This is a guest article by MG
What madder way to spend the May Day weekend than ferrying 17 children 40 miles from their homes for the yearly spring camp? There weren’t many alternatives on my agenda, so off we went!
Friday
In hindsight, I had taken Friday off from College as a precautionary measure in order to try and sleep as much of the day off as possible prior to preparing for the excursion that lied ahead, but like the idea of utilising the public holiday to sleep in on the morning after the event had ended, this never materialised! I feel groggy… Instead, I was awake at 9AM sharp and unable to take my mind away from the forthcoming events enough in order to rest further, so it was inevitable that I arose and began to sort things out. This included a fruitless trip to Drew’s house, Esso for fuel and Forbuoys for a mobile phone top-up.
During the later morning and early afternoon, I received a number of calls from Drew, who was frantically attempting to arrange the collection of various bits and bobs that were missing from the camp’s desired make-up. This included a specialist cheese, a large inner-tube and two bags of logs, with the latter requiring a trip to the outlet on the side of Park Road in Barrow; which on a Friday afternoon with the A590 allowing no more than crawling speed had the potential to be tricky, if not considerably time-sapping. After considerable consultation with the said accomplice, it was the latter camp ingredient that I was asked to collect. Time to hit the lanes! (even though I had initially intended to sit in the sun listening to Steve Gerrard’s Kiss 100 mix from a few years back whilst piddling along in the queue) (hysterics).
Once onto the lanes, my target was to reach the junction that Paul (Coulthurst - deputy-head of IS who sits directly to my left in the office, who may want me killed for the endless department-related questioning he gets from yours truly) drives to on his way to and from Ulverston 5 days from 7. The said junction lies next to the petrol station on the entrance to Dalton and inevitably, I never found it (hysterics). Where I did find, however, was the Furness Footwear store that lied close enough to my destination for me to think that the extended drive may have been worthwhile. Unlike Mr WhiteVanMan (one of my few positive memories from the SKT ‘experience’), who must have been highly annoyed with my slow-speed exploits – even if he wouldn’t have got much further down the track with the increased volumes of traffic travelling in both directions. Seemingly, speed isn’t everything!
On arrival at my destination I was approached by a barking dog, who thankfully decided to keep his distance to a less than threatening 20 metres after I abruptly ground to a halt and offered a stubborn stare. This triggered the inevitable game of awaiting the owner’s arrival to see what the animal was making a fuss about. It never took long for him to emerge (hysterics). ‘It won’t hurt you!’ was the tone of message from the owner that both him and most others usually attempt to reassure me with. Of course, I was totally apprehensive but managed to leave the site with both the logs in the boot and myself unscathed. Next destination? Hollywood Park to pick up Mr Stretch from work so we could watch the Grade 1 Champion Hurdle at Punchestown on TV later on, in which the Jessica Harrington trained Macs Joy steamrollered a top field under the precise steering of Barry Gerraghty.
It was then time to pack. Out came the large rucksack and in went what turned out to be approximately 75% of what was actually required for the weekend that lied ahead. Oops! I’ll elaborate on what I forgot later. What followed was a frantic half hour of getting things just right before heading off to the Comm Tower to meet whoever was to accompany us to our destination. As it turned out, I didn’t have much of an idea of who was actually going to be in attendance, but as always with these camps madness most certainly comes as standard!
I arrived to find the usual group of cars, wandering children, groups of parents
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and… Oh, hold on a minute - where’s Paul? In his absence I joined the group of wanderers and had a chat with a few of the parents before he came to join the party. They all seemed pretty relaxed about letting their children out of their reach for the weekend (hysterics). And I must admit, I was relatively relaxed at this point until the imminent introduction of Paul, who instantly had me in preparation mode once he’d arrived with the mini-bus – he looked as though he’d been put through the wringer all afternoon! I’ll have to iterate that if I do have time off work like I did on that Friday to prepare, then I’m only a call away to help prepare in any way possible…
What ensued was a period of attempting to organise who was present, where bags were to be deployed, where children were to be deployed, where incoming money was to be deployed… You get the picture (hysterics). Anyhow, we were struggling for room for the (very) large bags on the minibus, and were highly thankful for the usage of a blue pick-up from one of the parents to assist with the transportation effort – it took a fair burden off squeezing everything such as supplies, gaming apparatus, food and children onto the bus! And then it was just about time to set off.
