Week with Sophia Challenges 1,31,75,91,93

After getting back from Cyprus I was incredibly lucky to spend the next week with my gorgeous Daughter Sophia :) This presented a perfect opportunity to complete a few challenges at the same time as having some really fun days out and experiences with Soph.

Challenge 1 "Find a Geocache"

Luckily there proved to be a number of new Geocaches recently placed quite close to my house. Sophia, with map in hand, was very excited to go find treasure and we ended up finding 2 different Geocaches, one in a nearby woodland and one near a very nice Duck pond. We both had a great time adventuring together, was lots of fun!

Challenge 31 "Send A Message"

This one was a lot of fun :) Sophia and I wrote a message and added my email address for someone to contact me if they found the bottle. We sealed it and carried down to the river. Soph was very excited and insisted that it would be washed out into the Sea and would be "going to Beth in Japan"

Challenge 75 "Fight A Monster"

If I'm honest I was struggling with this one before I had a lightning bolt of an idea. Nobody said I had to fight the monster in real life, so who better to fight a monster with than badass Witcher Geralt of Rivia!

Challenge 91 "Build a Fort"

I think I got a bit carried away with this one lol Previously Sophia and I built a blanket fort and set up the ipad to make an ad-hoc cinema, which she loved! So for this challenge I went one further and got a pair of curtains and curtain rail from Wilkinsons - attached them to the frame of her bed, set up some fairy lights and brought the TV over to make a pretty kick ass under-bunk cinema. Sophia was suitably impressed and insisted on sitting/eating/sleeping in her cinema pretty much the whole time she was here!

Challenge 93 "Get Caught In The Rain"

This one seemed like it would be pretty simple as it rains ALL THE TIME here, however while on holiday I had a pretty cool idea (if i do say so myself) to make this pretty fun :) "This Umbrella....IT DOES NOTHING!"

Challenge 4: Best Street Art/Graffiti

This challenge seemed quite difficult at first as I couldn't decided what criteria I'd use to determined what I liked the best.

Obviously there's graffiti everywhere - mostly rubbish, or abstract murals and I didn't want to settle for anything like that.
Preston is pretty devoid of any culture so I knew I'd have to look further afield and so my search took me to Hipster-Heaven aka the Northern Quarter in Manchester.
I was reading about Bansky and looking into the possibility of visiting a site on a trip to London when I noticed this news article, discussing a Banksy inspired art piece.
As soon as I read it I knew I wanted to go see it and that would be my challenge.
So I set off to Manchester after work and headed to the Tib Street Substation. On the way I noticed several awesome art pieces as the northern quarter is full of them! so I took a few extra pics and finally got the snap I set off for!

Challenge 4 "Best Street Art/Graffiti" Complete!

Manchester Christmas Markets Challenges: 2,3,16,44,50,72

Getting into the Christmas spirit, and taking advantage of the opportunity to get out of the house and do something different I decided I'd check out the Manchester Christmas Markets. They proved a very fruitful place for finding cool things and completing challenges, as well as a really fun day out :)

Challenge 2 "Eat Something Weird"

For this challenge I ate a cake. Now that doesn't actually sound too weird until you realise it was from Stuart Thornley Cake Design (a crfater I used to go to events with) and he specialises in making cakes that don't look like cakes. And so I proudly present - the Cake Pork Pie!!

Challenge 3 "Buy The Coolest Badge"

As soon as I saw this badge I knew I had the challenge in the bag. I thought my robot badge from the science museum was pretty cool but this hand made Crystal Maze badge featuring the legendary Richard O'Brien is just amazeballs!

Challenge 16 "Coolest Freebie"

You have no idea how hard I tried to get something cool for free, but it turns out it's pretty hard! I kind of cheated with this one, in that I did pay for it but it's also kind of free at the same time. Feeling the chill in the  air I decided to indulge in a lovely warming mulled wine - and got to keep the "free" promotional mug :) I know some will say I paid for the mug, but that probably makes the mulled wine free - so either way I'm claiming it as a cool freebie!

Challenge 44 "Best Street Food"

This one was actually recommended to me by Beth - and she was very jealous i got to try it! Only in the North of England can you turn a side street and be confronted by the wonderful sight of a Yorkshire Pudding Burrito stand!

Challenge 50 "Grow Something"

As soon as a saw the awesome stall selling Cacti planted in really funky real ale cans I knew this was the plant I was going to grow for this challenge!

Challenge 72 "Coolest Socks"

At Christmas time novelty socks are everywhere! I saw some really cool socks with puns, cool characters, adventurer time , Rick n Morty etc. but all of them seemed a bit basic. And then I came across this stall and knew i'd found the socks for me! For each pair sold the company uses the money to help the homeless in Manchester - so not only do they look pretty snazzy, they also help the most vulnerable at a very hard time of the year :)

Challenge 12 "Best Hat" & Challenge 47 "Find a weird Inflatable"

Thank God for the over commercialisation of Christmas! I was thinking this would prove pretty difficult - but a random trip to the pound shop turned up these beauties - an inflatable Santa beard and inflatable antlers and a Turkey Hat - Genius!