The Bargain Bucket List

Being middle aged it’s about time I reviewed my life so far and established what the important things are to me. I’m not talking about loved ones or good health necessarily, although these are important, I mean that it’s about time I established what things I need to do before I shuffle off this mortal coil. 

Some people call it a bucket list, but having seen the film of the same name (which quite frankly bored me to the very pit of my stomach) I am loathe to follow suit.

However, whilst some people fill their lists with extreme sports such as white water rafting, base jumping, and sphering, I’m more likely to avoid these life-limiting activities in favour of more sedentary experiences. 

Don’t get me wrong, my mid-life crisis has set me on the path of running, of which long term readers of this blog will be sick of hearing about by now, and next year I am climbing a mountain or three over a few days whilst living on a train, but that’s another story. 

I do have foreign travel on my list; I’ve always wanted to visit the United States as it looked exciting on TV when I was growing up, and ever since my Bjork obsession of the early 1990s I’ve quite fancied a trip to Iceland. 

I’ve never fancied Australia by the way. Too many spiders. 

Every time I tell this to someone who’s been ‘down under’ I get reassurances that it’s not that bad, and then they go on to tell me how there was a giant fast moving spider in their bathroom or one hidden under a park bench or a load of tiny poisonous spiders swamping their back garden.

Anyone who has a spider story that includes them saying “the spider was so big that I heard it breathing before I saw it” is not going to convince me that a trip to the Antipodes should be high on my list. If you’re reading this in Oz then please feel free to correct me, but I bet you have a scary spider story.

It’s a shame really as I’ve always wanted to visit the big orange rock thing that you’re not meant to call Ayers Rock anymore, and also Ramsay Street. Come on, I’m British, what do you expect? 

I’ve digressed.

All I’m saying is some things on my list are, well, a little more day-to-day. A bit more achievable, if you will. So don’t laugh when I say that one of the things I wanted to do was, well, er, go to Nando’s.

Yes, I know, it’s sad and pathetic but we didn’t have one locally until quite recently and it always seemed so exciting and, well, chicken-y.

I like chicken. I don’t like chickens mind you, they’re terrible soulless creatures with unnerving beady eyes that stare right through you, but in cooked form they’re a particular favourite. Apologies to vegetarians or animal lovers there but it’s true. Chickens are the eyes of the devil and it is our duty to defeat them or we’ll all become possessed by the Dark Lord himself, and I don’t mean Simon Cowell.

Nando’s does come in for a fair bit of criticism though. This weekend I’ve heard it referred to as a “posh KFC”, which it kind of is, but I like KFC so there, and that it’s basically just chicken with the same three or four sauces added.  Well, yes, at heart it is, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing. McDonalds is essentially the same burger spruced up in a variety of buns but they don’t seem to do too badly for themselves.

What I enjoyed when I went last Saturday was that it’s good quality chicken in a variety of tasty sauces at a reasonable price and in comfortable surroundings. To be honest the company I was keeping was also very congenial which helped the overall experience but if the food had been inedible mush I wouldn’t have enjoyed it, but I did, because it wasn’t. 

Nando’s does exactly what it says on the tin and it must be popular as people were queuing for a seat as we left. To be fair I wouldn’t do that, there’s a Chimichanga two doors down and as I also like Mexican food I would have trekked down there instead, but I understand the ‘catnip’ appeal of Nando’s.

So there you go, another thing ticked off the list. So what if it’s not abseiling or quad biking or climbing up Vesuvius (all of which are on the hypothetical list), you need to have a mixture of things to make life interesting.

So what’s next? Driving a tractor? Flying a plane? Drinking absinthe? Appearing on a game show? All of these things at once? Who knows?

I’ll be sure to tell you about it though, regardless of whether you want me to or not.