So this weekend, DH, DS and I went off to Brighton for the weekend. The weather was wonderful; we spent a lot of time on the beach, lazily trying to persuade George not to eat stones (but Mummy they look like sweets). You might think that going to a new place is fertile ground for first times, but Brighton is my comfort blanket - I love it, I have been there many times, and each time I go I want to do my old favourite things. But the aim of this blog is to challenge me, so I did two new things for the first time.

Firstly, I persuaded DH that we needed to visit the Brighton Museum, which contains lots of things about Brighton in it. Tucked behind the Pavilion, this is a museum which I've never had the urge to visit because it just sounds dull to be honest. But the urge was upon me: we need to do something new today, I cried. So off we went. The first thing to note is that it's free and secondly that it has the most amazing collection of Louis Poulsen artichoke lights I've ever seen. Six. In a row. Genius. I decided that lying on the ground to see them better was a good move, which made George laugh and try to lie on top of me. Not sure the museum staff were impressed.

On Sunday, I decided that Saturday's first time was not nearly challenging enough. So I took a big leap of faith and went on the rollercoaster at the end of Brighton Pier. This is the first (and only) time that I have been on a rollercoaster. As those who love me best will testify, I'm the person who holds everyone's loose change when they go. As a teenager I would rather have asked a boy out that go on one. It was awful. I waited in line with a group of Spanish teenagers wearing emo tees. One of them tried to blow bubble gum in my hair (although I was later rewarded by seeing her crying as she came off the ride - ha!). WHY do people do on these things? Oooh how great it is to feel like I'm going to crash into the ground? I don't think so. First and last for sure.

So today my first time is making a list (for the first time) of the first times I actually want to achieve over the next year. Ones I think will challenge me rather than terrify me. Ones which will become small achievements in themselves. So here they are:

(1) Learn some Japanese (secretly) so that when I go to Japan with DH, he will be exceptionally impressed

(2) Sign up for some charity work of some description and actually commit the time to do it properly

(3) Actually figure out how to use an iPod and downloading etc.

(4) Go to see something I wouldn't actually ever do, like an opera (maybe not) or flamenco dance (I'd rather give birth).

(5) Go to see lots of galleries, and parks etc which I have never been to in London

(6) Discover lots of new yum foodie shops.

Anyway, that's just for starters.