12 for 2012 - a review

At the start of this year I set myself the challenge to do 12 new things this year.  To be truthful, I wasn't sure that I would manage it - it doesn't seem like much (one new thing a month), but it did get tricky after a while.  But I did it!  (Even though one* is cheating somewhat)

1. Circus skills (terrifying but fun)

2. Burlesque dancing "taster" class (something I would do again, if I can persuade Goth Girl to come with)

3. Bollywood dancing course (the taster class was so much fun that I signed up for a 12-week course. By myself!  The course was excellent although I'm not sure I retained that much, alas)

4. Quad-biking in the Arabian desert (seems mild but it was exhilirating and I've never done it before)

5. Archery.  After the "taster" class (I love taster classes!), I signed up for a 12-week course, which was I think the best thing I did this year.  I loved it, I turned out to be good at it and ended up with my certificate of profiency.  I still have to join a local club, but have to wait until my hand recovers, hopefully soon.
6.  The train from Oslo to Bergen - a 20-year-old dream realised
7.  For my birthday Goth Girl and Rock Chick paid for me to have acrylic nails done.  I know that this seems like a strange thing for 12 for 2012 but I've wanted to have them done for ages (can't really explain why) but have held off because of my job.  But this summer I had a clear 2 months where I wouldn't be patient-facing or taking charge of samples so:

8.  Back in June, my former boss took me to Lords to watch England play Australia in an ODI.  This was another ages-long dream realised, I was beside myself with excitement for weeks beforehand and the day itself was just as wonderful as I had hoped (especially as England won!)

9. In August I took a cocktail-making masterclass.  It was great fun, especially as we were all encouraged to have a pre-class cocktail. This here is my very own Moscow Mule :-)

10. In March I took a photo a day.  I thought that this was going to be easy, I had no idea of the commitment it takes to do something like that.  I had thought that in 2013 I would take a photo a day for an entire year but I realised pretty early in to the March project that would never happen! There was much cheating as I took lots of photos of my darling little cat when I suddenly realised late in the evening that I hadn't taken that day's picture...

11. In April, the BT Tower had an open day of sorts, selling tickets to the top in aid of a charity.  Rock Chick and I were lucky enough to be able to nab a couple of tickets, and doubly lucky that the rain held off for the time we were up there.  The views over London were amazing, we were so lucky!

12. Bob!* Cheating, I know.  But of all the things I did this year, my adventure with Bob gave me more confidence and made me more smiley than anything else in a long, long time.

And there you have it, my 12 for 2012!

Norway

Before I bore you with holiday snaps, I have to first explain something.
I like trains.  Or, more accurately, I like train journeys. When I was 20 I did the obligatory inter-railing trip around Europe and since then I've been taking as many railway journeys as I can.  Like the Carlisle to Settle railway, the Duoro Valley line in Portugal, the amazing Indian Pacific in Australia and a few more. All very lovely but were not on my list for as long as the train journey between Oslo and Bergen.
So anyway, a friend wanted to go with me and so the two of us took an early morning flight to Oslo.  We were only there for a day and a half (been before) but took the opportunity to hop onto an Oslo fjiord cruise.  It was very cold... (I wasn't wearing a feather mask but I was wearing a fleece, waterproof and blanket)

 Happily, the sun came out as soon as we got back to the city.

This photo and the next were taken at 10.00 at night :-)

After a day and a half in Oslo, we took our sleep-deprived selves down to the station to catch the early train to Bergen.  My friend thought that perhaps we'd have some time to catch up on sleep or to do a little reading but in fact we spent the entire 7 hours glued to the window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If that wasn't enough beauty, we had arrived in Bergen.  An UNESCO heritage site, which is ridiculously lovely, even in overcast weather.

 

 

  The next three photos were taken around midnight, thanks to the midnight sun

 

 

 

On our last full day in Bergen, we took a boat trip through Sognefjiord to Flam. Again, not the sunniest of days but it reminded me of the South Island of NZ...

 

    

  

 

And then from Flam we took the Flamsbana, to continue with the railway theme.

 

 

Norway is so beautiful I wish I knew more poetry!  I want to go back again and go further north, but that is a trip for another year.
I wasn't going to include any travel on my 12 for 2012 list as I do travel often.  But I have to put the Oslo to Bergen train on there because I have wanted to do that journey for 20 years.

slings and arrows

Last week was mainly blue.  Apart from the death of Songbird (thank you all for your lovely comments), and the anniversary of losing Starchild something else happened about which I cannot blog.  (Readers who are my friends IRL may see some links to a page from my FB profile which would explain).

Anyway, before all that happened, I had already booked my next 12 for 2012 event, and last weekend Rock Chick, Goth Girl and I took ourselves off to south of the river (gasp! shock!! the horror!!!) to take a lesson in archery. I've wanted to try archery since I fell in love (aged 15) with this chap, on this show. (What?  I never pretended not to be shallow).  The 90 minutes hurtled by, it was such good fun.  It turns out that, unlike the circus skills, I don't suck at archery.  I mean, I'm no Katniss Everdeen, but I was the only one to never miss the target :-)

In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I found a club in north London (phew!) and have signed up for a 12-week course.

holiday

I am back home after a week away here.  It seems at first like a strange choice of destination for a holiday but I have never been to the UAE before (well, apart from a couple of hours to change planes on the way to Australia two years ago), and it is also a 90 minute bus-ride away from here.

We stayed in a beautiful hotel which had sea views and a stretch of private beach from which I plunged into the Persian Gulf for the first time in my life (point of interest - it's freaking freezing in March).

On our first full day we took the bus to Dubai, which looks in places like a film set for a science fiction movie:

We didn't get to see the famous Palm Islands or World Islands that day but as we had tickets for the top of the world's tallest building for a few days later, we thought we'd see them then.

Sadly, we had not allowed for the sandstorm which hit the UAE the next day, and stayed for the remainder of our trip. The temperature dropped (but we're British - it felt like a London summer to us), visibility was reduced dramatically and there was sand and dust everywhere: on surfaces, in hair, in eyes, in ears for crying out loud.  Reading by the pool (again, we're British...) meant sand in the pages of books or, in my case, settling on the screen of my Kindle.  Sand also would have settled in the cocktails we treated ourselves to, had they hung around long enough...

If you can't beat it, join it so we took a trip to the desert.

And did embarrasingly touristy things (yes, that is me driving a quadbike* and wearing traditional dress)

A couple of days before we left, we went back to Dubai to go to the top of Burj Khalifa.  Well, they call it "at the top" but it's only (only!) 124 floors up, which is actually about half-way up the building.  The city below looks like a model, although visibility was still hampered by the sandstorm.

While it might be cheating a little bit, I am counting the quadbike driving as one of my 12 for 2012 as I have never done it before and have wanted to for years (I am a woman of simple dreams, apparently).  And I did it in the Arabian desert, which has to count for something!