I am already an expert in setting myself small challenges before I move on and try something new, hence the name of my blog. I can play the piano and several woodwind instruments other than the flute badly, I take photos, I learnt every flag from every country, I knit (baby clothes because I don’t have time for bigger things), I swim (as near to every day as I can manage) without ever perfecting a stroke, I do yoga but still can’t get my knees to the floor in badhakonassana, I can make several origami items but still haven’t managed 1000 paper cranes, I used to be able to juggle (some skills disappear if you don’t keep practising), I do a crossword every day and enjoy a codebreaking puzzle and I do a bit of writing. Now, if you add up the hours in the day and the things I do, you can see why I’ll never actually be an expert in anything. I’m a bit of a magpie when it comes to skill collecting.
In September, when we were asked to set our challenges, I was still properly bonkers. Not in a cute, funny, “Oh, isn’t she so bonkers,” way but in a grief filled, PTSD suffering, suicidally depressed kind of way. I was clinging on by my fingernails and most of them were spit and flaky. My brain was actually broken. Instinctively, I knew the things I needed to do: walking, talking (a little), making the most of silence, reading, eating well and drinking lots of water. Funnily enough I read an article yesterday about brain health ant they were exactly the things they recommended. Brain Health
These needs led me to decide to combine two of them for my challenge. I decided to walk everywhere (which also had the bonus of cutting out the opportunities for the crushing claustrophobic related anxiety) and reading.
I thought about how I would assess my progress. Twelve books in the year seemed a reasonable number and I should read a lot of each while walking. This should be without falling over, walking into anyone or anything, getting run over, killing myself or anyone else. If I could manage that, I decided, then I could call myself an expert.
Nobody wrote my challenge down on my performance management or put my picture on a school display. I think they thought I was joking. However, I am an All Trades Master of None and I never joke about collecting shiny new skills.
Well? You are asking. Did I do it?
Of course I did and it has been brilliant. I’m still alive, I didn’t walk into anything (not when I was reading - although I have got a nasty bruise from walking into the mine at the prom - “A minor injury said the Long Suffering Husband, although he is now saying, “it looks like it’s exploded). I have never fallen over and I have read loads more books than I would have.
These are the books, if you want to give it a go, although I’m sure it would work with any book.
1. The Tattooist of Auschwitz - Heather Morris
2. Japan Travel Guide - Yuki Fukuyama
3. What Lies Beneath - Dr Sue Black
5. Dear Mrs Bird - AJ Pearce
6. A Dog’s Purpose - W Bruce Cameron
7. Nella Last’s Peace (Post War Diaries) - Ed Robert Malcomson
8. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness - Arundhati Roy
9. Milkman - Anna Burns
10. Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Hardcastle
11. Our Hidden Lives - Simon Garfield
12. Daisy’s Vintage Cornish Camper Van - Ali McNamara
13. Fierce Fairytales: Poems to stir your soul - Nikita Gill
14. The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred Year Old Man - Jonas Jonasson
15. Normal People - Sally Rooney
16. The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiroshima Arikawa
17 . You Will Be Safe Here - Damien Barr
18. Invisible Women - Caroline Credo Perez
19. Lowborn - Kelly Hudson
20. Spring - Ali Smith
21. The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes - Ruth Hogan
22. All Among the Barley - Melissa Harrison
23. The Strawberry Thief - Joanne Harris
24. Middle England - Jonathan Coe (should finish tomorrow)
I doubled my target and it’s not even a full year yet. There are some really great books on that list and I also have fond memories of where I was walking when I read some of them: You Will Be Safe Here might have been set in South Africa but for me it is also set in Tokyo.
Tomorrow I will tell you what other people think of my expertise.
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