18. Make more friends - I keep losing mine to motherhood :(

This is a really hard one. I used to have some fabulous, close friends but they live abroad, so while we have a blast when we see each other, I don't feel that we can call on each other to bare our souls or share our deepest secrets with each other in the way we used to. I also had a few friends in this country who have all become mothers, which is fine, but every conversation is about children's sleeping, children's eating, children's clothes, babies' nappies. Again, that's fine, but most of my friends can't reel off all of this stuff without telling me that my life is empty without children. "Oh you wouldn't understand", and "you're running out of time" are the two most common comments, and the most recent (and hurtful) one was "are you celebrating Christmas? Isn't that pointless without a child in the house?".
However, I have made two new friends during the course of the 101 in 1001 challenge. One is 76 and an amazing, worldly woman. The other is 29 and sees the world very much in the same way I do. I miss having a best friend, but am going to tick this item off the list!!

32. Make chutney or marmalade – from homegrown or hedgerow supplies.

I only remembered that I'd actually done this when I had to put half a jar of chutney on the compost heap yesterday! We tried to grow our own produce in the garden and had an extremely successful glut of tomatoes in the summer. The only problem was that these tomatoes were green. Cue Hugh F-W's River Cottage book and a massive pot of chutney was made and most of it eaten. Unfortunately, we had a power cut while we were away over Christmas and everything in the fridge - including my chutney - died. There's almost next year - let's hope my tomatoes stay green!

58. Develop charity challenge

I have been thinking about this idea and have decided to do something small for different charities every day of the year throughout 2011. Examples will include donating my wedding dress to charity, volunteering as a marshal at events, taking part in 5Ks, cycling races, swimming events, baking cakes and so on. I'll try to find 365 different charities but suspect I will return to the same ones here and there. Any ideas or charity names are very welcome!
I'll be charting my progress here:
http://www.charity365.blogspot.com/

42. Get rid of some of the rubbish in the house and replace it with flowers!

This is another one that's a bit lame that I must have dreamt up when I was struggling to get to 101 items on my list!
My house is tiny and I actually don't have a lot of stuff, but for boring and weird reasons, I have a lot of my mum's stuff in boxes, so I can't really get rid of it. (I took it upon myself to throw away the box of old luggage tags that she'd kept, and was not at all popular afterwards, so you can imagine the reaction if I threw away anything else!). However, I've done my best to send her stuff to her and hide some of it in the outside cupboard, but please don't look under the bed or under that table with the very long tablecloth! Bless her, she did have a look through some of it and a couple of binbags were filled and taken to an Alzheimer's Society fundraising coffee morning that I volunteered at.

43. Healthy breakfast before I leave the house, smoothie, porridge

This is a boring one. But I have been very good about this as I now work from home, so no need to rush in the mornings! Think it has been good for the waistline too as my trousers definitely seem to want to fall down quite a lot!

71. Ride a camel

Nearly!
I recently had a ride on an elephant so I am going to tick this item off the list! Mr PBR and I tied the knot last month and headed off to India on our honeymoon. Towards the end of our all-too-short holiday, we went to the wonderful city of Jaipur where we had an elephant ride up to the Amber Fort, which gave us fabulous views. The elephant was called Champa (a flower's name, I think) and sitting on him was brilliant fun, rolling around at a leisurely pace. However, the mahout was carrying a metal spike to control the elephant and I couldn't help but notice a tear on the elephant's ear which made me very uncomfortable. The other thing that made me uncomfortable was the mahout's talking about money and his tip all the way up the hill, coupled with hawkers constantly trying to sell you quilts, paintings and guide books while you're actually on the move on the top of an elephant is quite surreal.

98. Fix my iPod

The end of 2010 has been quite busy with weddings (mine and a friend's), babies (more than 20 born to my friends, including NINE in November - one of whom was my first nephew!), work and trips abroad, so I have neglected my 101 in list. I was horrified to notice that time is running out, so the first one in my little recent push was to sort out my iPod. I recycled my broken one (and five months on am still waiting for my payout from a certain recycling company), bought a new one and have put all of my CDs onto my i-Tunes which was very revealing. It appears that my taste in music has shifted quite dramatically from dance music to acoustic and folk. I recommend listening to every CD you have. Music is the closest thing we have to magic on this planet and it's incredible to relive some of the moments and emotions that come flooding back simply by listening to a song that meant a lot during your teenage years. I was also able to sell quite a few of my old classics too!