This was to be the first time I’d ever driven to Keswick. And only the second time in which I had driven a car full of passengers. First point of note for those not in the driving seat once in the car was to fasten their seatbelts; not because I was going to be driving at speed, but because of the legal requirements attached with carrying younger passengers in vehicles. Once on the road, it was all going nicely until we hit the undulating roads. This is where a) my lack of driving skill and b) my car’s puny 1l engine was to be fully put to the test. Manoeuvring a car along tight roads is not exactly something I specialise in, and the road towards Windermere isn’t exactly what you could tag as wide and spacious, so driving along that stretch at any sort of speed had the potential to be unnerving. Thankfully I managed fine, although less can be said when combining part of a) with b) on some of the steeper climbs in and around the Keswick area. Inhabitants in cars behind must have been furious at regular intervals as regular speeds became pedestrian crawls as I struggled to find revs whilst negotiating climbs of any significant gradient (hysterics). At one point we hit a mere 15mph with a trail of vehicles in my wake! Road rage may have been on the agenda if the car ground to a halt (hysterics).
Slow speeds aside, we reached Isthmus without hitch. It’s nice to see that Young Cumbria have spent a good chunk of money resurfacing the road that leads into the car parking area – what was there prior was likely a nightmare for most cars’ suspensions! All my car suffered was a thorough coating of dust that was being kicked up from the mini-bus on entry, which is likely not good for the bodywork, but is better than a knackered suspension all the same!
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Of course, on arrival all of the kids leapt out of the bus and got substantially over-excitable. In a similar fashion, the leaders decided that a brew was most certainly in order, so we left them to it for a short while… Although this was short-lived (hysterics). It was apparent that both Paul and Drew were relatively tired, so the two main principals were near-instantly showing frustration with the children’s hyperactive behaviour and I was swiftly under the impression that we may have been in for a difficult weekend. So I decided to overview some of the more lively of the crew outside, which gave me sight of the local scenery and take some photos of the wonderful views from the cottage’s veranda:
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Since a small entourage of cars had already been at the site, the usually laborious task of unpacking what was squeezed into various forms of transport had already been partially taken care of. With a small number of bags and the weekend’s consumables on the bus, though, we still needed to devote time to getting everything extracted and put in their appropriate places. It turned out that Paul had visited the same log outlet as I earlier in the day at this point (hysterics). Amongst other things, apparatus such as Robinson’s cordial bottles and sponges (i.e. Water fight ammunition) had to be kept well away from ‘unauthorised personnel’ (i.e. children). Likewise footballs at this point, also (hysterics).
As usual, there were a couple of things to establish before the night walk. Most apparent on this occasion was a getting together of those who were overly hyperactive for a ‘briefing’ by Drew, who was clearly irate with that particular bunch’s lack of control and seeming stupidity. And then there was the setting of the ground rules, which culminated in the list shown here.
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Note rule 1 (hysterics). You can likely imagine the time it took for a bunch of youngish children to conjure a list such as that – lets just say that by the time we had finalised the rules it was time to get ready for the walk!
With last year’s Spring night walk being cut impromptly short due to Youth Hostel curfew restrictions, it was refreshing to know that I would actually have the opportunity to complete the trek this time around. The route was the usual one; exit cottage, wander through field (populated by animals – the children have a tendency to wave the light from their torches at them, which could I always think may have potential repercussions!), progress along the waterfront, navigate through the local wood and approach the foot of a small hill before deciding whether to proceed upwards or turn back to Isthmus. This time around, we decided to climb, though this didn’t provide the first opportunity to take in views from up on high!
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Scaling the larger hill that later lied in front of us proved particularly energy-sapping -as we inadvertently chose to tackle the relatively steep slope head-on! Numerous questions were asked as to why we were bothering climbing the hill in the first place (hysterics), with this exercise proving particularly useful later on in the evening! As it transpired, our direct route up the hill resulted in us reaching the summit in double-quick time following a point-to-point route setup by Paul. The views at the top were pleasing for the eyes, so much so that it was disappointing that I couldn’t really take any photos of any merit due to my lack of knowledge in night photography. Oh well… As per, descending to the foot of the hill turned out to be far more hazardous than the travel in the opposite direction (quite a few ended on their backside at various points!), although Drew did give a few tips on how to increase the level of traction by planting your feet sideways that will certainly be taken on board from here on in. As usual, there always seems to be more obstacles directly in the path of the route of descent (hysterics), but despite slightly veering off course and ending up taking a different route back to town level, the group remained relatively unscathed.
