Beet Root now edible!!

Before you stone me for what admitably sounds like herecy; I can back that up.
This evening I tried some hand made organic crisps, and they were amazing!! By far some of the tastiest chips I've ever had, I ate a good half a bag before remembering they were for the dinner party 2nite and hastily ducking down the shops to replace them (whoops). On closer examination of the bag I discovered there was no potato in these at all!! (herecy mob getting angrier, get to the point, quick!!) But that they were made of parsnips, carrot and beet root!!
Now, being against my (and all the mainstream) religions, I would not knowlegably have eaten. However brothers, I propose an exception to the law, much as God informed Peter that pork is good, that beet root may be eaten under the circumstance that it has taken the form of a hand made organic crisp. To check ou the amazing organic crisps for yourself visit www.duchyoriginals.com/crisp_veg.htm to see for yourself.

Now, I had promised a post regarding last week... so I better surprise you all and deliver!! (didn't see that one coming, did ya?!)

So I already explained what Light House and Fiesta are (if you missed that scroll down two posts and fill yourself in) but when I posted that, unbeknownst to me, the best was yet to come. Thursday saw the best messy games line up I have ever been party to planning (or seen or heard vague rumour of for that matter) it was brilliant!!
We started with an all out water bomb war, which tends to work especially well when there's a heat wave on. Then we played the Alley-way of Death (Andy and I have copyrighted this name so don't even think about nicking it without paying proper tribute to the creators- tribute involves a great deal of praise and a little bit of money). For this game there is an alley marked out with witches hats about 40meters long, one team lines either side of the alley armed to the teeth with flower bombs, while the other team- still soaked from the water fight -gather at one end of the alley. Then the running team makes an insanely daring dash for the safety at the other end of the alley whilst the throwing team peg flower bombs at them. At the other end, anyone one who got hit with a flower bomb (dust from other peoples misfortune does not count) is out and goes to sit in disgrace and watch from the side of the pitch. Anyone who escaped unscathed faces another run back through the alley as their reward. At the other end, count the total number of safe runs and report back to the MC. Then we swapped the teams over and the throwers got a go (As captain of one team I wisely elected to throw first which gave me an edge on the tactics. I won't give the game way but suffice to say I led my team to glorious victory!!)

Having run out of flower bombs Andy and I had a quick conference. It appeared someone had given us a whole stack of eggs that were not used. Not wanting to waste such a valuable resource I handed my team an egg each and we once again lined the side of the alley-way of death. It was a magnificent charge by the lone, mad young man the other team allowed to run out ahead of them, his hair was swept back and fire was in his eyes, several of the girls (and one or two of the girlier boys) fainted. Seeing the danger my team was in of losing heart time slowed to a crawl for me, my dreads whipped the air in slow motion and I steadied myself, forcing back the urge to panic, something had to be done and done fast. Hardening my heart against admiration for the brave young soul racing up the alley, I tossed my egg up slightly and then snatched it from the air, drew back my arm and took aim... with a mighty roar I pitched my egg straight at the mad young man whose firery eyes flickered as they caught the hint of motion and lost their lock on the goal of the safety of the end of the alley. I'm told by those that ran behind him that one moment he was like Hector leading the charge and then the next he was like some kind of demented Russian gymnast attempting, but not quite succeeding, to do a running back flip as his head snapped backwards and shards of my egg flew from his forehead.
My team, stirred to ecstasy by my perfect throw, took aim at the now stumbling and much more nervous charge of the other team, 2 mins later the massacre of the mad charge was over and the one remaining un-hit charger wisely chose to turn tail and run screaming like a girl (I'm not entirely sure it wasn;t a girl come to think of it) off the site... never to be seen again. The decimated rivals half heartedly took up position along the alley but the contest was already over.

Finishing off the nite with a game of shaving foam limbo inside on of the tents, Andy and I left Fiesta that nite om such a high we floated all the way home, which proved a foolish move the next morning when we realised the floating effects had worn off and we had left the car in Risborough and had to hitch hike back out to Light House the next morning.

