My To Do List

I like lists. My reliance on technology has made my brain lazy and so I keep myself from failing utterly at life by keeping lots of them.  This one’s going to be various things that I want to do in order to learn something new. It’s in no particular order other than when things occurred to me and will be updated as and when.

• Make a cold frame using recycled drinks bottles.
• Find out what you do with a cold frame.
• Learn how to change a car tyre. I know the theory and carry all the kit but on the rare occasions that I’ve needed to do it, someone else has been there with far more expertise and has done it instead. I need to get someone to stand there while I actually do it a few times. (N.B. May require bribery.)
• Learn to bake really nice bread by hand, then incorporate stuff I’ve grown in the garden. I want to make something using the cherry tomatoes I grow.
• Learn about preserving: flavoured oils, roasted veg, jams etc.
• Learn how to make it, then make really good marmalade.
• Ditto gooseberry jam.
• Make good pastry. (I’m rubbish at pastry – even bought stuff challenges me.)
• Learn how to set up a small camp: work out best placement for stuff, how to make shelter for bad weather camp fires etc.
• Successfully take my young niblings camping and use camp fire without even smallest ‘near-miss’ type risk of death or anything falling on anybody. Bonus points if nobody falls face first into a puddle and requires a full clothing change.
• Learn how to recognise all the trees and plants that my father told me about when I was little, when he used the walks to teach me about nature and I didn’t listen because fun.
• Grow soft fruit and successfully produce potatoes larger than a walnut. (Ongoing challenge, that.)
• Build some insect shelters for the garden, to encourage insects to help with pest control on plants.
• Learn more about web design. Mainly the technical bits: I lack a designer’s eye almost entirely.
• Establish an allotment plot. I’m hoping to get a specific plot in the near future and am waiting for confirmation of that. Need to learn everything about allotments. Except about keeping chickens. Chickens have cold, dead eyes and they scare me…