On arrival at the cottage (following numerous questions of ‘are we there yet’ from the children!), it was apparent that a fair number were worn out – we saw a lot disappear a great deal earlier than usual! This made the leaders’ jobs a little easier, which is always relieving following a long day. I took the job of drying the washed pots and hit the mattress in good time… Minus a sleeping bag – read the camp list next time, Mr Dixon (hysterics).
Saturday
5:30AM? Back to sleep!
Surfacing occurred a couple of hours later. The weather looked bright, and thus raised hopes of a warm day. What followed was the usual staggered emergence of children whilst protagonists Drew and Natalie did a fine job of preparing the morning’s cuisine, which the majority of the children quickly wanted to snap up once ready! Ever popular, and no wonder - these breakfasts have become customary on FYC camps, and help provide sufficient fuel for the activity filled hours that lied ahead.
The crew that helped to facilitate our activities arrived slightly later than usual this year, and I for one thought that this was a good move. It had the general effect of being more relaxing, in addition to giving the kids their first play on the beach in conditions of broad daylight prior to their arrival. It also gave me the opportunity to take some photos – some of which have turned out very well:
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Preparing for the activities had already been meticulously taken care of by Drew, but as usual, nature’s forces make it impossible to plan the exact conditions for the day. Thankfully, conditions were just about perfect, which in turn meant that no major plans of contingency had to be implemented. It promised to be a good day.
Once everyone had donned their waterproof gear, it was time to move the boats and make our way to the shoreline. I was on leader activity rota, so myself and Paul were to hold back from the canoeing and swap over with Andrew and Natalie later on at the finish in order to go Ghyll Scrambling, which always gets the pulse racing and adrenaline flowing at just the thought of participating. I’ll come onto that later. Before the crew voyaging onward, we were required to tie 2 sets of (2) boats together to make 2 rafts (? – I’m poor at these nautical terms!). This was to help assist the children get from A to B, which can prove difficult if boats have members who have lost will power of include those who don’t try at all in them! Once the rafts were secure, it was time to head off.
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And off they went. That left myself, Paul and Pete. My first priority at this point was to attempt to capture the views that were right up my alley, so I grabbed the camera and attempted to try and produce some artsy photography. The results can be seen in the following links.
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Wow! There are some startling pictures there. My Dad reckons that in photography, you should near-always have a focal point of the picture, but I am a huge fan of how the landscape has been captured in the majority of these photos. They really look the business and are close enough to what I saw in reality to thoroughly impress me. That camera (Canon Powershot S70) is some piece of kit and I will be taking lots (and lots) of photos with it in the weeks to come (this has now been qualified as of 05/06/06!).
Back in the kitchen, Paul was in conversation with Pete about… Well, a whole manner of things (hysterics). Mountain climbing was one of the main areas of conversation (this may likely have TTR readers in hysterics) (hysterics), in which Pete reeled off a number of mountains that he himself had climbed in recent years (Mount Cook, for example) and reeled off a string of mountains that his wife had scaled during her lifetime. This list was fairly extensive and very impressive! Many of the world’s tallest and a fair number of those in the Himalayans were mentioned throughout. Far more hardened warriors than myself (or indeed, the TTR crew) (hysterics).
