So, another challenge completed! Huzzah! This is the first of my year long, long term ongoing challenges to be finished. A year of celebrating a national or international day of 'something' each month. Started in April last year and today, with it being National Cocktail Making Day (USA) I have finally celebrated 12 'somethings' in a row. Apologies if this is a slightly bizarre post - the signature cocktail I have created today - in the name of my 'challenge' has totally gone to my head :)
This was actually quite a difficult and testing and 'having to be inventive' task. Even though there is basically a national day for absolutely everything you can think about and even some you never ever would think about it, was tough to find one thing each month that I could do something with. I think I'm reasonably happy with my attempt though. I can evidence easily 10 out of the 12 days though. So here's the summary of what I 'celebrated'.
April 2017 - World Penguin Day. This was a good place to start, me and Stewart absolutely adore penguins and indeed we completed a one off challenge quite a few months ago - 'Be a Penguin Zookeeper for the Day'. On this particular day though I went in to work wearing penguin socks, a black and white top and then in the evening I went round our house cataloguing all the penguin items we have. There were, from what I remember 150 plus individual penguin things we have.
May 2017 - National Crazy Golf Day. Me and Stewart, who both love playing crazy golf, we trundled off to the Celtic Manor golf club near Newport. Yes! THE Celtic Manor which has hosted a Ryder Cup Tournament and also played host to the worlds top leaders during the NATO summit, but, they've also got a really cute and adorable wee crazy golf course. We had a pleasant afternoon here, Stewart narrowly beat me in the end but I did get the only hole in one of the day.
June 2017 - National Say Something Nice Day - This is one which is difficult to evidence but from my diary entry for that day I went in to work and complimented my workmates throughout the day basics - 'you look really nice today' or 'good job and thanks for your help'. I would hope though that I generally say something nice to folk each and every day.
July 2017 - World Chocolate Day - Even though I'm not actually a huge chocolate fan I decided that for this month's micro challenge I would endeavour to make my own chocolate sweeties. Rather than concentrating my efforts on one type - which considering my inabilities in the kitchen would have been the sensible route, oh no, I chose to make three separate chocolate sweeties. All of which were distributed between my work, Stewart's workplace and the ladies at the Guide Dogs Cymru training school as I made the sweets while we still had Timber, our guide dog in training, So, the three types of sweeties I handmade were, chocolate truffles, white chocolate truffles and boozy chocolate fudge. Think the straightforward chocolate truffles went down the best.
August 2017 - National Mountain Climbing Day - living in South Wales I'm used to being around hills and valleys. Can't say I enjoy it, I have always hated inclines and hills, probably my own fault as a smoker - let me walk 20 miles on the flat and I couldn't care less, make me walk 100 metres up a hill and I shall want to kill you! Still, we had this opportunity in August so one evening after work, we drove to the start of a local 'mountain' the Garth and walked up it. And actually, it wasn't too bad!
September 2017 - National Mudpack Day - not a lot to say about this, it's self explanatory - had to wear a facepack. Haven't done this in a long time, there comes a time in some peoples life where we all of a sudden think, 'f*ck it' - I've lived my life, it's going to show on my face and there are other things to worry about rather than my appearance. However! I have to say this actually did make my skin feel really smooth and tight afterwards and even a cynic like me was impressed! It was just a cheap mudpack out of Savers, I do remember though that it was Welsh seaweed. Probably due another go by now.
October 2017 - World Pasta Day Tried a food related task. Not sure why I keep doing this to myself - when am I ever going to realise I really should keep away from kitchens. In actual fact though, this was actually quite a positive experience. To make your own pasta involves purely flour and eggs and theoretically it's really easy and it kind of was. The problem was doing this purely by hand with no wee machines or gadgets at all, so I couldn't get the pasta thin enough. It was way too chewy and thick but the actual taste was fine. I even turned this in to a 'two for one challenge' and decided to have October as Italy for my monthly 'International Cooking Challenge'.
The pasta I made I turned in to a pasta with cheese sauce with pancetta and leeks and peas and it was actually alright!
November 2017 - St Andrews Day For this month's 'national day' challenge I should have done something interesting like a whisky tasting or a stuff my haggis. Instead, I decided to try and make a notoriously difficult Scottish sweet delicacy - tablet. Oh I tried SOOOOO hard. Using sugar and condensed milk (it's no wonder we've got rotten teeth) I stirred and stirred and stirred and my tablet was looking good, until the next morning when I got up and it was a congealed mess - it tasted beautiful right enough but it was still a congealed mess. I put the effort in though.
December 2017 - National Elf Day A straightforward one. Went in to work dressed as an elf, as you do. I actually made this more exciting by trying to make Christmas gingerbread cookies the night before to share with my workmates. They didn't exactly turn out to be the beautiful Christmassy shaped biscuits I'd hoped for but they tasted alright.
Nearly there - thanks for staying with me so far!!!!!
January 2018 - Burns Night - an easy one this. Each year, Scots all over the world celebrate the life and times of our national bard, Robert Burns. I've been doing this on January 25th each year for as long as I remember. I could write a whole post about the significance of Burns night, and even hosted my own really cool Burns night a few years ago. This year- we just went to our local pub and had the traditional haggis, neeps and tatties.
February 2018 - National Weatherpersons Day A difficult one to evidence this so you'll just have to trust me. If you've been following this blog you'll know that I'm doing a long running challenge which is to complete 50k or miles of 'weatherman walks'. These are a series of hikes which Welsh national treasure - Derek Brockway the Weatherman undertook, filmed and wrote about. I've become a bit of a fan of Derek the Weather. So even though I can't prove what I did to celebrate National Weatherpersons Day I can promise that I researched him and found a whole lot out about him and that was the day I discovered that we would be able to actually walk WITH the weatherman. This walk, up Pen Y Fan, was supposed to be happening tomorrow but because of the weather it has been postponed till the end of April. That's fair enough. This particular walking task has really grown on me over the last year and I can't wait to do the ultimate weatherman walk. AND - to meet him.
So, finally, we get to month 12. A full and complete year of celebrating each month a specific national or international day of something!!!!
March 2018 - National Cocktail Making Day. The ultimate way that I could round off a year long challenge. Cocktail making. I decided that of course, if I was going to do a cocktail related challenge there really could be only way to go about that. To come up with, devise and create my own 'signature' cocktail. So I did!!!! It's called 'The Pink Lelly'!!! Had to be pink, had to be pretty alcoholic. Of course I made enough for two glasses and when I gave Stewart his, well, lets just say he's in love with the Pink Lelly.
If you do want to know, it was made with cava, Campari, peach schnapps and pink grapefruit juice and it was bloody delicious! It seriously does taste good, I'm on my second and it's gorgeous! Might have found a hidden talent here.
So, another one ticked off. This is the first of the long term ones to call time on. Looking back through this blog I can see that in actual fact it was probably a wee bit more interesting than I thought initially. It's a fairly eclectic bunch of things I've done, none of which would deserve challenge status in their own rights but put them all together - yep, I think this is an interesting job well done.
See you very very soon!
Lesley
x
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