New Challenges!

36 Monuments & Public Artworks
In an effort to make me look ‘up’ a bit more… this year I’m going to be seeking out and learning about all sorts of statues, monuments and artworks. Ancient, modern, UK and beyond. Think the only rule is they have to be man made, and either commemorative or expressive in some way.

36 Berber & Q Recipes
Two of my all-time favourite recipes come from Josh Katz and his restaurant Berber&Q. The epic cauliflower shawarma, and their Cumin Lamb Chops. I’ve now got both his books, but I haven’t strayed much further than those original two recipes. So I intend to make 36 new things from across the two books. Cocktails and sides included.

36 Health & Wellness Practices
Second attempt at this one, and not sure if it’ll do any better than the first time I tried it. But the intention is to try out different health, wellness and fitness practices; from new exercise routines, to different treatments, to interesting supplements and nutrition.

Have had a few days off, so I’ve managed to post an update pretty quickly this time. The challenges this year were just as much of a struggle as last year – work got in the way, and didn’t have a ton of time to explore and discover new stuff.

I did manage to finish the ice cream challenge though, which was as fun as it sounds. And we now have an ice cream maker at home, so we can create our own weird and wonderful flavours. But the Anya Hindmarch project was a big help in getting me over the line for 35 flavours – I visited at the start and the end of the challenge, and tried some bizarro flavours including Twiglets, Hobnobs and Pesto.

The experimental type challenge did get started, but I didn’t finish it. It wasn’t top of mind enough, if I’m honest. And I’m pretty sure I finished the children’s book one, but I was so god awful at keeping track that it didn’t feel right to say I’d ‘completed’ it. And anyway, we’ve been reading so much Harry Potter during the second half the year, that it didn’t feel like an honest representation of our reading.

Here are my 35 photos from across the year: