Week 14 - Take a photo every day for a week

I think I'm gonna have to throw the numbering system out the window because I'm about 8 weeks behind at this point! I've got Saibh Egan to thank for this week's challenge, and a couple more for the coming weeks at that! Fittingly for a photographer, she picked out the 7 of Clubs, 'Take a photo every day for a week'.

It's something I should be doing anyhow really and something I'm gonna try to keep up now. What I took are pretty rubbish but hopefully they'll get better with daily practice!

A sneaky Dublin pint pre-bus journey home!

And so the catching up begins! Thanks a lot Saibh Egan!

Cup holders are useful for loadsa stuff!

Hands up if this kinda thing doesn't drive you bat shit crazy!

Friday night pizza at Dough Bros. The best around.

Barca v Juve. Two of my childhood favourites head to head!

On a sunny day this country of ours looks pretty spectacular!

Week Number... eh.. never mind! - Getting Shit Done!

As it happens my last post to this blog was pretty much 2 months to the day! It was about failure and my inability to get one of my tasks done because I was too busy. Well, in that case I've failed miserably since! Not getting it done really pissed me off but it made me realise that I was too busy because I was getting other shit done, stuff that at the time was far more important. The whole idea of the 52 cards and the mini challenges on them was to get me into the habit of getting stuff done and working towards accomplishing the bigger challenges that I've set myself.

A lot has happened in the last 8 weeks or so, much of it a result of pursuing opportunities that I may ordinarily have passed up or even avoided altogether in the past. I've met some amazing people, I've learned a lot about myself (and others!), burned the midnight oil and have had lots of highs as well as the odd low but I've enjoyed every minute.

In times gone by I'd have stood and waited for opportunities to arise but I've learned the hard way (ridiculous as that sounds) that things don't happen like that. Yes it's been an eternity since I last finished one of my 52 cards but I'm ok with it (and the constant abuse!) because I've been busy... getting shit done!

Week 13 - Failure

This post is not about succeeding at task 13 on my list. Instead, it's about failure.

This week's challenge was to learn 10 cocktail recipes. As you can guess, I didn't manage to do it and to be honest I spent most of the weekend pissed off at myself in the knowledge that I probably wouldn't get around to ticking another thing off my list of 52.

The thing is last week was a pretty damn busy one. It's been a pretty hectic couple of weeks in fact and by Friday I was fit to drop... physically and mentally drained. Sometimes you only realise you're running on empty when you stop and come up for air. Failure is tough for a lot of people to deal with. Some embrace it while others get consumed by it. This week I let it hang around like an unwelcome guest. I let the prospect of failure effect the colour and complexion of my entire weekend.

Only on reflection (and writing this while drinking a coffee and getting weird looks on the Salthill Prom!) am I realising that my task for Week 13 is probably the only thing that I didn't get done the past week that I'd set out to do. On reflection I got a hell of a lot done, had a brilliant weekend and managed to catch up with some of my favourite people in this world, many of whom I hadn't seen in a long long time and are the type of people that make you feel infinitely better from just spending some time in their company.

I'm lucky to have some incredibly inspiring and talented people in my life who are doing amazing things, personally and professionally, on a daily basis. Like us all, they fail sometimes but they also get up, dust themselves off and go again. I know my failure this week is a minor thing and it means nothing to anyone but myself but we all need to cut ourselves some slack at times and appreciate what we HAVE achieved and, if faced with failure, dust ourselves off and go again.

I'll get around to learning my 10 cocktails... just not this week! :-)

Week 12 - Cycle 50km in the week.

This week's challenge was picked out by Alan Doheny, one of my colleagues in Proof Design. Thanks to him I had to cycle 50km this week. If I'm honest I planned on doing it in one go but alas it didn't work out that way! I'm gonna blame it on the wind! Also it didn't help that I still havn't replaced my bike that got knicked.

As a Plan B I did the 50km in the gym but had to split into 30km and 20km spins, which, in the gym, are really really boring. I even resorted to watching cricket to pass the time!!

So... proof below. Was tempted to photoshop the distances but my honesty got the better of me!

Week 11 - Bring Granny for Sunday Lunch (Now read... 'Do an indoor Triathlon')

The task for this week was to supposed to be bringing my lovely Granny for Sunday lunch. Unfortunately my ninety something year old Gran had more plans than I did for the weekend so that plan went up in shmoke!

So... Plan B. I woke up Sunday morning still to figure out what I was going to do. For some reason the first thing to hop into my head was to attempt to complete an indoor sprint triathlon which is actually one of my other cards. Might not have been one my brightest ideas!

A sprint triathlon consists of a 750m swim and a 20km bike ride followed by a 5km run. Due to the fact I was doing it indoors, I had to make a couple of changes to the order so the bike came first, followed by the 5k run and then the swim. The other thing I had to take into account was the fact that my body is banjaxed and my physio won't allow me to run due to a combination of a dodgy knee and a bulging disc in my back. Soooooo... the only solution that wouldn't hurt like hell was to walk the 5k 'run'!

The end result is that I finished the whole thing despite the fact I thought I was going to calve halfway through the swim, which I admit, I had to stop briefly during! All I need to do now is learn how to run again! Run Forrest... Run!
 

20km Cycle - 41:00

5km Run (Walk!) - 44:58

750m Swim - 15:56 (Took me 15 seconds to work the timer!)

Week 10 - Learn how to tie 10 knots (or maybe 5!)

This post is a little late in coming but better late than never I guess! I wrote on the card that I had to learn 10 knots but the longer time went on I thought that 5 sounded a little better and a bit more achievable! Sure when would I ever need to know 10 knots anyhow?!

I picked what would be considered 5 of the basic and essential knots that are pretty handy to know: The Round Turn with two and a half hitches, the square knot, the slipknot, the figure of 8 knot and the sheet bend.

Round Turn with 2 and a half hitches

The Square Knot

The Slipknot

Figure 8 Knot

The Sheetbend

Week No.9 - Make a roast dinner

Week Number 9 in the Big Brother... I mean 52 week challenge! This week's challenge was to do something I'm ashamed to say I've never done before and cook a roast dinner. My sister was home from London for the weekend so it seemed like good timing to make it a Sunday Roast Dinner.

So... following a heavy night of boozing and celebrating my cousin's 30th birthday, sticking a pizza in the oven and uploading a stock photo of a roast beef diner sounded very tempting!

Roast beef was the order of the day with some veggies and both roast potatoes and roast sweet potatoes. Said I'd try some Yorkshire Puddings too. Doing a dinner like this was always something I wanted to do but I guess I was kinda afraid of messing it up! When you think of it, what can really go wrong?!

Sunday Roast Dinner:

Roast Beef - Carrots, parsnip, celery, red onion, a mountain of garlic, olive oil, sea salt, black pepper.
Roast Veg - Roast carrots & roast parsnips with rosemary & garlic.
Roast Potatoes - Both good ol' regular roasties and sweet potato too.
Yorskshire Puddings & Gravy

Lessons learned...

• A roast dinner is much easier than I thought
• The beef always needs longer in the oven than you think
• I messed up the Yorkshire puddings (Think I know what I did wrong!)

I'm not one for taking photos of my dinner so you'll have to trust me that it was delicious!! :-)