I was meant to post this at the weekend, but life got in the way again.

A little more progress has been made on two of the longer term goals. The first of which is:

No.45 Achieve my 50 Parkrun’s status.

I completed my 6th Parkrun on Saturday, and my second one at Avery Hill, on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year! I was even joined by my eldest daughter, Laurie, on her first ever Parkrun. Sadly Holly was ill, so she couldn’t have a crack at beating her PB. As I was feeling in pretty good shape, I thought I’d give this a real go and open up the taps. Because of the heat, I kept some fuel in the tank as I didn’t want to overdo it.

But somehow I managed to find another 18secs to take off my PB, with a time of 21mins 40secs! I think sub-21 is now possible. But I’ll need to do some serious training for that! A good morning’s work though, and only 44 left to go.

I’m not doing a Parkrun this weekend though, as I’m helping out my old scout district with stewarding at Mencap’s 5k & 10k in Greenwich Park. That should be fun though. Good luck to the runners.

Just one last thing as a foot note to the running, I have entered 2 half-marathons, for goal no.46. I haven’t marked that one as in progress yet, until I properly start training for it, as I’m still doing more cycling for Ride London.

My second progress update of last weekend was to:

No. 38 Compete in 12 Crossbow competitions.

After an early start, and a 120mile drive, I was back at Nuneaton for another crossbow competition. It was my first one since the World Championships, and good to be back on home soil. Unfortunately the weather didn’t play ball. It was a lovely sunny day, but seriously windy! As a result my scores (and everyone else’s too) were well down on normal, with only 455/600. I only had one other person shooting in my category on this occasion, but I still beat the their score by 54 points.

At the end of the day, it’s all points towards my world ranking.

The competition is the outdoor nationals on Sunday 11th August! So that’ll mean goal no. 34 will also come into play.

Before I update on this goal, I need to say that I did revise this one from my original list.

Originally goal no.11 was to go mini golf. However, I then found out my scouts had booked to go, and my girls are taking me as part of my birthday present. So I have revised this goal to make is a bit harder.

So, now goal no.11 is to go mini golf three times.

The first of these three rounds was with my scouts. I only joined the 6th Lewisham South scouts in January, after over 30yrs of scouting in Royal Greenwich. A move that I had to make for personal reasons, but it has been one that I have certainly made the most of. How? Well because they’re a bloody good, and strong, group. Plus the leaders there are all friends, some of whom I’ve know for many years.

As a summer term treat the whole group went to the mini golf in Sidcup. The poor staff getting hit by all three sections, leaders and parents all at once! But, what a fantastic night.

I have to admit I really enjoyed it, and can’t believe that I’d never done this before. I played golf (badly), but not this.

I’ll be honest. In our leaders foursome, I lost. Not even closely. But I’ll take solace in the fact that I was the only one of us four that managed a hole-in-one.

Anyway, that’s the first of three rounds of mini golf in the bag.

66. See Bon Jovi in concert again.

My first ever Bon Jovi concert was at the old Wembley in 1995. Since then I’ve seen them a further 6 times, but I really wanted to see them again. My first tattoo was the same superman tattoo as Jon Bon Jovi, at the top of my left arm, just like him.

So when they announced they were going to the UK again, by hook or by crook, I was going to see them.

Thankfully Claire is also a really big fan. So I not only secured tickets for us to go to Wembley, but as a birthday present for Claire I managed to get us golden circle tickets!

It was an amazing night! They were also supported by the Manic Street Preachers, another band I really like! So it was a double bubble for me.

A great show, a great set, and we were really close to the stage. We loved every minute of it. Although I do have to admit that I got a bit emotional during Always.

Goal completed!

An early start, meant an early wake up call, and I mean early. For a fourth time I teamed up with one of my oldest friends, Andrew, to ride the BHF London to Brighton bike ride. Our start time on Clapham Common was 06.30am!!

To be fair we did request it, as the earlier you start the less riders on the way, which means you can go faster. It’s not a race, and throughout we were simply cruising and chatting.

In 2018 we completed ride with a 3rd person, in Mr Men & Little Miss cycle jerseys. This year it was just the two of us as “Team Tickle and Happy”.

The weather, not to beat around the bush, was bloody awful at times. A few showers, until we hit Ditchling Beacon when the rain came down hard. For the 4th time in a row, I beat Andrew to the top of the beacon.

But we did it! In our fastest ever time of 4hrs 20minutes!

Goal 60, now complete!

In the finish area we were stopped by a member of the BHF press team, who asked us about our story for doing the ride. We dedicated this ride to our friend Paul, who is currently recovering well from a heart bypass.

Get well soon mate.

Because of this personal link, I have also made a donation to the British Heart Foundation. (Goal no. 54)

After Thursday’s quite major health setback, the following 72hrs were quite exhilarating.

On Saturday morning I decided to do another Parkrun towards goal 45. But for a change of scenery I went to Avery Hill’s event, instead of my normal Danson Park one. More commonly known as being a Parkrun tourist. This was also my first run since the Vitality 10k, where I strained my calf. So I was planning on taking it easy, especially as I was cycling the BHF London to Brighton the following day.

But, as usual I didn’t follow my own script! I ended up doing my 5th Parkrun, with a new 5k PB of 21mins 58secs!!

Only another 45 Parkruns to go.

Sometimes, other people’s actions really don’t make things stable.

Following on from my last two successes last week my mental health took a very serious down turn. Not to put too finer point on it, the issues I thought I had resolved reared their head again, to a point that I have had to cut them completely out of my life. This coupled with a revelation that despite being subjected to cruel mind games, I’m seen as the negative party, by others. Simply because I was brave enough to speak out at the effects on my health of those negative behaviours. This caused me to have another breakdown, and let’s just say attempt number three.

