50. Alum Bay and the Glass Vase

Well, I spent my 51st birthday on the Isle of  Wight and finished off my 50/50  experiences with a a trip to Alum  Bay and a ride on the rickety old chairlift down to the beach.

Steven then treated me to this beautiful iridescent vase from the glass studios there. It is a tall blue glass vase with green/yellow/purple overlay and looks stunning in the light.

I have really enjoyed the last year and ended up doing some fun things - highlights include not 1, but 2 trips to New York, eating at the restaurant at the top of the BT Tower and amazing  WW1 battlefield tour of Flanders.

I was treated to some great experiences by others such as the Harry Potter Studio tour from Jared, the ride round Central Park in a horse drawn buggy by Mum and an Aqua Massage from Angie!

I also enjoyed learning to crochet from Laura, making my own Christmas wreath, having my DNA tested and even cooking my first home made curry!

I tried to do some good along the way and raised £100 for the Blue Cross, bought a Poppy from the Tower of London and Crowdfunded a charity and a book launch

Although the year is over now, I hope to carry on saying YES to things I might not have done - and have started by being involved in a publicity photo shoot for St Elizabeth Hospice and impulse buying a new car! There is still a long list of ideas that I never got round to doing which I will keep and hopefully cross off  as time goes on.

Thanks to everyone involved along the way and my advice to you all is Give It A Go and Have Some Fun!

44. Visit to HMS Ganges Burial Ground at Shotley

Mum and I visited the quiet churchyard of St Mary's in Shotley to visit the sailors graves there.

There is a section for the men and boys who died whilst stationed at HMS Ganges and also a special memorial to the early Submariners who died in World War 1

Godfrey Dykes has a fascinating website about the burials which showed that many of them died from illnesses such as pneumonia, TB, whooping cough and measles rather than being  killed in action. Many of the graves are for young boys of only 15, 16 and 17 years old.

We have a link with HMS Ganges - as my great grandfather Edward James Goodall carried out his naval training there in . The HMS Ganges Association has an interesting website on the history of the establishment.

This is the separate memorial to the 52 men who died  from the 8th & 9th submarine flotillas in the First World War. 

There are also the graves of 13 Germans who died when their ship laying mines was sunk near Orford Ness in 1914 - and then the HMS Amphion which had picked them up, hit one of the mines and sunk too! These became one of the first casualties if the war

31. Open Learning

I have just completed my first Open Learning module at the Open University - Information on the Web. Laura Hack told me about the free short courses offered through the on-line learning route. 

I've just enrolled on my next course 'War Memorials and Commemorations' and I might try Earthquakes or an Introduction to Histopathology next!