The Trip

My goodness it's been a long time dear reader! I simply just have not had the time to write anything here for ages. Actually the fact that I haven't actually done anything anywhere for ages doesn't help either.
A couple of weeks ago I went to the UK, to the Lakeside Y.M.C.A National Centre on Lake Windermere, with 18 kids from the school - age range 10 - 14 years old.

I must be mental!

The place is well groovy, really beautiful, clean, great staff, well organised - but the kids were another kettle of fish - and not just for the smell. For the journey (Venice - Zurich, Zurich - Manchester) my colleague and I kept all the kids' documents, except for when they had to show them to passport control/immigration etc. In Venice airport I found £30 and two passports in Zurich! Luckily the passports had photos and names, everyone denied losing the 30 quid! But, alas I is a honest fellow and persisted - still waiting for a thank you from the bambino who was nearly 50 euros out of pocket. About four minutes after arriving in Manchester I found another couple of documents, one perched neatly on the toilet roll holder in the bogs before passport control. By the time we'd got to the motorway service station for something to eat I'd found two mp3 players. Later in the week I found an iPod, which was in my pocket for a day or two - nobody missed it! I remember losing me 10p dinner money one day at school, I was ill with worry. 10p was quite a lot in 1976 but it was more for the fact that I'd been trusted to look after it and I'd failed.
If you ignore the arrogant and spoilt behaviour, the refusal to listen to instructors carefully, the inability to self-organise (e.g. set an alarm clock - 1 per room of 6 children), and to pick up after themselves, the inability to accept an instruction such as "tidy away the cups please" without questioning it, ...
then it was a good week.
We went canoeing, kayaking, climbing, walking, did some archery, orienteering, went on a boat trip on the lake across to Bowness, did some shopping, ate loads of sweeties, played football, went swimming in the lake (madness!) and completely failed to complete ANY of the teambuilding, initiative tests (that speaks volumes)

....TBC as the lunch bell has just gone