My stress and anxiety has been running high just lately, and in a bid to find something to focus on, and following the success of our Sussex Day celebration, I decided that it would be fun to spend a whole week celebrating random National Days.

If you look online there are National Days for absolutely everything. Multiple things for every day of the year, My goal was to choose one thing to observe each day.

Monday began with National Nature Photography Day. It was a bit of a weak one on my part because I didn’t have the opportunity to get out into the countryside. I made do by including flowers and water in my photo, and it was early morning which apparently is one of the best times to get out and take nature shots., so I kind of hit the brief.

Tuesday was National Fudge Day. There was a notice in our local fudge shop confirming this fact, but I didn’t buy any from them as I already had a bag of fudge in the back of the cupboard left over from Christmas (bought for a very delicious chocolate tiffin recipe which you can find here). Rather than just eating the fudge as it was, I decided that I would knock up a half batch of fudge and chocolate chip cookies. I used a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe and just substituted chopped fudge for half of the chocolate chips. Unfortunately, the fudge seemed to completely change the consistency of the biscuit and they fell apart when I tried to take them off the baking tray, so they definitely wouldn’t win any prizes for how they looked. They were also very sweet and I was glad that I hadn’t made too many. (As it is, the remainder are in the freezer where they will probably languish until I next have a freezer clear out!)

As it was also the actual Sussex Day, I could have made a Sussex Pond Pudding – a traditional dessert in which a whole lemon, along with butter and sugar, is encased inside suet pastry and steamed until the lemon softens. My one attempt at this, made for my DNA results celebration party, was not well received, particularly by my daughter who found herself chomping through a particularly large portion of the lemon, and although I would be open to trying it again, it wasn’t really the weather for a steamed pudding. (Incidentally, banoffee pie was apparently invented in Sussex, which is more tasty although not quite so traditional.)

Wednesday was National Eat Your Vegetables Day. That was an easy one. I racked up beetroot, carrot, red and yellow pepper, sugarsnap peas, cucumber and tomatoes (yes, I know they are strictly speaking a fruit) for lunch,

and sweet potato, green beans, broccoli, peas, courgette and more carrots for dinner. Twelve plant points right there!

Thursday was National ‘Wanna Get Away’ Day, so after finishing work I headed to Dover. Nothing makes me want to get away on my travels like seeing the ferries coming and going into the port, except perhaps the departure boards of London train stations, but Dover was closer.

It also happened to be International Picnic Day, so a quick trip to the M&S food hall and I had that one covered too.

It was really pleasant sitting on the beach but within about half an hour it started to rain, which rather killed the mood. When I got home, I discovered that my new passport had just been delivered, which was very appropriate!

Friday was National Sauntering Day. I have gone through life thinking that sauntering was walking with attitude. Not as much as a swagger, but that kind of thing. Given that I am not in the least bit sassy, I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull that one off. Then to my surprise, I discovered that to saunter means to walk in a slow, relaxed and leisurely manner, often with no particular purpose. Now that I can do!

I sauntered into town and came across a TV crew in the park, filming the pilot episode of a new programme in which two teams of celebrities push giant balls through the streets while completing challenges along the way.

I hung around long enough to watch some filming, as three celebrities pushed the red ball around the park, accompanied by a brass band playing a jaunty tune from the band stand. It’s not really my kind of viewing as a television programme, but it was interesting to watch a little bit of what was going on.

Later on, I wondered whether just going into town classed as a proper saunter, so in the evening I went back out again. This time I sauntered in a leisurely manner along the river, looking at the wildflowers, and with the Merlin bird app open on my phone (it only picked up a blackbird, a wren and a very vocal chiff chaff). I was happy that that was a proper saunter.

Saturday was National Vanilla Milkshake Day. This is not a flavour of milkshake that I would ever choose to have but I was prepared to be open minded. However, even made with Haagen Dazs ice cream and fancy vanilla extract it was quite underwhelming. There are much better milkshake flavours out there and I’m afraid that I don’t think it deserves to have a national day all to itself!

Hot on the heels of National Vanilla Milksahake Day came National Smoothie day on Sunday. As it was very hot and I happened to have bags of frozen mango and pineapple in the freezer, I decided to go tropical.

However, this was just a by the by, because the main event of the day was the Summer Solstice. As has now become an annual tradition, I marked the occasion with an evening trip to Herne Bay for fish and chips (or rather a pea fritter as my veggie alternative) on the beach

before walking to Whitstable, watching the sun slowly going down ahead of me. Unfortunately I didn’t quite see it set as, being a Sunday evening, the buses home were hourly, and I didn’t want to hang about in Whitstable on my own for fifty minutes in the growing dark for the sake of ten more minutes of sun set watching. It always feels as if I am making the most of the longest day, and as I’m normally getting ready for bed at 9 o’ clock, it felt rather decadent to be sitting on the beach! As a sun/summer lover, I tried very hard to focus on the beauty of the evening rather than the fact that days are going to get shorter from this point onwards!

It proved to be an interesting week, and definitely worked as a source of distraction. I am already thinking about when I might do it again, and in fact the challenge of following a month or even a whole year of National Days is whirring about in the back of my brain as an interesting possibility – although maybe not the latter until I retire!