28. Buy something at auction - eBay doesn't count!

Again, a slight change to the item on the list, but I SOLD something at auction this week. With it being the World Cup (VUVUZELA at you - parp!!), I decided a few months ago to sell my beloved 1990 World Cup England team autographs that I've had for 20 years!
(remember this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhSZFrII40Y)

I've been having a slow and steady clear out since we moved into our house which Mr PBR's friends and family keep telling us is small, tiny, petit, compact. Etc etc. So it was time to let someone else enjoy this and I found out today that someone bid £100 for my souvenir which even included the signature of the late, great Sir Bobby Robson.

68. Tandem

I actually wrote "buy a tandem", but I am going to tick this off the list as we spent the day hiring a tandem.
In fact, it wasn't me, but Mr PBR who organised this as a birthday treat for me (and a timely reminder that my 1001 days are lessening and quickly! We got up at 6am and drove up to the Tandem Experience in Jackfield near Ironbridge, Shropshire for our day, greeted by wonderful weather, a plush two-seater and a very nice man called Pete.
We were given a quick lesson on how to get on and off, how to stop and a couple of other things, without a huge health and safety fanfare and we were away!
Mr PBR was at the front, meaning I literally sat back and did nothing while he braked, steered and pedalled, blissfully unaware that I wasn't pedalling and had my feet up!
We then cycled back to the Ironbridge and had a fantastic afternoon cycling more than 25 miles without breaking a sweat. Tandeming is great fun - reminded me of my adventures in my campervan when it automatically put a smile on my face and highly, highly recommended!

12. Step up volunteering

After a lot of faffing, I am back with the local Alzheimer's Society branch. I used to volunteer as a befriender and spent a couple of hours a week visiting and talking to the most incredible woman who sadly suffered with dementia. The pleasure was all mine. She was such an inpiration; she was quite a well-known author, she painted, she could speak at least four languages and she was a total joy to be around - witty, intelligent and vivacious. Sadly, I moved away and lost touch. Four years later, by chance, we moved back to the area with Mr PBR's job and I decided that I would see if I could go and see her again. Sadly, what with procrastinating and trying to find the time between my full time job and my second part time job, I never got round to it and was devasted to read in the paper that she had died. So after going to her funeral, I came home and got back in touch with the local branch and said I would help out. They (unlike me!) wasted no time at all and I am now fully back in the swing, this time working on the admin side of things which suits me timewise.

I am really enjoying it and I feel it is a much better use of my evenings than watching TV or heading to the pub! I probably would have continued to procrastinate if I hadn't put it on my list. Vive la 101 in 1001 project!

54. Go to the top of the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth

After a bit of a long break between 101 in 1001 items, I can finally tick off another! We went to Portsmouth to see some friends yesterday, so I persuaded Mr PBR to come with me to the top of the Spinnaker Tower! I was on a course in Portsmouth about 7 years ago for 6 months when the tower was being constructed and it always struck me as a bit of a waste of time and effort. However, having seeing the finished item, I have to admit that it looks fabulous and is a great signature building for the city. Thanks, as ever, to MSE Martin Lewis for his wonderful site, I did a bit of a search with the forum and also google and managed to get a 2-for-1 voucher so Mr PBR and I went to the top for just £7.25. Like the CN Tower in Toronto, there's a brilliant view and a glass floor so you can see the ground 100m down below your feet. Unlike the CN Tower, it doesn't revolve and the restaurant is at the bottom rather than the top!

92. Mystery shopping

Thanks to the sharing and helpfulness of those MSE forum members on the mystery shopping thread, I have taken the plunge! I’m not a huge fan of shopping, so initially I thought I wasn’t a good candidate for mystery shopping, but on reflection, I think this is one of my attributes which makes me perfect for the job! In fact, if I can feedback some of the things that put me off shopping that hopefully it will make the retail experience better for everyone! It’s actually quite a skill, and not just as simple as reporting when staff are rude to you! You need to be super observant, accurate and you have to have a good memory.

My first couple of tasks have been straight forward and I have been hugely impressed by the standard of customer service. It’s not going to make you rich, but it’s helpful for the odd couple of pounds here and there.

Have a look at the TEN(!) mystery shopping threads on MSE for more info!