Life, the universe, everything - but mostly crafty stuff!

 I knew I needed to do the Codebreaker badge, as I love all things codes and coding, and puzzles in general. I managed to do the requirement for the NATO Phonetic Alphabet quite easily - I needed to revise one or two words, but it was something I learned some years ago. So - clause 2 complete! I started to use an app to learn Morse code - this is one that I need a lot more practise with, especially the earlier leant letters, as I kept forgetting them when going back to it a day or two later. Perhaps it may be easier to go through the whole of the practise sections in one go, while it is still fresh in my mind, as I know I need a lot of repetition to be able to learn the codes - it took an awful lot of practise to learn how to touch type, so I obviously need the same amount of practice for Morse code. Therefore, clause 1 will have to wait for another time. Clause 3 - 3 different themed escape rooms. I didn’t realise there were digital escape rooms, so I was intrigued to discover the...

 Some of my earliest memories of listening to music are of being in the kitchen while my mum listened to Pick of the Pops (which often had 60’s music on it, being the late 70’s and early 80’s), and to Sounds of the Sixties. I continued to listen to Radio 2  in my teens, 20’s and 30’s - and still listen to it now. With the title including Bringing On Back The Good Times  I knew that this show would have a good selection of music in it.  I went to see the show yesterday afternoon, at Queen’s Theatre, Barnstaple (Saturday 9th April 2022). I haven’t seen any of the previous Dreamboats and Petticoats musicals, so didn’t know quite what to expect. We possibly wouldn’t have come to see this show had it not been for the special offer on the tickets; however, an opportunity to see a show when the tickets were £15 each was too good an opportunity to miss. We were able to get seats quite near the front and in the middle of a row. What a fantastic show this is! People who like t...

 The day my Rebel Badge Book arrived was the day I tested positive for Covid. I ended up isolating at home for 10 days - until the Covid 19 app told me I could go outside again. That first day, I went out to continue with the training plan I was already doing.  For most of the badges, I am starting fresh - or mostly fresh anyway - I want the badges to be something I have worked towards since getting the book, as a lot of them seem to be things I’m already doing to have some control over my life, or things I should be doing. However - I’m not starting totally fresh with the runner badge.  I need to get out to ParkRun more regularly. I have a Garmin running watch (the Forerunner 945 if you are interested) and I’ve been following the 1/2 Marathon plan on the Garmin app (which sends the workout to my watch) since just after Christmas. I had already been following a 10k plan, so thought I’d go for something a bit more challenging - especially as I had entered the ballot for th...

 About 8 or 9 years ago, I thought it would be good to get into running, and I tried a little bit - going out and running for a while, then walking, then running to the next lamppost, but it seemed like a massive challenge, that I wasn’t up for. I used to sprint at school - 100m race and relay (very rarely the 200m), and I was one of the fastest when I was at middle school. Then I heard about ParkRun somehow, and I started going along to it in 2018. I was a sporadic attender - getting up to be there for 9am was always rather hit and miss, and if the weather wasn’t so good, I wouldn’t go. But I was up for a challenge - like doing a double ParkRun on New Year’s Day, and doing a 5k cross country Beat the Fox run on Boxing Day (including a nip of port half way round!). I had a Fitbit, and I was just about able to work it - and got better with a new one. Then came that strange pre-lockdown period, in about the second week of March 2020 - a time when many of the groups and activities I d...