It was my friends’, (Graham and Sarah), wedding last week. Like myself, Graham has had a house for a while now and so there’s a bit of a limitation to the sort of conventional ‘household item’ wedding list and instead I decided to try to build a bit of a hamper for their honeymoons (one short trip to Chester for the weekend directly after the wedding, and a trip to Thailand arranged for later in the year). 

Worth mentioning first in the hamper was a rather unique wedding cake. As far as Graham would be concerned this was probably the finest cake ever made, in so much as that it wasn’t a cake, but was in fact an iced pork pie. Had he have had the idea sooner we might have expected to see a giant, 3-tiered, wedding pork pie served to all the guests.

I had also put in some Thai Bahts for their trip to Thailand later in the year, and some bath salts with the assumption that a honeymoon suite somewhere would feature a big fancy bath. Next there was a box of chocolates, and a bottle of champagne, and then the controversial item - a bottle of Durex 2 in 1 massage gel (the 2 in 1 feature is that it’s also play lube). 

Now, the question was raised as to whether this was an appropriate part of a wedding gift, by other friends who felt it might be somewhat offensive. Personally, I felt that it fit into a wedding gift perfectly well as there is always something of a view about sex on the night after the wedding, as if it is a couple’s first time, and so it is momentarily removed from being a taboo subject. In reality most newly married couples have probably already had plenty of sex, and there’s a good chance that any cries of ‘Oh God yes, that feels so good!’ coming from their room after the wedding is probably just them taking their shoes off. 

I’m pretty open minded when it comes to sex anyway - not in a way of planning all sorts of new things to try out but rather in being spontaneous if something seems like a good idea at the time. Of course, the problem with ‘spontaneous’ is that you won’t necessarily put things like furry handcuffs, play lube, or whatever else onto a shopping list in order to have them around for spontaneity. So, really, if I were to be given any of those things it would just help out for any spur of the moment things that would have required prior planning in purchasing, and the more I think about it, the more I question why it might be offensive or inappropriate. 

Plus, all that aside, I think what would really be an inappropriate wedding gift would be a DIY divorce kit...

So, I'm now 30, which always seems to be one of those "dreaded numbers" to hit. Some of my friends have started to settle down with kids, and informed me that I should start to act my age and "grow old gracefully", I start to fall outside the age range for 18-30s holidays (even though I've never been on one anyway), and all of a sudden I'm deemed to be boring and sensible enough to get cheaper car insurance.

Maybe it's the way that people make lists of things to do before they're 30, as if their lives, or at least the chances of doing anything exciting with their lives, comes to an end at that point. I certainly have, or 'had' I suppose I should now say, a list and there's plenty on there that I've not managed to do.

Bagging some of the highest peaks in each continent remains undone - Kilimanjaro, Denali, Aconcagua, Elbrus, and so on, as does travelling the Trans-Siberean railway, and canoeing through the Caledonian canal. But really I don't feel any different now I've hit 30 so those things aren't going to be left undone, rather they are now just on a more general 'to do' list without worry of a time constraint. If anything, compared to when I was 25 I'm probably a lot more likely to be able to do them now both in terms of having the finances and also with getting back to a fitter lifestyle after a bit of a slump mid-20s working as a teacher where I seemed to always have issues getting a decent work-life balance.

So, I don't FEEL 30 - in my head I've never really got past being 23, I've started to make some brilliant new friends who aren't falling into the trap of feeling they need to start antique shopping and "pottering in the garden" at weekends, and feel unable to go out on a "school night". I'm also probably getting back to the same sort of levels of fitness as I had around the age of 20 where I was constantly out climbing, canoeing, and taking part in fell-running races, but, I don't even care that I am 30, it's not something I'm scared of, it's just a number, and the longer I'm around for the more 'cool stuff' I can accrue on my "things I've done" list. 

A snippet of the "things I've done" list

• Saw the LHC being built at CERN.

This was one of those "once in a lifetime" opportunities, seeing the detectors being built for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva that might open up whole new fields of Physics as the new particle collider recreates the sort of energies that were around at the time of the Big Bang. Once the machine is switched on, however, the insides of the detectors will be made so radioactive that they will never again be seen by the human eye.

(download)

Click here to download:

so-i-m-30-fGlkAhoJktkFeiayzubB.zip (8.44 MB)

• Made a start on seeing the world, with trips to China, Norway, Brazil, Germany, Rome, Prague, Marseille

More than just the trips, Norway has even become something of a home-from-home with work trips out there stopping for long stays in Bergen, Kristiansund, Florø, and Tromsø. 

• Safari in Kenya.

Managed to see the 'Big 5', in their natural habitats, although only just as Jaguars are somewhat sneaky and prefer to come out in the dark. It's definitely a great experience, and I think the photos speak for themselves.

And there's so much more that has come up with experiences during time spent as a teacher, time at University and more distantly, time in Venture scouts, just seizing every opportunity that presents itself. So, here's to the next 30 years of cool stuff!

So, it's been in the pipeline for a while, but there's now finally a place where I can post up about trips out, or even just have a rant about anything that has wound me up. So, to answer 'why now' for finally getting around to setting up the blog site, I suppose I could either attribute it to the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the associated panic over the damage to the nuclear plant there. Alternatively, I could put it down to the spate of climbing and hiking trips that have taken place with the good weather at the moment, opening up the promise of an exciting year ahead... either way, for the sake of setting the tone here's a chart that puts the amount of radiation leaked at Fukushima into perspective, which was nice to see after the first couple of days of panic news stories on the BBC website, and editorials calling about the end of nuclear power.

On a more adventurous note, as mentioned above, outdoor climbing for the year has started. This is with huge thanks to a brilliant website www.climbfind.com - which has provided me with some brilliant new climbing partners. Not just that, but a good deal too, where I get fed cake in return for my knowledge of local climbing areas.