26. Swim the equivalent of the English Channel

I DID IT!!! Last night I swam the final mile meaning that I finished a full 6 weeks ahead of schedule. I also managed to raise £532/$864 for Aspire, far more than I thought I would. The last length was a bit of an anti-climax. I gave a little cheer and jumped for joy but there was no crowd of cheering fans and well wishers. However when I got home Mr B had stashed a bottle of French wine in the fridge and I he bought me croissants for breakfast today. Still on a high from my accomplishment, I walked round the house this morning talking to everyone in French which was possibly taking the French theme a little too far, especially as my French is rather limited.

Overall I am pretty pleased with myself, it hasn’t been easy trying to fit swimming 22 miles round a full-time job, a 10 month old and a husband who travels a lot. This was the list item that I was most worried about, I thought of all the things I said I wanted to do, this was the one I was most likely to throw in the towel on (tee hee).

I have a tendency to flirt wildly with exercise but give up before it becomes a long term relationship so I was more worried about the mental completion of this task than the physical one.

I’m glad that Mr B encouraged me to tackle it early on and a big thank you goes out to him for not complaining about me running off to the pool in the evenings.

Now I think I am going to take a little break from the pool to allow myself to recover from quite a severe case of “swimmer’s hair*”.

*For anybody unfamiliar with this condition, it occurs when over exposure to chlorine leaves your hair resembling that of a Lego person.

23. Make a Baked Alaska

Last night I had some friends over as I was hosting Book Club (the book was the excellent Working In The Shadows) so I decided to make my Baked Alaska for them. Some of my friends weren’t sure what Baked Alaska was and turned up expecting salmon. For anyone similarly unsure, it is a layer of cake and a layer of ice cream covered in meringue. The tricky part is putting it in a 500 degree oven long enough so that the meringue cooks but not so long that the ice cream melts.

Mine was actually much more successful than I thought it would be. The meringue could’ve done with cooking a little bit longer but I had to take it out when the edges burnt and started to fill the house with smoke.

With burnt edges discarded, it was rather tasty.

14. Teach my daughter to sign

She signed! During meal times we have been working on “food” at the beginning of the meal “more” half way through and “all done” at the end. She would occasionally mimic the “more” and “all done” signs but I took it as copying rather than actually understanding.

Then yesterday we were sharing a cracker and I signed “all done” and she signed “more”! I am so proud of her, I think I must have the smartest 10 month old in the world ;-)

25. Ride on an airboat

When I was a kid I watched a show called Gentle Ben about a kid and bear called Ben. The opening of the show was the boy, his Dad and Ben riding through the Everglades on an airboat. Probably the only thing that I remember about the show is that image of them on the airboat and learning that with the right amount of love, a bear can be your best friend. I can’t even remember what happened in the show. I expect the boy and Ben either fought crime or solved mysteries. Or possibly tried to keep Ben hidden away from the show’s baddies who thought it would be better for everyone if a large bear didn’t play with a small boy.

So when I moved to Florida I knew that I had to ride on an airboat and last weekend I did just that in the small town of Cedar Key on the west coast of Florida. When you set out to do something that you have wanted to do since you were a kid, you could be setting yourself up for disappointment. But not in this case. The airboat ride was fantastic. We zipped around the shallow waters for about half an hour and as a bonus we got to see some dolphins frolicking about. The only thing missing was a large bear.

26. Swim the equivalent of the English Channel

The story behind this is quite a sad one so please have tissues at the ready. I’ve always loved swimming. When I was a kid my local pool gave out fabric badges for distance swimming starting at 5 meters and going up to 1 mile. I can’t remember how many there were but my swim suit was covered in them and they were my pride and joy. The only one I was missing was the 1 mile badge. Once I had that final badge, I thought my life would be complete.

The big day came. I was ready for my 1 mile swim. I stood on the side of the pool and the swimming instructor put us into groups based on the distance we were due to swim that day. I sized up the other 1 mile swimmers, I wasn’t worried, I knew I could do it. Then the instructor announced that there would be no 1 mile swim that day because there wasn’t enough time.

I was crushed.

That was my one and only opportunity to get the 1 mile badge. I have absolutely no idea why that was my one and only opportunity, I think it was the end of the swimming course but really I have no idea. My mother doesn’t know either. I don’t think she was really tuned into the earth shattering pain I felt that day.

So when I put together this list I decided that I wanted a physical challenge and I wanted it to be a swimming one. A friend suggested this:

The challenge: Swim the distance of the English Channel (22 miles) in my local pool over a 12 week period to raise money for Aspire. Twenty-two miles works out to be a total of 1,549 lengths of my local pool, which is a lot.

The charity: Aspire is a UK charity that works with people with spinal cord injury. Their national services and programs include adapted housing for people leaving hospital if houses aren’t yet accessible, specialist computer equipment and independent living advisors.

The dates: I started the challenge on July 24^th and I hope to complete it by October 16^th.

To date I have swum 492 lengths which works out to be 6.9 miles. I try to go in the evenings after my daughter has gone to bed because then I don’t lose any time with her and the pool is quiet. It isn’t easy, especially on the days I take my daughter to nursery so get up at 5:30am, but I’m enjoying ticking off the miles and Mr B is being very supportive, not complaining once about me smelling constantly of chlorine.