A year ago I decided to set myself 30 challenges to achieve before I reached the age of 30. That's today - lets see how I did:

  1. Learn how to juggle - an actual juggler from a circus said that I could juggle so this one is definitely in the bag ✓
  2. Run in a 10k road race - I ran the Edinburgh 10k in 56 minutes ✓
  3. Run the 5km Deerstalker - Team "Run like you stole something" did a great job with me on this one ✓
  4. Climb Edinburgh’s 7 hills - done ✓
  5. Watch extended versions of the Lord of the Rings films - this was a slog! ✓
  6. Read The Iliad by Homer - this was even more of a slog! ✓
  7. Perform at the Fringe - I cheated on this... I performed at the top of Arthur's Seat in the middle of August though, so that counts right? ✓
  8. Go 1 month without chocolate, sweets or cake - did it, would rather not do it again! ✓
  9. Learn greetings in 30 languages - привет! ✓
  10. Raise £500 for charity - £632.50 - this was by far my biggest success and I'm really grateful to everyone who donated ✓
  11. Write a novel - still needs some work but that's a yes ✓
  12. Solve a Rubix cube - after a month of trying I needed a tutorial but I did it ✓
  13. Write 5 short stories - a collection of five short stories The Freaks - done ✓
  14. Submit something I've written to a writing competition - I did enter, I didn't win ✓
  15. Sing at a karaoke bar Organising people for karaoke was tough... but I did something more exciting over the course of the year - Kev and I brewed our own beer! I think from a list of 30 I'm allowed 1 substitution (especially since beer brewing was on my original list) and the results are delicious so I'm calling this one done ✓
  16. Visit Edinburgh Castle - loved the view, shame it's so buggy inaccessible! ✓
  17. Give blood 3 times - did, three more pints given ✓
  18. Improve my conversational French - I can now ask if things have dairy in them in French... ✓
  19. Create a video blog - despite no effort my YouTube channel has almost had 1000 views (although I admit that a chunk of these are from uploading our school production of Little Shop of Horrors from an old VHS)! ✓
  20. Set up my "One Item Museum" website - I love the idea of this website so much :) ✓
  21. Carve something wooden - world's most useless spoon! ✓
  22. Make some cheese - this was surprisingly tasty! ✓
  23. Design my Christmas board game idea - proud of this one ✓
  24. Design own Christmas cards - I cheated and combined this with the board game... but it was well worth it! ✓
  25. Record 10 ukulele covers - some of them turned out ok considering I was recording them on my kitchen floor on an iPad with no external mics!  ✓
  26. Try foods from 30 countries - I wasn't too diligent about recording this, but a box of 20+ sweets from CyberCandy along with the monthly meals from different countries has been a tasty experience ✓
  27. Host a dinner party on top of Arthur’s Seat - there were compromises due to weather but this was awesome ✓
  28. Create own flavoured vodka - Peanut Butter Cup vodka! ✓
  29. Spend a random weeknight under canvas - in a bivvy no less (it was surprisingly warm and awesome waking up to the stars during the night) ✓
  30. Walk at least 2 days (and hopefully all of) the West Highland Way - challenging but awesome at the same time - so glad David and Matt could join me ✓

To finish I just want to thank Ruth and everyone else that put up with my silly schemes all year.  Thank you. :)