Fifty things to do before I'm fifty, Balancing. The good and the bad.

A new years trip to Lanzarote gave me a great excuse to tick two more things off my list. One I've been excited to do since I first had the idea for the list and the other was one I consider the second scariest thing on it. As the title says, it's all about balance.
Good thing to get a scary one out of the way though!

Delighted with myself!

I was so pleased to get the chance to do stand up paddle-boarding, I'd seen people do it at a beach festival and really fancied trying it.
 Our teacher, Darius turned up to collect us from the hotel in a tiny car loaded with what looked like a couple of suitcases. Off we went expecting to be met at the beach by a large vehicle carrying the equipment. To say I was surprised when he unloaded his little car and produced three inflatable paddle-boards and a couple of pumps is an understatement!
  I really wasn't expecting to be any good  but was determined to give it my best go. Surprisingly, I managed to stand up on my first attempt which gave me so much confidence. I didn't care about losing my balance after that because I knew I could get back up again. 

A beautiful morning for it!
C on the other hand..... not so great! He managed to fall off the board in every direction possible. A very rare occurrence that I was able to do something better than him!
Not that I didn't  fall off myself, of course I got cocky or lost concentration and ended up in the drink plenty of times. All part of the fun though!



I'm really not exaggerating when I say how much I enjoyed doing this. I love the fact that it can be fast and terrifying or serene and beautiful. I will definitely be looking to do more paddle-boarding whenever the opportunity arises.


A couple of days later, we arranged to hire a car to go and explore the north of Lanzarote. Another tick off my list and the second scariest challenge out of the way! I'm not going to lie, I've been nervous about this one from the outset. Wildly overthinking everything and being a complete bungling idiot about it. We nicknamed the car  Miranda the Panda. It didn't help to make the task any less daunting. After faffing about checking that the brake and clutch were in the right places I set off.
Not too bad until C started freaking out about where Miranda was in relation to the gutter at the side of the road! Managed to negotiate the roundabouts without too much drama. Thank goodness that the roads were really quiet. My main problem was changing gear...... Every time without fail, I tried to change gear with my left hand which led to me punching the door each and every time!

Are we having fun yet?

We arrived at out destination (Jameos del Agua) in one piece although we both wanted to kill each other and I had bruised knuckles! It was a great relief to get out of the car and I realised that driving on the left was not going to become second nature. To be completely honest, I've always enjoyed taking public transport when we go abroad anyway. There is always the prospect of an adventure and its great to mix with the locals. You also get to see more of an area I think.

Thank goodness that's over!

Comments

  1. Sandra28 January 2018 at 23:43

    I tried driving a left hand car once ONLY. Tenerife I think Couldn't even get it out of the car park, Martin took over. So well done!!

    ReplyDelete

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