Monthly Archive for July, 2001
Summer Camp 2001
In attendance were: Graeme, Barry, Tina, Cat, Sarah, Helm?t, Andy, whilst the part timers were: Simon, Grizzle, Fran, Zoe, Dr Tom and Cat
Saturday We met up at the union at 11am and after packing drove to Chatham in Kent. I had the joy of driving for the first half of the journey and exposing everybody else to my wonderful taste in music. Cat drove the second half on the scary roads near London. We found the campsite reception easily and met Caz. The helpful man in the reception gave us a map and marked our campsite on it. We drove round for a bit giving Cat the opportunity to prove what a good driver she is, by missing the small children running wild whilst reversing up steep hills. Finally we found the site and set up camp. Barry Arrived with our food and set about cooking us vast quantities of sausages, a hobby he continued throughout the camp.
Sunday Sunday was spent cleaning the mess tent. I had a stinking cold and got out of it by deciding I was far too weak to do anything. Karen was also allowed time off as she had to revise for a viva. Sunday evening most of the small children had gone home, so we moved from our small slopey site to a larger flat one next to the toilet block.
Monday Karen left us to go and face her viva, the rest of us piled into the bus and trundled off to Margate. We built a giant sandcastle and stood on it until the sea washed it away and then we buried Barry in the sand as a penance for forcing us to eat too many sausages. Fran arrived replacing Karen.
Tuesday We resealed the mess tent in the boiling heat. Then spent the afternoon wandering around Rochester and it’s castle and cathedral whilst the tent dried. In the evening we tracked down our nearest pub and sat down outside for a pint. Then it started thundering and we gulped down our drinks in an attempt to get back to the site before the storm broke out. We didn’t quite make it, but the fitter souls amongst us ran back to the site and threw all the stuff we’d left kicking around the site into the mess tent. Helmet and Barry decided that maybe it was a good time to actually peg the tent mess tent down and braved the storm and the lightening to do the heroic thing. Possibly a little more heroic than they initially planned as the lightening came a bit too close for comfort at this point! After all that the tent leaked!
Wednesday We decided to spend the day at Chatham dockyard. This was cool. There were displays of old lifeboats and a ship and a submarine to look round. Graeme and I went to a demonstration on how rope was made. First they showed us using the old machines, then how it was made by hand. We found ourselves volunteered into helping with the demonstration, but it was worthwhile because we were given a short piece of rope to share for our efforts! By the time we reached the others they were all waiting for us (oops!). Several people went swimming in the evening, the rest of us bought some chips and found a dodgey pub to sit in until the others reappeared with red streaming eyes. The night was spent round the campfire relaxing and drinking. Only a few of us were left when suddenly the campfire exploded! All of us fell, or somehow scrambled over the log we were sat on whilst sparks and embers rained down around us. We gingerly doused it down and went to bed leaving it exploding quietly to itself now and again.
Thursday Ice-skating was the activity of the day. We were fortunate to have the ice rink almost completely to ourselves, the only other people there were two young lads. Andy was the first to fall over so it was declared that the first round should be on him. The two lads got a bit bored skating round and decided to try and terrorise our group (for some reason they didn’t pick on Barry). Their favourite trick was to skate in front of us and pretend to fall over, in the hope that we would try to avoid them and unbalance ourselves. Sarah and I were skating round when one of them tried this trick, we decided to continue straight towards him. He had to get out of our way and nearly fell over. We were victorious! Unfortunately we found his efforts so amusing we laughed all the way up to the top of the rink. Here we stopped and Sarah finally laughed so much she lost balance and took me out too (cheers mate!). The next time round the same lad pretended to fall and shouted “Whaaaaa” at us, but stayed at a safe distance this time. We shouted “RAHHHHH!” back and he finally realised we weren’t scared and went away. After all this excitement we went to the pub for lunch and laughed at the ornaments. Then trooped outside to watch some Morris dancers and Karen and Sarah joined in. We went back to the site for a campfire and hoped it wouldn’t explode.
Friday A few people left to go back to Loughborough with the mini bus. Other people went in cars to Sarah’s, then to Ali’s 21st birthday celebration. So the sad ending of summer camp was for many the start of more exciting adventures and fun…
Written by Tina Addington
