Learn How To Play Chess

For some reason, the game of Chess passed me by as a youngster. I never learnt how to play it at school. I never had lessons from my Father or Grandfather, so I knew this wasn't going to be a simple one to complete.

I started to learn approx. 2 months ago. My Line Manager at work begin to teach me, then got bored after a day or so. Then I found another work colleague that was willing to teach me, but then I left work, so that came to an end. A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I was going to learn this game once and for all, I set up my chess board and started to read my 'how to' book, but something was missing - I needed to play against someone if I was ever going to get to grips with this game. Thank goodness for my wonderful I-Pad touch! I managed to download an application where I could play against the computer and voila, today I actually got the computer to check.

According to the experts, it takes years to learn the dynamics of Chess, so no doubt I will continue to learn, the more I play. I'm just happy that I managed to finally pick up the basics and it's definitely something that I will carry on with - it's kinda got me hooked!

I'm Still Here...

Well it's been a month of highs and lows since I last blogged. No sooner had we eventually moved to our new house, then I found out I was short listed to be made redundant, something which has sent me on a bit of a roller coaster ride. Some days I'm fine about it, others are really dark days when I can't quite get used to the concept that for the first time since I left school at 16, I will be out of work.

I've been thinking about my list an awful lot in the last month. Unfortunately other things have taken precedent over me completing anything, but I've been chipping away slowly but surely - update as follows:-

1) Chess - just need a few more games under my belt and then I can sign this one off (a chappie at work is going to teach me in his lunch hour, he just doesn't know it yet!)

2) BBC Top 100 Reads - currently reading Stephen King's The Stand which will make it 79 read once completed.

3) Rescue an animal from captivity - currently writing letters for various Born Free Projects including 'Free The Berlin Bears' (you can add your support by joining the Facebook group 'liberate the Berlin Bears') and 'Free Lucy', an elephant kept alone at Valley zoo in Canada (again you can add your support by going onto the zoo check website 'www.savelucy.ca/take-action-for-lucy). If any of these animals are successful rehoused then I will consider this task complete.

4) Create a short film to go onto You Tube - just need to get to grips with the basics of our very small camcorder and then go round to my friend, Phil's house for a coffee, few ginger nuts, oh and to film him of course.

5) Learn a new language - have a Learn French kit which I need to find out if it's compatible to my PC, if not then I'll purchase one and once I've finished it, will consider this task complete.

So now I can see all that in black and white, I don't feel so bad about me not actually completing anything, although it would be nice to get a few more completed, as time is ticking on and this chappie is now snapping at my heels http://grahamettridge-40thingstobeforeim40.blogspot.com. Not only is he (marginally) younger than me, he's also got some really cool things to do on his list, so go check him out.

And last but not least, I'm on BBC Radio Nottingham again this Friday - roughly around 8:30am, for all of you early risers!

Until we meet again...

One Of Those.....

One of my new tasks to complete this year is to learn Chess. I've decided that I will donate an hour a week to learn this new task and I'm hoping it won't take me too long to get to grips with the basics.

On hearing my plans, Mr M has decided he wants to learn too. Although he knows a little about the game, he wants to try and improve his skills. So I guess we are now one of those couples, you know the ones that do joint activities together. I guess it had to happen sometime soon!

PS I would just like to state that neither now or sometime in the future will we ever be purchasing matching anoraks.

Check Mate

I have to learn to play Chess at some point. Quite a hard thing to do when I've never seen the appeal of most board games. I've never even played scrabble and even if I did, then I'm sure within 5 minutes I would be seeing how many rude words I could make. So this task is going to be a toughie. But I like a challenge. So for the next week my bedtime reading is going to be Chess For Beginners - riveting stuff eh!