Opening Day Regrets

I wish I could say that it had seemed like a good idea at the time but that would imply to the reader (and I use the singular quite deliberately) that there was a particular time when this was a rationally thought out idea, and that it was good. The truth of the matter is that the 30th Year Challenges notion has resulted from a combination of long standing ambitions, a few whimsical notions and a number of drunken conversations that, through circumstance, coincidence and just a little planning happen to be taking place in the same 12 month period. It then grew organically, which is the fashion at the moment, to become a little excessive.

And so I found myself on the cold, dark morning of the nominal start date of the 30th Year Challenges running down a main road slowly realising that a cocktail of pride, curiosity, recklessness and optimism had kicked in and - barring injury, logistical problems or financial difficulty - the year was going to happen. One word kept going through my mind, and it will no doubt go through my mind a lot over the next 366 days (2008 had to be a bloody leap year), "Dickhead".

At that point my knee started hurting a bit so I immediately headed home.