50 Things before I'm 60 - An Update

Hi there everyone 😀

Do you remember my 50 things to do before I’m 60 project?

When I hit 50, back in 2014, I decided I wanted to achieve 50 goals before I hit 60. I didn’t know what all of the 50 would be at that time, but I keep finding myself thinking of things and just adding them to the list.

So far I have shared 25 of my goals with you. Well ... I will be 54 later this year and, as it stands, I have fully completed 18 of the 50 things I want to achieve.

1 - Hand make Christmas and birthday gifts
2 - Make bramble jelly jam
3 - Have a posh afternoon tea
4 - Visit Balmoral castle

7 - Holiday on the Suffolk coast
8 - Christmas in a holiday cottage

10 - Upcycle my old placemats
11 - Go camping again, or get rid of the camping gear
12 - Have a cottage holiday on one of the Channel Islands
13 - Run my own business

15 - Visit Rosslin Chapel
16 - Visit The Kelpies

18 - Become an auntie again
19 - Holiday in The New Forest

21 - Replace old wonky and tatty patio in the garden
22 - Decorate all of downstairs
23 - Visit Warner Bros Studios - Harry Potter Tour
24 - Visit Castle Howard




Of those I’ve published so far I still have work to do on ...

6 - Complete my on line photography course
9 - Holiday in all of the national parks of Great Britain
14 - Finish off the Explorer 232 series
25 - Finish telling Will Sidney's story and decide what to do with his memorabilia

... and I still need to get started on these ...

5 - Make something in mosaic
17 - Lose weight - go down four dress sizes
20 - Go up Snowdon on the railway






I’ve already started to think about the next 5 things that I want to do and have even started working on some of them so thought I would publish them now rather than waiting until the end of the year when I normally do my update, so here we go with 26-30 ...

26 - Visit all of the Shakespeare properties in Stratford-upon-Avon
Having had a couple of really lovely days spent mooching round Stratford-upon-Avon and catching enticing glimpses of the sculpture garden at New Place I really wanted to actually visit the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust properties

Back in May we decided to make a weekend of it and booked into the Premier Inn in Stratford for three nights and bought ourselves tickets that allowed us both to visit the five properties as many times as we wanted to over the course of a 12 month period.

We managed to fit in visiting all bar one of the properties on our break and you can see what we thought about Anne Hathaway’s cottage, New Place, Hall's Croft and Shakespeare's birthplace in my previous posts.
We still have to visit Mary Arden's farm, which we didn’t get round to on our visit and maybe we will make another visit, but I think I’m going to say that this one is done.

27 - Buy no clothes, shoes or bags for a year
A while ago now I started to clear the clutter from our home the Marie Kendo way. I am still working through the house, it’s definitely a long term project rather than a quick fix.

I started with my clothes and counted up 93 tops!! I did manage to slim them down a bit, but still had 59 ... so I definitely didn’t need any more tops. The rest of my clothes, shoes and bags weren’t quite so excessive but it did make me think that I didn’t really NEED any more.
I’ve also started reading a lot about minimalism and living a more simple life ... it’s all about having enough and not living to excess.

At the beginning of the year I just decided that I wouldn’t buy any more clothes shoes or bags and so far I haven’t bought a thing. That’s not to say I haven't wanted to ... I am a sucker for a pretty summery top.

I think the weather has helped as I’ve been able to wear stuff that I’ve had for ages and not worn for years as it’s just not been warm enough,

I feel that I am on a bit of a roll now and am really hoping that I can see out the year having achieved this goal.

28 - Use less plastic
I don't know whether I've been struck by 'The Blue Planet' effect, but I really want to try and use less plastic and I am in the process of putting together a blog post about what we have tried so far.

One of my first real changes has been to give beeswax wraps a go and I will tell you more about these and whether they are any good in a separate post.

29 - Visit Portmeirion
Portmeirion is somewhere that I've always wanted to visit. I've seen pictures and it looks really funky and a great place for taking some unusual photos. Well, we've actually booked a holiday for next Spring on the Llyn Peninsular and I am hoping that we will get to visit. We should also manage to finally make our trip up Snowdon on the railway, so I may get to kill two birds with this one.

30 - Embroider something to display in an embroidery hoop
During my trawls of Pinterest and other blogs over the last year I've lost of inspiration for hoop art, with lots of lovely embroidered hoops adorning mantels and I really want to have a go at this myself.

Earlier in the year I downloaded a free pattern and I dashed out and bought everything I needed to get started. Sadly, it has all just sat in the bottom of my sewing basket, along with a few other unfinished projects, and I'm yet to get started.
The pattern is a spring design so I am hoping that I will get cracking with this over the autumn and winter months.

So that's it for now. I will be back with an update early in 2019 to let you know how I've got on and what I want to do next 😀

*********************************************************************************