Coronavirus really did a number on my challenges this year. I was making good progress on markets – only 7 to go out of 30. I’m pretty sure I’d have made it if we hadn’t gone into lockdown. I was behind on the health challenge. In my head, I was hoping for a late flurry of activity that coronavirus ruined, but deep down I know I was too far off to finish it. Soup I managed to finish before the close.

I’m going to give myself a 3 month extension on finishing the markets, to make up for the 3 months indoors. Hopefully feasible, but we’ll see.

Regardless, we’re now way past June and I should really have started on this year’s challenges too.

Because everything is still semi-shut (I know I know some might say half-open) I’ve been more reclusive with my choices this year – as I’m not sure how much we’ll want to be out and about. But they should still be fun and will give me a focus for trying new things, even if they’re more home-based than usual.

31 Online Events
When lockdown happened, Soph and I signed up to a few zoom experiences and really enjoyed ourselves. Providing this sort of thing continues, I want to do 31 this year. I’m going to be consciously quite loose in how I define the parameters here, as things keep evolving and changing. But essentially, accessing some element of culture from the comfort of your own home, that was previously reserved for those going out. From bar zooms to ballet, evening classes to lectures.

31 Bread Bakes
When sourdough mania hit in March, I’m afraid to say I was one of those brandishing their banneton basket. I’ve made quite a few decent loaves since then but have stuck to a relatively standard formula. So, this year I aim to branch out beyond Gellatly’s sourdough recipe and try some different bread bakes instead.

31 Albums from 2020 / 2021
Something funny happened over the last two or three years. I stopped listening to albums. And I stopped listening to new music too. Both were unintentional – a product of having no time to sit and listen to something from beginning to end, and also the bitesize listening that a platform like spotify encourage. But it’s disheartening, nonetheless. So I’m going to listen to 31 albums released in 2020 and 2021 – from start to finish.