Thankfully my wife and friends have rallied round me, and their support has been amazing. Because of that, I’m still here to continue with this challenge.

27. Book up swimming lessons

I hated swimming at school. One of the best things that ever happened to me was getting verruca. But it’s something I now regret.

I can swim, but no well, and not very far. This is why swimming features in some of my goals. But, last night I had my first swimming lesson, in an on-going programme. Roll on the next one!

Goal complete! 

Lots to write on this post, so bear with me.

35. Attend the World Crossbow Championships.

38. Compete in a total of 12 crossbow competitions.

Even though I had been planning on attending this event, there was still so much that could have gone wrong. Which would have meant I might not have been attend. One of those being my mental health, and the cause of those problems, being at the championships too. So an issue or two to deal with.

Anyway, I went and I’m glad I did.

It started well, in free practice, but the started going horribly wrong. I started to have technical issues with my crossbow during official practice, and the situation with the other issue was becoming toxic. To deal with that, despite the damage that they had caused, and never apologised for, I needed to resolve that situation. So stepped up, and was the bigger person and began to deal with them. The stress of keeping my distance was having such a negative effect that I ended up having a full on mental health crisis, before I was about to leave my hotel to head to the arena, for the opening day of the Individual competition.

Well after day 1 of the completion, I had equalled my competition PB at 55m, and beaten it at 35m. I also broke my overall SC600 PB with 504 out of 600! This left me in second place, ahead of the world number 1, Gustav from Sweden!

Day 2 started slow, but picked up. An average 35m was followed by a great 45m with a new PB. The problem is one shot was so good I shot the end of one of my best bolts. Thankfully it was a double ring 1 (a perfect end), which helped ease the pain a bit.

I finished the day with 502, and an overall total of 1006! I had won the silver medal!!!

I didn’t know that I was also going to be in the matchplay competition on day 3, so that it is why I’m in including in goal no 38, as two further competitions.

Anyway, I won my first play off in the matchplay competition, beating Gustav again, with a score of 54/60, just a point under the world record. I was then up again Rui fro Portugal who had beaten me to the gold the previous day. Well, he did it again! Breaking the world record and hitting his own perfect end and Robin Hood to win it 56/60. So a second silver medal for me.

Then in the afternoon we had the team matchplay competition. Had I not resolved the earlier issues, this event would not have happened. Pure and simple.

We were the complete underdogs, and had to face a play off against Portugal to get into the semi-finals. We won!

We the faced the best team in the championships, Germany, in the semi. We won with 81/90, a  new world record, to their 80! Now we faced Gustav’s Sweden team in the final. On each end I had the 3rd and final shot. We were two points behind going into the final end, and I hit the shot that tied the final 72-72.

So it all went to a one end play off. Gustav had their final shot, and I could see where it landed. I quickly calculated that I needed an 8 to win. I got it!!

We were the team matchplay world champions, and I had a gold!!

53. Drive a car in a foreign country

This may not seem a big thing to people, but one that I had been dreading.

I’ve been driving for nearly 25 years, but only once driven I another country. But that was one a day trip to Calais, from the ferry to the town and back, in my own car. I drove a couple of times in Australia, when on holiday there, but as they drive on the left I don’t really count that. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always backed out of hiring a car when on holiday.

Well, as I was going to Germany for a week, and had to transport a lot of equipment around, it was something I couldn’t avoid any more.

So as I landed in Dussëldorf, and went to the Hertz desk to pick up my car, I was given yet another curve ball. The car was an automatic. Something that I have only driven once, 14 years ago! Talk about being thrown in at the deep end.

During the week I clocked up 472kms of driving, and even had a little bit of fun on the Autobahn. Managing to get the car up to 205kph! Then I chicken out, and slowed the hell down.

But, goal completed! 

June has always been a nightmare to plan anything for our birthday’s as there is always something going on. For anyone that doesn’t know us, my birthday is on 8th June, and my wife Claire’s is on the 9th.

This year is no exception. I’m away in Germany for our birthdays. We can’t do anything the weekend after as I’m cycling the London to Brighton bike ride. On the weekend before (this weekend) I’m actually on night shifts.

So to fit something in for my birthday, we literally had the 12hr gap between my night shifts. We managed it! And I can’t thank Claire enough as I managed to start two more of my goals in the process.

93. Go to theatre 6 times

For the first part of my birthday treat Claire managed to get us tickets to see The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, at the Criterion Theatre.

We were sat in the 4th row, dead centre of the stage! Awesome seats!!

We’ve seen a few of Mischief theatre’s productions, and after my scout gang show did a small excerpt of this performance (the opening scene), I really wanted to see the rest of the show. It was so, so funny. At one point I was actually crying, and my sides were hurting. It really was that good.

They’ve got a new show coming out in September, Grown Ups, and that is definitely on my list to go and see now!

43. Eat at 7 different restaurants with Claire

After the show we had dinner at Bubba Gump. We’ve been once before, but that was about 5yrs ago, and kept saying that we had to go back. I’m glad we did. I love my fish and seafood, and I think I ate way too much. (That might help with goal no.10).

It was good, and I had one very full stomach afterwards.

If you’ve never gone I would recommend it. Although, make sure you watch the Forrest Gump first, as you do get quizzed on your knowledge of it. 🙂

A fantastic birthday treat that I thoroughly enjoyed.

And I still got into to work on time for my 12hr night shift. 🙂