When we had found out that we were a few lunchboxes short, Pete offered to construct some ‘power sandwiches’, with margarine, ham, cheese and mayo being the fillings of choice. He didn’t hold back much and it looked as though we were going to be not wanting for more fuel when we hit the Ghyll later on. Prior to that, though, we needed to drive to the car park at which the boats had set off en route to. So I hopped in the car, Paul got onto the bus and off we went. Our travels took us to the front of cottage barrier, where we encountered a far less removable barrier in the form of a modded Vauxhall Corsa that was blocking the majority of the road as a result of some relatively poor parking. Paul wasn’t best pleased at this (hysterics), and he had reason not to be as getting the mini-bus through the gap was going to prove highly arduous. I ‘hopped’ back out of my car and set about directing him and the bus through the narrow opening. It was tight, with a nearby bush getting the heavy compression treatment as the bus drove through it (hysterics). This took a considerable amount of time – too long considering that what should have been a simple task was being stupidly inconvenienced. Having finally managed it, it was then the far easier task of getting my car through… Assistance, please! With my car being considerably smaller than the bus we had less trouble navigating and even managed to spare the bush of any more unnecessary punishment (hysterics). Job done! Not so. Paul decided to write a note for the car’s owner and had just returned to the bus having placed it on their windscreen when a group arrived back… It was them. We waited. They picked up the note. We still waited. I fully expected Paul to return to the car and give them an ear bashing, but just as I thought that was inevitably going to happen, we set off. Maybe he had thought against it? Not so, as it transpired – he just never saw them. That would have been interesting.
Our drive took us to a pay and display car park on the lakeside. We had arrived with the boats seemingly playing team games nearby, although the primary objective at hand was attempting to find a suitable place to park, with the option eventually taken being to ditch the vehicles and help those who were coming off the water.
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The kids looked either happy, drenched or both (hysterics), as they wandered up to meet us. As a consequence, I looked underdressed in my shorts and t-shirt (hysterics) – clothing that wasn’t going to be particularly advisable for the wading that was forthcoming. However, despite the lack of gear available, Natalie kindly offered her set before she headed back to the cottage to start preparing the barbecue. She’d done well – they were relatively dry, although obviously it felt a little weird putting them on with totally dry skin! The plan following the loading of the boats and transfer of items cluttering the bus was to get everybody onto the mini-bus and drive up to the area in which we were to Ghyll Scramble as soon as possible. This was in order to a) alleviate the potential of paying a car parking fee and b) get everyone fed. Everything was going well, until we tried to move…
No we hadn’t broken down (hysterics). It turned out that the bus keys had gone walkabout. Oh dear! A small search party of leaders was quickly put into action, but after 5 or 10 minutes of looking in all of the obvious places it was clear that we needed to empty the bus and conduct a more thorough scouring of the area. ‘What happens if we don’t find the keys?’ was the question of choice at this point. The answer of ‘the bus doesn’t move’ was fired back – which would have been tedious / funny due to its position in the car park (i.e. slap bang in the middle) (hysterics). We eventually found them, but the said period seemed to take an eternity to pass! Apparently they were lying around on the floor somewhere external to the bus – fair to say that was a case of difficult situation averted! We positioned everybody back onto the vehicles, including myself on the bus floor due to lack of seating! I wasn’t looking forward to the trip back when I, and everyone sat around me would be soaking wet from the aftermath of the scramble (hysterics). When on the move, my position on the floor gave me the view of Paul carving his way through countryside, whilst the twisty road threw me around quite a bit. Thankfully I survived!
On arrival at the car park, it was time to serve lunch. Power sandwich time! Pete had appeared to spare the first one of mayo, but the second was no-holds barred in terms of excessive filling. Considering I’m not the biggest mayonnaise fan on planet earth, I think he did a good job (hysterics). The other primary objective here was to ensure that the kids didn’t manage to pull off their usual trick of making the floor look like a dumping ground for waste… Thankfully, we accomplished that, too.
Once fuelled, it was time to head off. I felt somewhat relieved to be with the second group – the first lot usually reach parts of the Ghyll that are notoriously deep and I didn’t particularly fancy a total drenching. Indeed, that was likely to come on Sunday during the water fight, but I’ll come to that later. Meanwhile, we had navigated our way to the notorious run. This is where Mark (group leader & instructor) began setting ‘challenges’ for the crew to try and achieve. First up, the ‘stay as dry as possible’ challenge. Ah, an easy one – as regular readers will have become accustomed to know, I always try to ensure that this is paramount at all times on this particular journey! Of course, some of the children didn’t want to entertain Mark’s ideas and instantly got themselves drenched (hysterics). Myself and Liz, the two leaders in attendance, certainly had different ideas to that lot!
