I have no idea whether this transcript is any good but I’m playing with the feature. Also, I had in my AirPods while I was recording I think they ended up being my mic which isn’t great - but hey, it’s all a learning curve Hello friends welcome back. No intro music this week because I'm actually on my lunch break we didn't want that that wasn't the intra music I was looking for uh I'm actually on my lunch break from work and I thought it' probably a good time to give this voice memo thing on my new phone a whirl. So if you didn't know, if you've got an Apple, I feel like it's only the newer ones, but if you've got an apple iPhone that has the Apple intelligence on it, um now transcribes is the word I'm looking for. I'm just going to say translates. It now transcribes voice memos for you, whether it be ones that people have sent to you or the ones that you are sending to someone else. I thought I wonder if this works the same way if you are recording a voicem memo I use voice memo all the time from loads of stuff sometimes just reminding myself of things sometimes for things like recording the podcast on the go lots of stuff and now I'll get a full transcription at the end of this that I can post and uh use as the optional text version of this audio episode. I'm sure this is a thing that you can do elsewhere but I'm I'm just kind of playing with a new feature anyway hello welcome back. It is uh my four seat x 40 audio kind of almost weekly episode. There will be at least 40 episodes um and in this show in the series I am basically documenting myself trying to get through my list of 40 things that I decided I want to do before I turned 40. in February 2026, uh, which is time is going so quickly. I stole something the other day. I can't remember where it might have been on a podcast actually. I heard something the other day and someone said the reason that we get into gardening in middle age is that time goes so much quicker. So for an 18 year old, you plant something in the garden, the idea of not seeing that come to fruition for another six months is just mind boggling. Like why would I plant something now six months is in eternity? When you all pushing forty, you know six months is like a a blip. I get to this weird feeling and I know I'm not alone in this. I can't be. It's actually this weird feeling like I've been really looking forward to something at the moment it's my holiday. We're going on holiday about. He's about three weeks time, which is crazy but I've been really looking forward to it and then it gets to be a few weeks away and I start to get sad and I can't really explain it. We haven't even had the holiday yet. It's I should still be in the anticipation stage. I should still be really looking forward to it, but I'm almost like presub that it's over. Do you know what I mean? I don't know why and I it's crazy. I also remember the last time we went to Florida. I felt like two weeks was too long. We've never been in our two weeks right before and I felt like two weeks was was too many weeks so this time we've we've got 10 days. I don't know if I'll feel differently but I don't know I feel like I'm pretty sad. I feel like I've got the holiday blues before the holiday, which is crazy but I do think that part of that is the whole thing of time is going so quickly also the whole thing of time going so quickly going back to what I was actually saying is um I'll be 14 before I know it and so there was 40 things on my list need to start moving need to start getting done. I am very happy to announce that this week I did do one of the things on my list one of the things on my list was give blood so I did talk about this and Iugged this week but I was at my son's football match or it wasn't his football match. It was his football training where I just sit and I sit in my car and attempt to read my book because one of the things on my list is read a physical book this year. I have gone on to buy several more physical books. I haven't even finished the first one yet. I'm reading lightark. I couldn't tell you who wrote it. I don't have it in front of me currently driving, but the book is called lightark. I'm really enjoying it but I think I may be made a mistake in choosing fun to see. I should have gone. I definitely wanted to move away from Brom Gums. I used to exclusively exclusively like I really burned myself out on it read drumcoms and it's just become so predictable for me now that I can't even enjoy them so I kind of dicted my toe into fantasy in audiobook and I just couldn't really get into the idea of these books because the ones that are like real proper fantasy, the one that I listened to last year that I really did enjoy was called uh bewitches by come on, just like myself into work. The bellwitches by Lindsay Celt, who usually traditionally a rom-com all effect. She's also from the same time as being we've met and she's lovely. Anyway, the traditionally, she is a rom-com author and I was like this this is probably a good segue into a new genre and I would say that it was. I really enjoyed that. I did the voice out saying I didn't find it difficult to to get into that at all. However, I've tried to listen to things like a courtornoses and it's all just a little bit too I don't know. I don't know. I decided that the reason I couldn't get into it was the voice acting and it's all right that's enough car. I decided that the reason I was struggling with it was a fantasy book like that I had to hear it in my own voice and so that's why when I decided to read a physical book I went straight in with fantasy and I think that was a wrong turn. It's been a bit of a grind. I'm enjoying it, but I'm finding it hard to it's not a speed read for me and it's it's YA as well, which I won't say it's shameful because it's not what I did think it would be easier going when it has been. um anyway, so I'm listening I'm listening. I'm uh reading that and I've been taking my hour I have each week where I'm sitting outside my son's football training to read that book. uh I had already made an appointment to give blood because it was on my list. I'd registered and I made an appointment for like, I think it was for a few weeks time. And then I rocked up at this place. It's like a it's like a kind of working men's club with a field behind it. And the blood fan was there. So I thought well why would I not do this? So here we are. I have given blood. I've also already made an appointment to do it again in July. Apparently you can go every 16 weeks if you're a woman, every 12 weeks if you're a man, um I'm I'm not like a real hardcore pain person. I don't have like a really high tolerance for pain. uh and I have really bad veins. Apologies I should have given you a trigger warning people that don't like veins. My daughter and my son, my daughter more so a terrible. My mom is the worst. My mom has to make like a special appointment and she has to like lie down, go behind a thing. It's horrific. And then if I've ever taken my daughter for any kind of blood test, she once fainted four times four separate times as we were leaving, she fainted again, and they never even managed to do the blood draw. Some people have a really, really hard time with that and I totally get that, but with that in mind, because you've got the people who actually can't give blood for some reason, then you've got the people who can't give blood because they've got this real serious fear of it. I mean it doesn't even have to be like serious phobia level. It's just the idea of it. They can't even imagine. And there are so many people that I know in my immediate family that are like that. But I think those of us who do not have that fear should be doing it. So I just want to tell you it was not painful. I rocked up, not prepared at all. I haven't eaten or drunk anywhere near as much as I should have next time when I've got my appointment, I will be a lot more hydrated and I will have had a full meal just before hunt because I was a little bit nervous of that when I'm when I'm literally laying in the bed, someone behind me fainted while they were leaving and I was like no, that that particular day we had planned after football training I was taking Milo to see the Minecraft moving. I thought, I got to get in the car. Pretty sharpish after this and drive us to the cinema and I was getting a little bit nervous after the fact I might be woozy. Thankfully I wasn't at all. They do give you like a drink and a snack and stuff before you leave, but I was actually completely fine, even though I was not hydrated that day um but if you want to do this, I would say get yourself registered, look at places near you that you can go. It took a total of eight minutes half of it is like pre-screening but once you've been screened, that will be a much quicker process in the future. So like that a lot of that stuff that we did was like it's because it was the first time I'd given blood since being a registered donor. In the past, I've only ever done it like I hot when there's been a van somewhere like there used to be a van that came to work and I used to always give, but you know, that's just not a thing anymore. And so what actually triggered this, although it was already on my list at the beginning of the year, it actually triggered me to do this was my friend's dad died recently and he was able to be um an was an O an organ donor and after that she learned a lot about organ donation and how it's actually almost impossible. Like you pretty much have to be on live support to donate your organs so many people aren't able to donate their organs because their body isn't in a fit state to do that at the time that they die. um And so she was looking at like how needed this was and how rare it was and we got into the conversation about blood and I started looking up stuff to do with blood donations. At this point I hadn't registered and made my appointment and they are so in
