50 things to do before you are 11 ¾ meme

[wellinghall]

I haven't seen many memes on LJ recently, so let's try this ...

Embolden the ones you did before you were 11 ¾ (as far as you can remember!)
Italicise the ones you have done since then.

1. Climb a tree

2. Roll down a really big hill

3. Camp out in the wild

4. Build a den

5. Skim a stone

6. Run around in the rain

7. Fly a kite

8. Catch a fish with a net

9. Eat an apple straight from a tree

10. Play conkers

11. Throw some snow

12. Hunt for treasure on the beach

13. Make a mud pie

14. Dam a stream

15. Go sledging

16. Bury someone in the sand

17. Set up a snail race

18. Balance on a fallen tree

19. Swing on a rope swing

20. Make a mud slide

21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild

22. Take a look inside a tree

23. Visit an island

24. Feel like you're flying in the wind

25. Make a grass trumpet

26. Hunt for fossils and bones

27. Watch the sun wake up

28. Climb a huge hill

29. Get behind a waterfall

30. Feed a bird from your hand

31. Hunt for bugs

32. Find some frogspawn

33. Catch a butterfly in a net

34. Track wild animals

35. Discover what's in a pond

36. Call an owl

37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool

38. Bring up a butterfly

39. Catch a crab

40. Go on a nature walk at night

41. Plant it, grow it, eat it

42. Go wild swimming

43. Go rafting

44. Light a fire without matches

45. Find your way with a map and compass

46. Try bouldering

47. Cook on a campfire

48. Try abseiling

49. Find a geocache

50. Canoe down a river

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9201607/National-Trust-50-things-to-do-before-you-are-12.html

Comments

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

Were all the bold ones only before you were 12?

I seem to have done most of these before I was 12, and most of them after.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's right.

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

Perhaps having a lot of younger siblings and cousins helped.

I tried to skim stones before and after my 12th birthday, but did not learn how until this millenium.

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

Oh I did not understand this as I read the sentence differently, I've done a lot of my emboldened ones again since 12 although not many that recently. I did go to a Youth Hostel out in the sticks where everything was done the old-fashioned way the other day though (with Youngest), does that nearly count?

Great meme anyway, food for thought.

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

That's a great list and I'm quite sure I still haven't done all of them!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Query: when did swimming outdoors, not in managed pools, become "wild swimming"? It's just one of those phrases that really annoys me, making something ordinary somehow pretentious. I've never been wild swimming, but I've swum in the sea, lakes, and rivers around the UK. I suppose that "we went to Filey/Bolton Abbey/Llandudno, parked the car, and got out the rubber dinghy" sounds less glam. Though I imagine that wherever and however you go it is absolutely freezing.

I seem to be a bit grumpy tonight.

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

But...it IS swimming in the wild if it isn't in a purpose built pool (n.b. that can be outdoors too) and it's not that ordinary nowadays with many children wrapped up in cotton wool, a lot of polluted rivers where it's a bad idea to try it, and a lot less places where you are even allowed to swim. Same as it's cooking the wild if it's not in a campsite. Obviously there are degrees of wild though.

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

Cooking The Wild, that sounds like a Cookbook by Whittington Featherstone-Ferneghue! Whoops.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Well it is, technically, but "wild swimming" just seems to be something about making it new and edgy and cool as opposed to "swimming somewhere nice outdoors". And the examples they give are always somehow Nice and never about how all the local kids have cheap wetsuits and jump off the rocks in school holidays.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I find the trick with warm sea swimming (at least in Devon/Cornwall) is to go in the autumn, pick a still day and swim near the surface. The sea takes longer to warm up than the land, so just when all the tourists are going home at the beginning of September, the most pleasant time for swimming begins. I've swum in the sea in October, but I'd be much more wary of doing it in June!

Oddly, when I saw 'wild swimming' on this, I thought of it as a special thing intrepid people do in rivers, which I have only swum in rarely, because they tend to be muddy or hard to get to, and often have big signs saying 'Danger! No Swimming!

Logic tells me that the sea swimming I have done since I could barely walk is probably a hell of a lot more dangerous than most British rivers, but I suppose that familiarity tends to put dents in the feeling of wildness and danger...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I've swum in rivers (or to be specific the Wharfe) a fair amount because Bolton Abbey/Burnsall is a 25 minute drive from north Leeds. Given that we were accompanied on each occasion by about 500+ other picnicers, it has never struck me as a daring or highly unusual activity. That said, people do drown there on occasion, albeit for what tends to be pretty obvious reasons.

We did Devon/Cornwall in the summer a couple of times - I have swum there, but it had the advantage of being very hot days and not quite as bone-stripping as the North Sea! October would be very nice.