Way of the Weekend: Episode 2

Saturday
7am- Wake up without the aid of my 5 alarms at least an hour ahead of schedule; what's that about?! Resolve to be responsible and go back to sleep until 9 so that the risk of me killing someone in a grumpy rage on the day trip is greatly decreased.
8.45- Am woken again by James who wants to know if I called Maria last night to check what time our ride was. I assured James that I had done no such thing and went back to sleep.
9am- Woken again by James who tells me Maria is coming at 9.45 giving me another half hour to sleep after I eject James from my room once again.
9.40- Crawl out of bed and into my last remaining clean set of clothes, have been vaguely considering doing a load of washing since Thursday.
9.45 Maria arrives and we head off for Long Crendon going via Crendon, Thame, Haddenham, Thame and Crendon. (Don't even ask)
10.30- Day Trip begins!! Briefly consider interrupting Paddy's welcoming everybody with a barrage of water balloons from the second story window they chose to sit beneath but decide that this may undermine the process of the day specifically in the area's of trust and role modelling.
11am- Join in with wide games, testing my recovering knee out with a bit of a jog which breaks into a run at different points. Discover that whilst my ability to run has returned my steering and brakes are now quite slow as I crash into a group of young people all about half my size.
12noon- Eat an early lunch so that myself and the other activity leaders can get to our stations ahead of the groups and sort out any unforseen problems which are almost certain to occur.
1pm- Rotations begin and I introduce my first group of young people to the wonders of Extreme Lawn Bowls!!
1.10- Teenagers discover two things; 1. We lied and there is nothing extreme about lawn bowls, and 2. It's actually a really awesome game anyway, they just needed someone to sucker them into playing it before they'd have a go.
3.45- Rotations finally end and I am able to leave the bowling green to go and find my water bottle which I wisely brought on the day but then foolishly miss-placed before spending the better part of 4 hours in the sun. (note to my mother; I drank 4 lots of this 2litre bottle on the day so stop worrying... trust me there is plenty for you to worry about in a minute)
4.30- Notice several "behavioural issues" around the place and begin to deal with them. One kid decided that he no longer wanted to join in with his group or the activities and sat on the side of the pitch making a very good attempt at being a brick wall as I reasoned, questioned, cajoled and argued with him for 20mins before informing him that he had 2 choices: join in or go home. He then tries playing the victim so that I will be distracted from enforcing my ultimatum, 5mins later I inform him that by failing to choose; he has chosen and get Dr Mim to call his mother.
4.35- Kid storms off from the day, possibly planning to walk the 2 miles home? If so then his argument that he was too tired to join in just fell through...
4.40- Kid storms back onto the rec and after a confusing moment where 3 different leaders attempted to deal with the situation at the same time in different ways. Mim cuts in and takes him and a couple of others home ending the potential drama.
5.30- Rush off to set up technical equipment and prepare slideshow for the evening program. (If you want to have problems with anything just make sure you require technical stuff at some point; guaranteed to stuff you)
5.45- Kids come into the hall for evening program, still finishing slideshow.
5.50- Band starts playing, finish slideshow crouching on the floor in front of the stage!
6pm- Sneak out to take two panadol for a headache.
7pm- Evening program ends a good 20mins ahead of schedule, Paddy starts playing a game involving a parachute, a soccer ball and lots of yelling to fill in time.
7.10- Achieve high status in the game by stopping the ball several times with my head! Several people begin to copy me.
7.15- 6ft3in bloke next to me joins in with the copying of my skill, however I make the unfortunate mistake of not noticing this and place my cheek in between the top of his head and the ball.
7.20- Start noticing movement, sound, Paddy talking to me and a good deal of pain again. Would rather go back to not noticing these things.
7.45- Sit through debrief with a cracking headache, someone throws out Andy headbutting me as a highlight, I chip in "yeah, that was my favorite bit too, eh" Make several other random comments that I can't remember.
8pm- Debrief ends and with as people depart I start to notice how much my head actually hurts.
8.30- Take two Asprin outside the chip shop in Crendon.
8.45- Direct Shark and Zebra to Lucy's house for the party after the day trip.
8.47- Maria pulls off the road so I can get out and vomit on the way home. Throw up at least a bottle of water before reaching lunch, take a moment to praise God I did not eat the Chilli Concarn that was for dinner.
9pm- Get home and discover a large BBQ in progress, let Barbara know about my concussion and that seeing as I am not allowed to sleep for a few hours I will go to Lucy's party and chill there. Go inside. Have Shower.
9.20- Get out of shower and am confronted by an army of concerned women at the BBQ (don't worry, I got dressed first) who have been on the fone to various people, offer to drive me in to hospital, give me copious amounts of advice I don't really remember and finally consent to my going to the party, once I have eaten and taken some Ibuprofen (was about to take 2 when a little alarm bell went off in my head and I checked the packet to discover that the maximum dosage per day is 3 and only take 1), as long as I have someone "monitoring" me and ready to take me to hospital should I deteriorate.
9.30- Having fulfilled all requirements of the hard won bargain Mim picks me up and I promise Barbara I will kick James out at 11 on my way out the door.
9.40- Arrive at party and take in Mim's "home made fondu" (read: the box of chocolate mice he left in his car all day and that melted in the sun) Taste "fondu" with Lucy and Heather, decide it's not fit for human consumption so we cut some fruit for the others to dip in it.
9.45- "Fondu" somehow becomes a massive hit with a constant gathering of takers, much akin to the feeding of Piglets by a Sow. Lucy and Heather almost faint in disbelief that noone throws up.
11.30- Good party starts to reach the limits of our energy levels after running around all day and we begin debating when I am allowed to go to sleep. After consulting several books, people and animals we stupidly call the NHS hotline to check with them.
12am- After half an hour on the fone to the NHS answering a series of bizarre and unrelated questions, mostly about monkfish in little asia, the operator covers her arse by telling me I should go to the hospital and see a doctor "to be sure" (read: "so I can't be sued")
12.20- Debate the logic, wisdom and point of going to the hospital for 20mins before Mim picks up his keys and says "come on, let's go"
12.30- Arrive at hospital, am begining to recognise the nurse behind reception, register and am told it will probably be a two hour wait to see a doctor.
1.30- Mim gets bored of magazines and goes to the car for his guitar which he plays in the waiting room fro an hour until the nurse comes and tells us that there has just been a major trauma come in and the doctor will be delayed indefinitely. As my headache has faded and we are both falling asleep Mim and I decide to high tail it out of there. The nurse gives me a Head Injury advice card to take with me.
2.45- Get home. Go to bed. Fall asleep.

