Happy Waspiversary

Well, a year has passed since four of us gathered in Glasgow, drank a lot of coffee and made The List.

Thngs have changed.

Personal lives have fractured and taken on new shapes. Bad things have happened. Good things have happened. Awful things have happened. Great things have happened.

Kitezoo is off to Afghanistan (although she may still be in UAE right now).

Chomps is... somewhere. Some where between Russia and China. Inclusive.

Hex may well be in Glasgow.

I'm currently on a train to London (although I'll be back in the 'burgh soon).

But still there is The List, and still there are The Wasp Tasters.

Let's review!

List items ticked off

• Run a distance, more than 5km, less than a marathon - organised by Kitezoo
• Whisky tasting - organised by nome
• Learn a creative skill - tbc. Woodworking/pottery/millinery/ceramic painting - organised by nome
• Murder Mystery Pub Crawl Treasure Hunt - organised by Hex
• Go to a festival (tbc) - organised by nome. Not Woolfest, not Small Is...
• Go to the dogs and place bets - organised by Hex
• Trans-Siberian Railway - organised by Chomps (although Chomps is the only one doing it, SAD FACE)
• And a good number of instances of the ongoing list item #26: Cook something together regularly. Combine with List Steering Group - organised by nome

(So... of the 8 items we've ticked off, 4 were my responsibility. I think it's PRETTY EASY to see who's winning here.)

For me, at least, Wasp Tasting has brought a lot of joy in what could have been a particularly tough year. It's brought fun times, and promises fun times to come. 

One year ago, life became exciting again. 

And that's one thing that hasn't changed. 

Here's to the next year, Waspettes. 

Going the Distance

And so it came to pass that the ball was dropped and the wasp tasters shattered. Looking ahead, I'm not sure how many tasks we can complete the four of us together. Sad times.

But wasp tasters do not give up so easy. Divided we stand. And so, in that spirit, as many of us as could came together to Run a Distance (Less Than a Marathon, More Than 5km). As many as could was, in this case, two. Kate and I ran the Glasgow Women's 10k on Sunday 13 May. The weather was horrible. I got a stitch at 3km that never quite went away, acid indigestion just in time for the hill at 7km and had to stop to start retching as soon as I'd made it over the finish line. At so many stages I found myself thinking 'I could really do with a wee walk right now' but I kept at it and finished in a better time that I would have ever imagined at 54m10s. And even better is the knowledge that I have done it, I have scored it off the list, and I need never do it again.

I do have some photos on my phone, but they're kind of stuck on there until I can work out a way to de-cake the inner workings of my handset. In the meantime, there is a website. It is called marathon-photos.com and it is evil. Observe.

 

Beware the Colossus Wasp

From my own very evil laboratory, I present The Colossus Wasp. The scariest eyes of any creature known to mankind, an impenetrable leathery hide, powerful flapping ears and dual front stingers and a tail stinger make the colossus the ultimate predator.

The creature was created by mixing the rage of the honey badger with the pure evil of the wasp into the frame of the super-micro-pygmy elephant of the Congo.

Do not incur my wrath.

Dr Kitezoo (PhD in Evil)

A pictorial record

Some pictures of our list-related adventures are starting to collect on Flickr in this group.

Going to the dogs...

Hex, the reluctant blogger, has decided to make the report of the visit to the dog racing a team effort.

Bloganory!

Practice line (aborted due to rubbishness):

Slander! is nonsense said Nome reluctantly I thought, nevertheless that...

And starting again, one word at a time from each of the 4 wasptasters, although nome was replaced by Junction Bear for quite a few rounds as she cooked us a delicious roast lunch (with purple sprouting broccoli- how posh!):

Once upon a SATURDAY we ventured to a downright amazing adventure at Shawfield. Here velociraptors didn't peck our wallets however, the dogs led us joyfully to place bets. Everybody won except poor beautiful Hex :(. Chomps developed winning strategies for placing winning avocados ahead of the fastest dog. Nevertheless we decided that gambling created excessive amounts of debts. Afterwards there unfolded weird chinese pyjamas which were very organically crafted. That evil carnivorous dastardly rodent ate fifteen penguins entirely without manners. This appeared to be strange aliens although really this has not got anything to do with dogs. Nevertheless, we must go back to the main event. Everyone had sufficient fun for the entirety of the List task. The end.

Enough of this nonsense. We went to the dogs, placed bets, won some money, spent more, we did not encounter velociraptors nor entice dogs with avocados. Onwards to Ceramic painting!

All Quiet on the Western Front

In the meantime, the east-coast contingent of Chomper and I have been busy. We cooked and ate food together. We talked and thought about the list.

And since then, I've kept thinking. And what I now can't stop thinking about is... Greenland.

It's a short hop from Iceland. It's got Northern Lights. It's got an ice sheet. I'm thinking sea kayaking, I'm thinking hikes to the ice sheet, possibly a dog sled across the ice sheet, I'm thinking northern lights. I'm thinking about an expedition during our trip to Iceland to see the 'tongues'.

I hope everyone else thinks this sounds good too. Not just good: incredible.

Have a look at the Official Tourism Site for Greenland. And drool.

The Team

The Wasp Tasters

In all their glory, in reverse height order (almost?)