Mark’s next idea was to get into groups of two and hold hands whilst attempting to stay dry. He was what I deem as, ‘pushing it’ at this point (hysterics). I stayed right at the back and stuck to my original game plan. Further on he had the idea of groups of 3 linked, and then 5 with the leaders set in the middle so we ‘couldn’t get out of it’. Unlike Liz, I refused to budge when Mark gave me the look to advance (hysterics) – they could definitely carry out that stuff on their own whilst I individually struggled on up the shallow gorge. Later challenges involved groups linking hands in a circle before trying to advance (erm, yeah right! Although one group did do fantastically well at this) and the final challenge of crawling through an optional tunnel that ran underneath a road…
Liz was never going through that tunnel and quickly headed up to the road. I would have usually done the same, but for some unknown reason, I felt as though I wanted to crawl though it. As to why I had this idea, there is little explanation. And little was certainly the operative word here. I first watch the majority of the kids go in and look relatively comfortable, to which my thoughtful response was ‘no problem, here, I’ll be reet’. So I headed on up after Bradley had gone through… And saw what confronted me. At this point I was far less confident. Ahead of me was approximately 10 metres of long, narrow tunnel – the type of which Snake from Metal Gear would negotiate with total simplicity, but also the type which a relatively unfit and weak Matthew Dixon would make look ridiculously difficult to pass through. For some reason, though, this didn’t deter me, so in I went.
The approach adopted was a flat, all four stance that although didn’t bode well for speed, kept me flat whilst in there. Then it was time to crawl. What became immediately apparent was the fact that I was inadvertently utilising my buoyancy as a piece of body armour at various points as I slithered my way through. What ensued was continuous mutterings and groans during my painfully slow progress (likely for both myself and those awaiting my arrival at the other side – if I ever was to get there), but according to Paul I must have been relatively calm as he heard no audible evidence of swearing! (hysterics) He may be right on the latter count, but as for the former, I’m not so sure. Nearer to the end of my journey was a medium sized obstacle that I thought may hinder progress (and once you’re in there, you don’t want to be for too long), but I safely avoided it and crawled through to the finish where it seemed to take an eternity for me to get out. Looks like Pete’s sandwiches did the business!
Unlike myself, lots of kids were eager to pass through the tunnel once more. I sat and watched in minor disbelief as some passed through in a matter of seconds, making my effort look pitiful. Even the other leader named Mark passed through with significant speed, though I guess he’s more used to this sort of thing! Oh well. This was to bring an end to the afternoon’s activities, so we all trundled down back to base at snail speed (some of the younger children were obviously flagging) and got rid of our waterproofs. Of course, my antics had kept me relatively dry, but a number of the kids were totally satched and headed off to get changed. In particular, I recall some of the lads creating a hell of a racket whilst in the changing rooms, which only stopped momentarily after I arrived to see what all of the fuss was about. Yes, not all of them had flagged – some not one jot (hysterics).
After a relatively quiet bus journey home on the floor, we arrived back at Isthmus to find Drew and Natalie preparing the barbecue. And doing a fine job, too! Natalie won the creativity prize for the weekend:
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Paul and Andrew admire their own creation
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Meanwhile, the interim period provided a good opportunity for all to get freshen up, with Sol deciding to don a ‘new’ set of clothes – so new that his top still had the label on!
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Whilst we awaited food, Drew had setup a target large, hoisted inner-tubing that was to be utilised as a target for a football. He went up first… ‘This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought!’ were the words muttered before he let one go that hit the bottom edge of the tire. He wasn’t wrong in his estimation. Shot after shot was fired at the target, with none really looking close to going through the narrow opening. Especially Paul’s shot, which missed the target by the widest margin of all – i.e. a good number of metres high and wide to the right (hysterics).
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All shots were failures on the night, bar one from Tom that somehow managed to find the centre of the target. Well done to him! Meanwhile, the plentiful-talked about Pinata was due to make an appearance. It was Sol’s birthday! I myself had been wondering what all the fuss was about (the Pinata, not Sol, obviously), but all questions were answered in due course. What ensued was fairly brutal (hysterics). Competitors were blindfolded outside of striking distance of the target, which was to be clubbed (hard!) once over with a plastic bat.
