Sunday 24 July 2011

One Time at English Camp

Long time no post. This is simply due to the sheer amount of time I have spent in camp in the last two weeks. We can't say we weren't warned. I was nervous on the train down for the first day, I had never done a camp before. What if the kids were horrible? What if I had to take part in lots of crappy activities? What if I lose a kid I was supervising? I needn't have worried I have really enjoyed the two weeks so far. It is very time cosuming, the first week was a seven day week and I've done a few 15 and 16 hour days but it has been worth it.

We have class in the morning and the best part from my point of view is that I get to play with an interactive white board. The kids were excited by the novelty for 20 minutes to half an hour, I on the other hand am still absolutely loving it. I can cut and paste things from the internet, I can hide certain things, I CAN ADD A JINGLE! It's been a lot of fun. Class is easy as they are in 50 minute chunks, the kids just want to play games and even if I'm shit they get packed off home in two weeks. The down side has been that I know feel very old. I play some music in the background when they are working and they can choose what they want and I am unfamiliar with most of it. Who is Pitbull? That's a dog isn't it? Iyaz? His ipod is stuck on replay apparently. Feel like my grandad.

The strange new thing for me is all the activites and the day trips. The main one was London. I love London but this visit was terrifying. I had seventeen kids with me, all with short attention spans and easily distracted and that is not ideal when in the middle of a huge city. For example one little Turkish boy turning around and walking away to take a picture of a squirrel and almost giving me a heart attack when I counted up and was missing one. We saw Buckingham Palace (they weren't fussed), the Houses of Parliament (much more impressed), St James Park and the highlight seemed to be the London Eye. We were all getting nagged and prodded to go to Oxford Street and specifically Abercrombie and Fitch. We were told specifically not to go but one girl cracked and when they turned up with Abercrombie bags some serious shit went down. One girl played the Daniel Pouter song 'Bad Day' at me, I got sworn at in German and one French girl told me that she hated me. It then pissed it down and when I thought it couldn't get worse we had to endure the film 'The Holiday' on the coach home. I think it is sad that the one thing they really want to do in London is shop but once again I sound like my Grandad. Shopping is a big part of this trip, these kids are loaded.

Other activites have included a lot of football, badminton, arts and crafts, casino night, volleyball, the cinema and something truly ominous entitled Mr and Mrs Canterbury. It involved covering heads in shaving foam and throwing wotsits so they stuck to their head. Mainly I walk around just making sure they aren't getting into much mischief. At night it is pretty dull and the main thing is just to ensure TV watching is appropriate, girls and in boys room and vice versa and arbitrate games of Jenga. Strangely it is smiley Simon is the good cop where as I am normally shattered by this time which means my attitude is bad cop. I AM THE LAW.

The setting is beautiful, a very expensive private school called Kings. I've been looking at the photographs and it gives you an idea of who goes to this place. My favourite is the hilarious joker who is pulling up his trouser legs to reveal that he is wearing odd socks!! Odd socks!!

Otherwise it's all gone wedding crazy. We are starting to get plans together for Matt's wedding, John is now the sad spinster of the Whittaker family as his little sister has just got married. My parents are at one this weekend and there are more in the pipeline. Too close to being an adult for me. I have managed to catch up with people in the few odd moments off which has been great and once its all over I'll have the money to get around and see people. Sorry for lack of contact. As I said, it's been busy this is the first day I've got a whole of cricket watching in.

love love love x

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