School finished up for me on the week of July 8th this year. The week gone by had featured the last week of teaching and goodbyes for staff and students, including the school's Awards Night.
Photos from the Sherfield School Awards Night - 5th of July, 2007.
Mr Taylor (Latin Teacher) and Mr Tebbutt (Geography Teacher) celebrating with some Pimms.
The main guest speaker was Cardinal Cormoc Murphy O'Connor (Catholic Cardinal of England and Wales). On his right is his nephew, James Murphy O'Connor, the Headmaster of my school. No prizes for guessing how the school managed to nab him as guest speaker.
I had a bit of a chat to the Cardinal about this and that. One interesting fact he mentioned was traveling to Australia some months previously and visiting Australia's very own, sometimes infamous, Cardinal Dr. George Pell.But, in the week following the students leaving, there was little time to celebrate the coming of holidays (and the ending of endless report writing and the marking of exams). Instead there was the joy of knowing that Summer Camp training would be starting by the end of the week. Ah, yes! For, perhaps somewhat foolishly, my whole 7 weeks of summer holidays were going to be spent not only working, but continuing to work with kids. Some might just argue that I am a sucker for punishment.
But nonetheless I chose to 'bravely' stride on. And indeed it would prove to be well worth doing so. The benefits of doing were to be many-fold. There were to be good friends to make, fun and adventurous activities to undertake and even, most surprisingly of all, the finding of love.
And so I was off. Thursday the 11th of July would find me winging my way by train to spend the night in Birmingham (the 2nd largest city in England with close to a million people) before continuing on the next day to the English seaside resort and funfare city of Blackpool (the equivalent of the Gold Coast in Australia if you will).
A couple of shots from my night in Birmingham.
Blackpool was to be my destination for the next week or so as we, some hundreds of us from the UK and around the world , were being trained up for our role as camp leaders (or counselors as they like to say), for the 25 or or so YHA Do It For Real camps being run across England and Wales. The week involved a variety of training exercises - from group activities and scenario playacting to First Aid Training.
Tramway to Training...
Norbreck Castle Hotel. Free accommodation and food here for a week.
Inside the Noebreck Castle hotel.
Ah, a lovely English beach. Or in other words an extremely average beach by Australian standards.
Having a break and playing football - always good.
Take a close look at these seagulls, they really are much larger then Australian ones.
One of the Fun Piers at Blackpool.
You just gotta love the customer service at these places.
Blackpool Tower in the distance. Although much shorter, the tower is designed after the Eiffel Tower in Paris.At Blackpool too I was able to meet up with the counselors I would be working with at Camp Beumanor. Each camp team would meet up at certain times of the day and get together for activities and prep talks. We also of course started to bond as a team, even if sometimes haphazardly, and started to enjoy a few social events together - from going to the pub, shopping and cinema (Harry Potter 5), to the local major Theme Park - Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
On the left - Head Counselor Andy. Very Welsh and very proud of it.
Some of the Beaumanor team. From the left, Heather my fellow Aussie (a Sydneyite and Nurse), me, Theo of Daneland (Denmark for those of you who don't know Beowulf), Pawell the friendly and tech savvy Polish chap, Laura ironically the one and only English person in our team, Shaun the "Aye I'm Scottish" lad, Erin the little American from Massachusetts (the original Pilgrim state), and Benni the "Ya, Germany is cool dude" dude.
Benni, surely the comedian and all round good guy from the group. Poses well as well.
On the left, Heather, and on the right, introducing someone now very special to me, Yani (of the Czech Republic).
Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
Before one of the major rides. In the middle, introducing Fiona. The other Scot in the team and a " wee bonnie lass", but of course.
The Valhalla ride gets one rather wet. Especially if like me you didn't have the foresight to wear ones of these.
Ah! A day of terror, thrills and bad food. What could be better...
Strange, very strange.
But, wait for it, even stranger...
The final day in Blackpool. Camp Beaumanor awaits.
End of Part One
The tale is concluded in my next post where I discuss the joys and trials of Beaumanor. Here too something amazing awaited me. Friendship yes, but also much more.
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