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The target took a fair mauling, before Jack decided that it was destroyed enough to run off with it. This, of course, triggered the rest of the kids to run after him and in the matter of seconds the perpetrator was the victim of a multiple human pile-on that looked something like this:
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(hysterics). Jack later claimed the pile-on to be everyone else’s fault bar his own – claims that were obviously miles off the mark! And that was food time. Good stuff – even Pete’s power sandwiches were beginning to filter away and leave space. What wasn’t good stuff was when I phoned Brooksy to enquire about the Chelsea vs Man United result from earlier in the day. ‘You didn’t know?’ was his response. Uhoh. Turned out that there was bad news and even worse news. The bad news was enough: Chelsea had won comfortably by a score of 3-0. The worse news put me in a foul mood. Wayne Rooney had left the pitch on a stretcher. This was not good, and after hearing unfathomable opinions to the contrary from numerous other people I had to go and lie down. I won’t waffle on – as I write this it turns out that he may play a part in Germany, so I’ll show you a picture of what happened to the bunk above the one I slept in the night prior when pressure was applied to the mattress:
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Then it was back out… To oversee a fire. The barbecue flames from prior hadn’t gone out and a number of kids were having great fun trying to stoke it. Paul was there initially,
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but eventually left the scenario for me to supervise. What followed was an hour (yes, an hour) of me trying to ensure that none of them got caught by the flames. This was a continuously arduous task, but one I managed to deal with once the flames had died down and thus left those in attendance both bored and wanting to go elsewhere. Which was good, for me, as I was sick of telling them to both keep away and not use sticks as external lighters! It got agitating at times, that’s for sure, but thankfully all who played with fire survived and once devoid of instigators we could head indoors.
This is as much as I can recall of day 2. The football had messed with my mind in a considerable fashion and after more drying of pots (which was likely therapeutic at the time), bed was hit and sleep subsequently sought after.
Sunday
It turned out that the 3 lads who were sleeping in the alongside beds the night prior had bogged off somewhere else to sleep. Fair enough (hysterics) – it must have assisted me with obtaining more shut-eye than usual! Today’s itinery featured the highly-anticipated water fight (i.e. an opportunity for the leaders to ‘get their own back’) and visit to the local park for a lounge and play. Again, we started a little later than usual and as a consequence this helped facilitate a relaxed atmosphere. It transpired that the 3 lads had slept in the common room that evening, and on entering we found a number of them sat watching cartoons on the TV. This also helped make the scenario more settled as the cookery experts in the engine room prepared breakfast.
With it being a bright, warm day, I wasn’t as overly apprehensive as usual about participating in the main activity – even if there was a cool breeze that had the potential to quickly change my perception. After fuelling up, the usual process of preparation took place; kids got changed into clothing that was near-inevitably going to get drenched, leaders did likewise, leaders prepare weapons of choice (which this year was interesting – the bailers (3l-5l Robinson’s cordial bottles with their bases removed) were all devoid of lids! We thus had to round up a number from the bottles in use in the kitchen in order to plug the gaps), whilst the kids are rounded up for a briefing. The ‘briefing’ allows the other leaders to initially discuss and subsequently put tactics into place for the battle that was forthcoming, and of course, when it came, we were primed for whoever was foolish enough to come at us. As usual, when it did come, it came in trickles in opposition to droves, which of course led to those on the front line being ‘sacrificed’ before the rest decided to come down. In the traditional mark of unfairness, we had decided to strategically place a number of bailers on the beach that were devoid of lids as a decoy… And as predicted, this worked perfectly as those who thought they were in luck were either drenched on arrival or whinging about how unfair it all was. They should have learned to prepare more thoroughly by now, but until that day, the leaders’ dominance in this field shall continually prevail. Kids were sprawled across the beach, which made targeting them ridiculously easy and great fun (hysterics). Then came the obligatory ceremonial dunkings for those deemed ‘worthy’ enough (hysterics). Paul is great at this – with his technique of making victims feel helpless being compounded by the reception of the inevitable torrent of water from those nearby!
I myself wasn’t doing too badly in the ‘drowning’ stakes. The kids had inevitably landed some blows, in addition to Drew launching a cheeky broadside close to the end of the session, but the sun had done its job – leaving Natalie to ask how I’d managed to avoid getting satched, with ‘being a wimp’ the answer of obvious choice (hysterics).
Once the battle had subsided, we left and did the usual ‘hanging around’ whilst everyone else got showers – the highlight being the impressive trials bikist practicing his skills on a nearby set of rocks at short level.
