Thursday - Part 1

It is nearly eleven on Thursday night, our last here in Marchants Hill. All is quiet except for the splattering of the steady downpour outside and the constant stream of water from the overflowing guttering outside Room 23. Having rained in fits and starts throughout the day, the heavens opened and the deluge started at approximately quarter past seven this evening as we headed out for ‘Passport to the World’. In this exciting game, small groups were sent by Jon, our groupie, to find different countries’ flags on signs around the campus. At each flag, three questions of differing difficulty needed answering, with points awarded for correct answers and forfeits dished out for incorrect ones. There was one small problem, however - the maps containing the exact locations of the country markers quickly disintegrated in the heavy rain and the competition was left in disarray as teams struggled to find the vital signboards in the darkness and the pouring rain! Despite manfully struggling onward in the worsening conditions, and some impromptu dancing outside another school’s disco, Jon decided to call it quits and we retired to an inside space for more fun and games.

Today has been an absolute cracker – from archery to climbing and then problem-solving in the woods (the photos quite simply do not do this superb activity justice), the children have been really put to the test, physically and mentally. At the start of every session, we are asked by group leaders to let them know what our aims are for that hour and a half and there is no doubt that these aims have been met time and time again: teamwork, communication, courage and adventure, to name but a few. Never was this more evident than in this afternoon’s double length raft-building session, a perennial favourite!

Highlights today have included a completely soaked Matthew, having fallen from his raft into the water and slithered up the muddy bank to dry land, setting off at a run along the edge of the lake, only to find his waterlogged jogging bottoms falling down unceremoniously; also, a superb individual effort from Evan, who conquered the daunting climbing wall where last year he had been overawed; some fantastic teamwork by Group 2 who worked together to untangle themselves from a very intricate problem; and, finally, Jake’s amazing poker face - try as we might, we could not even make that boy smile, let alone laugh, in an hilarious group game this evening!

As time is short, the following pictures have been attached en masse in this and a separate post. We hope you enjoy looking at them! 

This will be the last post from our residential this year - activities will continue tomorrow morning but straight after lunch we will be boarding the coach bound for sleepy Suffolk. Please expect a large quantity of very damp and dirty clothes - up until this morning, all was relatively wholesome. However, following our raft-building session, the traditional 'everybody into the water' follow-up, and an hour-long soaking in the heavy rain, suitcase contents are looking less pleasant and smelling worse! Thank you for following our posts - now it's a case of fingers crossed for a smooth journey home... see you all tomorrow afternoon!