Bucket List

Recently I have been thinking about our bucket list. Husband has been retired a few years now. So we have visited some of the places on our list. Some we would like to visit again. For others one visit was enough and we can cross them off as done. This gives us the opportunity to add some new destinations to our list, as the world becomes a smaller place. Most of the items on our bucket list are places to visit. Until I married I lived the life of a gypsy, changing jobs and moving on every few years and I have done enough stupid things in my life not to want to do any more.

The night after finishing my A levels I went to an outdoor, all night pop concert. At 3 am in the morning, as Free blasted out All Right Now, I wasn't well and wished that I was a million miles away. That cured me of ever wanting to go to anything like that again. Husband and I have seen several popular artists over the years. Most recently at the Manchester Arena, after the bombing. We arrived as request two hours before the concert in order to allow extra time to get through the enhanced security, which took about 20 minutes, leaving us with two hours to fill in before the concert started - 20 minutes late. The concert lasted two hours. Then we had to wait an hour to get out of the car park. Manchester is a one hour drive from our home. This is not a GCSE maths question, but it took us seven hours to see a two hour concert. The question is - was it worth it? And the answer is no.

When I was younger I sailed and capsized dinghies. Given the right conditions of sun and enough wind it is exhilarating, but my interest in sailing ran its' course and I gave it up. Another sport that is equally exhilarating is ski-ing. On my first ski-ing holiday, another first time skier and I took the chair lift up the mountain unaware that we should have pulled the bar down to hold us in. There we were hundreds of feet up in the air - one false move and we could have plunged into the valley below. And I have skied on and unintentionally, off piste, when husband and I got separated on the mountain as mist suddenly decended and I lost my way getting back to our hotel. This was long before the days of mobile phones. What might have been is too scary to even think about. That was our last ski-ing holiday.

So what else might be on our bucket list other than places to visit? Well the cottage was renovated and decorated some time ago and now needs freshening up, but that hardly worthy of a bucket listing. For a few years now we have had the vegetable garden that I was determined we should have. Our newest addition is a strawberry bed - that really pays dividends at this time of year. However, what we have never managed to do is to get on top of the garden itself. It has been my mission to do so ever since I retired and this year I am determined to achieve it, but as has been the case in previous years I am at the mercy of the weather. Last year was initially too wet, then too hot and dry. And we have been away in the Autumn for the last two years, which has hindered our progress with the garden as Autumn is a good time to be getting on with a lot of gardening jobs. This year we shall be here in the Autumn, but before I wish away the Summer I am hoping that the weather will be kinder this year and allow me to make some progress in the garden. However, lets not get ahead of ourselves as next week we are crossing another item off our bucket list. We are off on a Greek islands cruise.