How could Friday possibly improve on the majesty of Thursday nites messy games? Well it happened like this:
Andy and I hitch hiked out to Risborough early in the morning and he sent me off to fill in a volunteers form (something perhaps I should have done at the start of the week, but anyhoo) I did that and listed Andy as my "responsible adult referee who has known me for two years at least" Andy having known me for about five weeks and being anything but responsible or adult this somehow was acceptable to Ingrid (head of Light House)... perhaps she thought I meant a different Andy... Done there I headed over to the big top to be assigned to a group and managed to score the 8's and 9's who are awesome coz they're still cute but you can actually get an understandable response from them... occaisionally... I spent the day mucking about with the kids having a great time, it was fun coming in fresh while everybody else is worn out from a weeks worth of Light House and being the kids new favorite leader, the rest of the crazed and neurotic group leaders kept looking at me in bewilderment trying to figure out who the hell I was and how I had so much bloody energy. I hadn't really realised until Friday how much I love working with younger kids as well as teenagers, I just had so much fun, asking questions all day and seeing what the kids came up with. At lunch I introduced them to the rules of tax and scored two apples and a mandarin for my troubles (before anyone has a go at me for stealing food off 8 year olds most of them had more food in their lunch boxes than I'd normally eat in a day!!) During the big top session my flat refusal to do actions back fired when the bloke singing the songs picked me and three other guys in a similar situation out and made us come up the front to lead the actions!! Jamie told me afterwards he's never seen me look so confused. Shocking.

The only other complaint about the day was the "fun sheriffs" who patrolled the site in the guise of female leaders (not all the feamle leaders come under this category but I was not told off by a single bloke all day) and were accosting people for such crimes as not wearing shoes in the 30 degree heat, or throwing a cup of water over your mates head to help him cool off in the heat, or for having a small child do something completely natural like lean on you in a crowded tent or give you a hug at the end of the day. There's a difference between child protection and legalism. Some people just shouldn't be working with kids. You should never have to threaten a child to make them obey you, if you must tell them what you need to happen and what will have to happen if that does not happen but whatever the circumstance do not tell a room full of 8 year olds that if anyone talks for 15mins their entire group will not be able to perform their drama skit. That is manipulation. If you want them to be quiet, ask their group leaders to settle them down.

In spite of the fun sheriffs I had a great day and this continued into the evening with the gig at Fiesta. Not that anybody went to hear the bands, everyone just wanted to hang out and relax outside. Andy and I started a football match and had some fun for a bit before he booted a ball into Sonja's face that would have put a dent in a concrete wall. In the time it took for her nose to stop bleeding everyone lost interest in the football match and headed off to hangout somewhere else. Andy and I raided the fridge containing the supply of Coke Imelda had left us and popped into the big top to find about ten kids dancing in front of the band, this led to a few conversations with various people about next year and ways to improve the program (ie. eirhter not doing a gig nite or getting bands people would actually listen to, this led to conversations about next year, which led to me thinking about next year and what the hell I'm going to do once I finish diploma, which led to a walk around the site, which led to a game of Extreme Sardines.
Andy and I were walking and talking when we realised some of the site crew were actually doing "security" and walking around the edge of the site with torches. Not to miss such an opportunity we ducked into some bushes on the edge of the site and waited for security to come around. The head of security walked past but missed us despite our laughter and teasing "Ka-Kaws" Which gave me the idea of extreme sardines: how may people could we sneak into the bushes without security noticing?! We pulled out our fones and started calling people in the gig, five fone calls later we had about 15 people sat in a bush. After a while we sent someone off to "tell" security they thought they heard someone in the bushes (security at this point were being boring and needed some encouragment to come and play) As this was happening Andy, Jamie and I slipped out of the back of the bushes and headed back around to sneak up behind security as they tracked the trouble makers in the bush. Timing at that point went terribly wrong and there was a rather dissapointing anti-climax as we walked out of a bush Dave happened to be pointing a torch at and the gig ended so the others got bored of waiting and emerged in a line from the bushes without security seeing a thing. It was great fun while we were in the bush tho, I swear!!

Thats about it for 2nite folks, I gotta work 2moro and despite a nap this afternoon I'm still tired from last week.
Ciao!!