THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO DO BEFORE I AM 60 –
(whilst acknowledging that the clearing, collating and chucking of all my ‘stuff’ is a real need that MUST be addressed with a regularity that becomes means of growth not of stress).
1. Make a ‘ball gown’ (my interpretation of that concept), evening bag and wrap - dance with a beautiful woman who makes me laugh and understands why.
2. Design the shoes to go with the gown and learn how to make them. Trawl books, designers, classes, galleries.
3. Go fishing for Mackerel off the coast of Wales at Midsummer and cook the catch over a bonfire with friends. Rent a boat, collect driftwood, go skinny dipping.
4. Take a Turkish Bath in each of the Victorian Turkish Baths left in Britain.
5. Stay and Breakfast at the Dorchester, Lunch at the Savoy, Afternoon Tea at Browns, Dinner at Langham’s after a West End Show. Walk in Hyde Park and remember:0)
6. Walk round the coastline of Wales. Not all in one go, though that’s a nice dream but in small sections of yards or miles keeping a record in a map book with pictures sketches and words.
7. Walk the mid section of the Cambrian Way from Llandovery to Dinas Mawddwy 79 miles/127km. Only after the coastline has been done. This is a toughy but planning and pace can manage anything! No 6 or 7 days for me double that and add a couple of days so minimum of two weeks. Needed, pop up tent, all terrain pushchair to carry kit, prop me up and tether RnB to…plus a daft companion.
8. View the Total eclipse of the Sun on March 20th 2015. Do I need to be on a boat between Norway and Iceland? Find out!
9. Enrol on and complete a City and Guilds certificate course, distance learning. Then consider the Diploma!! Acquire tools and books through selling other things pay for course by savings not debt.
10. Create an edible and sustainable garden easy to care for in the main from a chair and not ruined by robust playing dogs.
11. Mini Summer House/Shed - Insulate then panel the walls, turf the roof with meadow grass, replace plastic windows with glass making one that opens too and furnish - make single upper cabin bed, rescue armchair small table and chair then create an ‘alter’ just for the space of ‘Elsewhere’. Let it be a place for finding and letting fly dreams; of soft pencils, fountain pens and self made journals.
12. Learn how to Podcast, hands on course?
13. Travel round Wales and visit recognised ‘Holy’ sites, wells and ‘create’ some of my own.
14. Attend the Llangollen festival for the full period.
15. Travel on the ship that goes between Scotland Iceland, Norway and Greenland do the complete circuit.
16. Make music.
17. Walk up ‘MY Mountain’ one more time and spend the night in the shelter of stone wall and sky.
18. Swim at least once a week, every week, through the whole period. Swimming pool, river, sea, lake, rock pool, pond or puddle all count and all are possibilities. Needed – trust and consideration of others and environment, acceptance of limitations and a push to stretch them:0) Shortie wet suit, shortie swimsuit, a float to hang on to when water and sky tumble together – no use pretending vertigo doesn’t hit at the most inopportune moments! Find a float to tow so I can just swim when I can. Find the fearless safe swimmer again.
19. Sail across the Atlantic by freighter and/or Liner then travel by train to visit some of the places and people I have 'found' through blogging.
20. Hire a Harley Davidson sidecar unit and ride that a little way along the road that follows the sea to San Francisco - look out America a Welsh woman with an international driving license and absolutely no idea of left and right from time to time is coming!
21. Purchase a season ticket for the Proms and attend as many of the concerts live as I can lying on the floor right up in the top of the Albert Hall listening to the glorious music and watching the audience:0)
22. Work out how to stay near enough to the Albert Hall to make 21 possible… a tent in Hyde Park!?
23. Design a series of tattoos for myself. Because I have been advised I can’t have permanent ones needled into my skin, what I will be making will be water soluble transfers… this looks fun from what research I have done so far and actually has come a very long way from when I was a child and created transfers using sellotape and spit:0)
24. Go into print… using letterpress, lino cut, collographs etc. Cut and paste actually not just on computer, ink and hand roller as well as laser printer. Reacquaint myself with all the techniques I used forty years ago, producing chap books plus zines, and learn new ones.
25) Visit all 31 Inshore Waters weather stations in UK. Each is mentioned in one of 17 areas which seems to lend itself to 17 ‘adventures’.
The key to this list seems imagination, it's not about actually HAVING to do all these things as activity but to actively engage in their imagining and finding that all will have me as particpant:0) My idea is to inter link all items as much as possible… arrive at a Turkish bath in a ball gown,hand out zine at the Proms, swim with a float that looks decidedly like a handbag! All about imagination, oh and living life.
I love your list! Did you know the University of Maine at Machias as a "book arts" degree program, where the actual making of handmade books is taught? Very cool.
When you make that California Harley & Davidson run, may as well go whole hog and make it cross country. . . all the way to Longleaf.
The walks you have in mind (i.e. Wales coastline and Cambrian way) would be on my list if I had one.
That's it. I need a list! Only 2 years to go 'til 60.
Posted by: Beth W. | Saturday, 11 July 2009 at 02:14 PM