Two trips to the hospital in a week... Karma owes me BIG time right now!!

World Cup update: England drew with Sweden 2 all in a great game to finish top of their group in the initial round of the tournament. Unlike Englands last two games which were dull and pointless affairs that somehow resulted in wins, tonights game was fantastic!! Sadly for England and even more sadly for Michael Owen he injured himself in the first few minutes and had to be stretchered off. Heart-breaking stuff! Owens a great player and I really felt for him with the knee, the slow motion replay looked really bloody painful!!
England looked dangerous and were playing beautifully in the first half, they had so many shots on goal and were playing all over Sweden. In the 42nd minute(I think) Joe Cole caught a cleared ball on his chest and then struck it before it hit the ground to the accompanyment of the comentators "Joe Cole! Why not?" and then everyone watched in amazement as this ball off the side of his foot curled beautifully from outside the penalty area into the top corner of the goal!!
After the half time break it was a different story though. The Swede's, who had not looked in the same league as England, stepped up the game and were playing dangerously winning corner after corner to some sloppy defensive work when the inevitable goal came for Allback who put a nice header in off a corner to bring the game back to a draw. Mim and I were enjoying the interesting twist in the game but the Poms were a bit more tense about the whole thing.
The Poms managed to score another great goal set up by Joe Cole off the head of Gerrard and it was looking like an amazing victory when the Swedes managed to score again and England failed to answer with the game ending in a dissapointing draw. Strange, it was an incredibly exciting game to watch and a greta atmosphere but in the end it just felt dissapointing... Went to the pub after with some friends and some strangers, was fun.

Stay tuned for Episode 3 of the Weekend, entitled "How to do a talk so you are never asked to again"