250), #85 (2/4), #87, #88
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 4
Remaining: 97

Day 28, 020409

Updates!

I'm down to 98 (so that's three things done)! Seeing as, on average, the idea is to complete one task every ten days, I'm right on the money.

The completed task is #7, Appear on Telly, which I did last night on ITV's Taste the Nation (from time of writing you can still get it on their catchup viewer for the next 13 days).

Proof:

See?

Some people have read about this elsewhere; the filming (in London and Masham) was an experience and a half. What they showed in the final edit was, yes, reasonably close to what they filmed with all the "look, I'm vegetarian because I don't like meat very much, not for any moral reasons" edited out. Perhaps for brevity. The judge's comments on the show were much nicer than those said in the studio, thanks to careful edits - my food was described as looking like "a gorilla's paw" by one of them on the day, which (thankfully) failed to get into the programme. I had a great time doing it, and I'd do it again, and all things considered it was a really, really good thing to do. If passing through life is about grabbing it and doing stuff, then this ticks both those boxes.

I've now done two Exposure Leeds sessions (#85), and in this one I gave a talk on exposure, the balancing of shutter speed and aperture size. It was pretty well received by the 40-odd people who turned up, with one of the audience saying they'd wished I'd been their physics teacher, which I thought was a lovely thing to say. My slides, if you want to see them, are on Google Docs: here. I love getting up in front of people and talking about stuff I like, getting my enthusiasm for it out there, and getting people equally involved in it. Saying that, though, I've done quite a lot for Mr Eland in the past year :)

In addition to those things, I've also got a march on #17, "visit every library with an LS postcode" as I was able to gain access to The Leeds Library, a private subscriptions library that's been around since 1768, and some of its books havn't been taken out since then.

They have tea and coffee, comfy seats, a reading room, books you want to pick up and marvel at, a paper catalogue, and spiral staircases. What's not to love? They also have maps. I love maps. These are good maps.

So it's been a busy couple of days! I'm really pleased by progress so far, and I'm getting some fab experiences into the bargain.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (27/365), #13, #26, #66 (14/250), #85 (2/4), #87, #88
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 3
Remaining: 98

Day 12, 170309

Tonight I ticked another thing off my list: number 86, "Whack a bucket of balls at a driving range."

There are so many people helping me with this, it's incredible. All sorts of people are popping up and saying "oh, so-and-so can help you with this, here, let me sort it out" and all of a sudden, I'm on a driving range with a couple of very nice chaps called Richard and Liam. Sam, of T&C fame, asked me at lunchtime via text if I wanted to go to a driving range with her partner while she was at dance class, so of course I said yes.

So, Richard, myself, and the partner of one of the other dance class attendees met up in Pudsey and headed off to The Manor, apparently some sort of hotel/conference centre with the word golf written in tiny letters on the sign outside. Both Liam and myself were newbies to this sort of thing, so we had no bats. Clubs. Thankfully Richard did, so after a bucket of balls (a whole £3.20!) was procured, and the loan of a stick from Richard, we found three consecutive hutches and looked out at a field containing nothing but a couple of flags, some nets, and a whole load of white blotches.

A few brief tips from Richard, and we were off. I started off hitting balls not too badly, but then I started slicing the ball, and topping it, and overthinking what I was doing. Making an effort to relax, I started getting - aha - into the swing of things, and wasn't doing too badly for the first time out. After half the bucket was gone I realised just how tiring this was getting, especially in the shoulders and wrists, and my hands were tingling with the repeated impact vibrations.

It was very therapeutic, though. There's definitely something to be said for hitting balls with sticks, and when we'd finished I did notice a distinct looseness in my shoulders that wasn't there before. A bucket is 80 balls, although I wasn't counting them in any way, and I reckon I'm going to feel every one of them tomorrow. Anyway, thank you Rich, Liam and Sam for being on board for this one; I reckon the occasional bucket o'balls might be whacked in the future.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (12/365), #13, #26, #66 (6/250), #85 (1/4), #87, #88
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 2
Remaining: 99

Day 8, 130309

Today I knocked one of my one-offs off the list. It is done, dusted, and I never have to do it again. Except I will. Every 16 weeks I shall turn up at a certain address on the Headrow, and do some good.

But, it's a completed list item; #48, "Try to register for blood donation."

I met up with Daag at the National Blood Service centre on the Headrow at lunchtime. I signed in, filled out some paperwork and waited for a bit before a terribly nice "blood donor carer" (according to her name badge) called Tracey quickly rattled off a speil about "do you understand the form?" and "we just need to check the iron content of your blood" and so on, practically without drawing breath. "Do you have any questions?" she ended, "yes, is the red ball on your tongue stud for Red Nose Day?" I wanted to ask, but didn't (as the answer was somewhat predictable).

Daag, who had already had his iron test and was well on his way to filling his bag, was busily telling the nurses about my 101 hings, so they already knew what I was up to without my having to say anything. I'm not yet sure about whether to answer the question "so, what made you come here today?" with a short or complex answer... but today Daag had already done the groundwork, so I didn't really have to think about it. A terribly nice nurse called Karen tried to raise a vein, and then stuck a hole in me. I obviously don't have high blood pressure, as I was there pumping my fist around a cardboard tube for about twice as long as it took the bloke who came in after me (who'd just done his tenth donation). I'm allergic to sticking plaster (joy) and so after I'd filled my bag my arm was gauzed and wrapped in a bandage that's still on now.

They gave me a sticker :)

About an hour after I walked in, and a cup of tea later, I walked out with 500ml less blood than when I came in (470 for the bag, 3x10ml for various tests), and went to O'Neills for a quick pint of Guinness, because apparently it's the law, or something. It was a very nice pint of Guinness.

I'm not sure what I'm prouder of; having the list drop to 100 from 101, or doing some good. I'm pretty sure it is the latter, but the former is quite nice too.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (8/365), #13, #26, #66 (4/250), #85 (1/4), #87, #88
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 1
Remaining: 100