Clazz’s 2017 Challenges: October Update

Hello from PORTUGAL!

How’s your November going? Mine’s been pretty full-on, hence posting this nine days late. I’ve already been to five cities across three countries, celebrated bonfire night, and somehow found time to be bed-ridden ill for a couple of days, too.

And if you think that’s mad, you should have seen my October. I had what I’m pretty sure was my first ever week of absolute down-time. Normally the only time I ever take time off is to travel, and you’ll rarely even find me sat down all weekend. But with the weather worsening by the day, I finished my job at the hostel and basically sat at home for a week. It was glorious. I sorted all of my emails FINALLY, I got a blast of market research work, and I just generally caught up with myself.

But then it was full steam ahead, and in ten days we drove the length of the UK almost twice, and visited Pitlochry, York, Pontefract, London, Brighton, Maidstone, Uckfield, Crowborough, Thorpe Park and the Lake District! Phew! We then spent a few days near Inverness, before Ash went home and I stayed for another few days before heading to Venice with Mum.

Unfortunately, disaster struck when I was transferring my photos over to the laptop and suddenly all of the photos disappeared. Like actually disappeared; no message, no warning. It seems like the SD card has corrupted, so I’m in the process of trying to recover them. I’ve got the first few from York and that’s about it.

Make £50 £100 on side hustles

So are these “main hustles” now that I don’t have a job? I’m not sure, but I did a handful of market research shifts before I left and hit my target just on those. I also started up my online surveys again now that I have more time, and I cashed out £40 from one of them, though I would have completed the surveys another time. I’ve never included cashback I get on this challenge, but I did earn £10 in referrals on TopCashback! Want to know how you can save money on most things you buy online, including travel tickets and accommodation? Check out my full post here!

TOTAL: around £150

Get fitter

In my week+ of downtime, I set myself a fitness routine which was really good right up until we left and haven’t stayed anywhere with stairs since. I also went for some last-minute walks with my colleague before he left Orkney FOREEEVER, and on his very last day, we took a coastal walk around Deerness. It was a beautiful day and we went down into the “lagoon” bit – to find a seal following us! A perfect send-off for him.

Read 50 books / write for another publication

I’m currently reading Bill Bryson’s Road To Little Dribbling, which as usual is an excellently entertaining read. I’m also working on some projects for the local tourism magazine, which I’m pretty excited about!

Learn something new

Other things?

Well, like I said… we visited a fair few places! My highlights were probably Pitlochry – the backpackers hostel is AMAZING! – and York, neither of which I had ever visited before.

Here are some of my best Instagrams from October:

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM HERE!

And here’s a quick update on my bonus goals, too:

– re-edit my best travel photos to print – yep, definitely getting there.
– make 2-3 Pinterest images per week – I said last month that I’d revamp my Pinterest page. And I have! Still sooo many images to make, though!
– sort out my emails – I’ve caught up!!! Obviously the challenge now is to keep on top of them, but I’ve finally got it down to under 20 unread emails! And I don’t even have any tabs open! Holy crap.
– sell all my junk – not while I’ve been away. I’ve tried a couple of things, but nothing yet.
– don’t buy any new clothes for the rest of the year – tick! Apart from a pair of trousers from Asda because they were reduced to 3 quid so how could I not?
– make more of an effort to see friends – well… I’ve seen RATHER a lot of friends! From a wedding in Yorkshire to visiting all our friends in Sussex, it’s been busy busy busy.

Well, I’m exhausted after all that. And now I’m off out to explore some more of Faro, which is my home for the next few weeks while I volunteer in a hostel! 🙂 Have a great month!