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Following my turn and the arrival of a fleet of parents, it was time to pack everything onto the various vehicles that were to return back to the Comm. Tower once we visited the park in the afternoon. Despite taking less back than we came with (i.e. the majority of consumables had been ‘consumed’), the extra storage space provided – especially by the pickup – really helped out a great deal. In past camps where we’ve often had to make the most of limited space, this time around we had near-plenty, which saved energy expenditure and time outlay alike.
On exiting the site, the walk to the park wasn’t particularly brisk (some of the kids were travelling at an average of 2mph as they messed about!), but with the pleasant conditions in attendance it was certainly making the slower speeds bearable enough.
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Penny’s down!
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We cut through the town centre, where I got this terrific shot that looks the part in Hi-Res:
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As we reached the park, the children were obviously starting to get hungry. Cue a picnic! The conditions were more than adequate for such an activity, but Sam and Bradley still had enough energy for a kick-about prior. Whilst the rest played on the park, a quartet of us set up a square and passed the ball around prior to eating. At this time, we were trying hard not to interfere with the local game of cricket (hysterics).
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Today’s sandwiches weren’t quite powerful as Pete’s the day prior, but following consumption I still had enough left in the tank to play football for a fair while whilst the majority headed for the park. First up, keep-ball, with the leaders forming a team against the youngsters. Despite our ‘efforts’ to ensure fairness, this was relatively one-sided, with myself, Drew and Natalie working well in tandem – the latter of whom managed to conjure a beautifully struck version of ISS’ ‘chip pass’ that landed directly at my feet from a good distance away. Feats such as these certainly raise the barometer during low-level action! (hysterics). Last up was the action of grabbing some jumpers and putting me in nets. First shot, easily saved. Second shot from 8 yards would have troubled even the best – Sam rammed the ball home in emphatic style leaving me with absolutely no chance (hysterics). What ensued was a good laugh – just how kick-abouts are meant to be. This is certainly a good thing in my case, as I haven’t exactly mastered a significant number of skills (hysterics). After some clean hitting, it emerged that a number of the leaders and parents needed to head back to the main site to pick up their vehicles for the journey back – me included. We were heading away from the park site when we passed Drew’s car… With a parking ticket attached. Drat! He likely wouldn’t be pleased when he found out. When scouring the nearby signs, it was unfortunately then obvious that where the car was parked was inside a disc / permit zone. Ah well, it happens. We decided not to let the news out early and headed back to Isthmus.
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Erm...!
On arrival, our task was simple: get the vehicles back to the park and get y’am. We accomplished this. Once at the park, finding a spot where we could quickly load the cars & buses and depart without obtaining any sort of fine was the main priority. We found the places, but waiting for the kids seemed like an eternity was passing by (hysterics). Thankfully, no wardens were on parade and all managed to set off without hitch. At this point, the kids in transit were fairly quiet (!), so we wapped on Cream Ibiza Arrivals, thinking that there may be some merit in playing something a bit more commercial than what I’m used to. The CD was poor. Great tracks such as Cass & Slide’s ‘Perception’ and Ananda Project’s ‘Cascades of Colour’ had been mixed in with utter tosh such as… Well, most of it. Indeed, the majority of the music had a place on a piece of trash such as this, but other tracks certainly didn’t. The passengers slept through most of it, too, which kind of led me to believe that I should have put on a better CD, but I guess it was very apt as Aurora’s cover of Duran Duran’s ‘Ordinary World’ came on just as we hit Ulverston. Indeed, back to normal after a mad weekend…
From here, we convened at the Comm. Tower and those left cleared off soon enough. I sometimes think it’s a shame that we can’t get everyone together right at the end, but when I think about it, I guess that’s a consequence of decentralising the kids in transit – which is by no means a bad thing. We were left with a relatively clean bus (wow!) and not much in the way of stuff to get rid of – that’ll be coming next month at the Summer camp (yes, it is now June! Time has been thin). I’ll end it here. Again, it was a highly successful camp, with huge kudos being directed to those who made it tick, and I hope I can be saying things of a similarly positive ilk when I conjure the next camp review.
This is a guest article by MG, imported from Wordpress. Please ignore the 'author/contributor/posted-by' tag on this post, which is incorrect.
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