So the middle age - I'm gonna make it fun

Welcome to adulthood, if you sleep on the pillow wrong, you’ll feel like you got in a motorcycle accident for the next three days.

So yes, I have decided to make sure that my descent into being middle-aged is going to be a blast.  No one knows what's ahead, so I'm going to do my best to be proud of what I have achieved and glad that I have had fun with the people I love.

I'm struggling a bit with my list, but here is what I have so far:

• See the northern lights (properly!)
• Fly a plane
• Visit the Ice Bar
• Visit NZ/Australia/Canada
• Host a party
• Try a new sport
• Drink alcohol in bed
• Learn to make and exotic cocktail really well
• Perform a random act of kindness for a stranger
• Throw a surprise party
• Do up a piece of furniture
• Start a business
• Sleep in a castle
• Donate to a food bank
• Get my Masters
• Eat chips on the pier
• Get a dog
• Make a snow angel
• Go in a hot air balloon
• Write a short story / comic strip
• Try coke
• See all the UK Clearwings
• Read a classic I’ve not read before
• Make a five-year plan
• Volunteer for the homeless
• Tidy the living room!
• Take part in amateur dramatics

And that's where I ran out.... I need help? What's fun or meaningful? Suggestions, please.

If it involves fake smiling, I probably won't come.

Well, it has been a time of introspection and planning... mostly because I've only just run out of fingers on which to count the number of times I've left the house, this summer.

But amazing things are happening and it turns out it's as easy as asking if people want to get involved. What was once a three-man South Devon team is now 14-strong and UK wide (OK, not strictly UK-wide - we're still unrepresented in Ireland, but we'll get there!) and creating fantastic ways for people to explore nature. 

So it seems it's a new age for Wild Ideas as well as for me.  So I have decided that, from now on, I will focus on the future and leave the past behind. 

I appreciate is probably not great news for everyone I owe money to.

And now it's so strange to observe people's reactions to coming out of the lockdown.  I guess my social skills have improved, because I've been invited to so many 'garden parties' that it's exhausting to even try to schedule them.  And also, it turns out that it's not "appropriate" to decline on the basis that attending involves too much fake smiling on my part.

Thing is, I'd totally go, but it's straight up disappointing that the conversations I have with people in real life are never as good as they are when I practise them in my head.

So, no, I'm good thanks.  I have to stay home and finally watch Waterworld so I have something new to moan about.

Fun with Shotcut

So recently, one of my crazy friends introduced me to a new group of amazing people who love to play silly games.  During the lockdown, we've been taking part in some really silly tasks.  As I'm 'a bit' camera-shy, I decided that playing with footage would be a better way of demonstrating my task completion without scaring people with my face, too much.

So I downloaded Shotcut and had a play.... This was an early play at making a documentary about something in my home...

  

It's probably obvious that I was having fun.  Granted, it took me several hours to make this simple clip, but that would surely change.

So, over the next month, I played more and turned my mind to making clips for the Wild Ideas Wild at Home project - this is a project delivered by around 12 volunteers at any one time, from all over the UK, creating content to encourage communities to engage with nature, especially during the lockdown period.

A month on, it's that little bit smoother and I'm making snippets 

with educational content and activities.  I've got a bit of a thing about ickle squills, so that was my next port of call....

 

I'm continuing to work with the team to create videos and I'm getting quicker... though that will slow down as I practise with new stuff.... next I want to make professional-looking credits and nonsense like that.

I am, though, missing the silliness... I need a very silly topic, just for fun.  Watch this space.