there are leaves. everywhere, on all the trees. and this post just vanished into the ether - maybe it will show up and there will be two. who knows. anyways, i have little time to write tonight - for various reasons - but i will update again not this friday morning but the one after, nz time. sorry lissa, didn't get a chance to use msn tonight -
you can look forward to a post on my night in brighton... my time in scotland and wales... and other exciting uk moments... be excited, eb very excited...
Camber… land of the long grey cloud. | apr 27, 2003 22:36
Another day, another Quad-biking session, another bunch of middle-class London teenagers with attitudes from here to Africa. Day in, day out, it’s the same thing time and time and time again… I guide yet another sixteen-year-old boy around the track - another sixteen year old boy that never learnt to listen or simply chooses not to. My eyes, clogged with sand and tired from watching bikes rotate around the track, wander over and watch children bouncing up and down in the aero-ball court; further beyond stands a queue ready to ride the zip-wire. This just isn’t right. There is something wrong with this picture. This is a fairground, an amusement park, a freak show…and I want my money back.
I’m convinced that riding trains in England should be a reasonably pleasant experience. I found it to be so once I’d escaped to my own little world, largely ignoring my colleagues. This proved a useful trick through my ten-day endurance at Camber. The trains themselves are rather nice. The other passengers are well mannered and a charmingly quiet bunch (in fact, my experience so far is that the English in general are a rather quiet, won’t-say-hi-in-the-street, won’t-smile-at-a-stranger type bunch.). Anyways, I digress. There was a train journey that was trying, followed by our arrival at Rye, Sussex. Our ride hadn’t arrived, so I went to buy some water. While I was away for five minutes, an old lady got hit on the road and the other instructors ran to her aid. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah. Blah.
Contrary to my understanding, Camber was built in a residential area, in fact, it’s in a town called Camber. I wasn’t so wowed by the security at Camber. Maybe I’ve been desensitised to security here. I was prepared for Little Canada to be concentration-camp-like with rows upon rows of identical chalets painted in drab colours. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was nothing at all like that. However, I can’t say the same for Camber. Hideous colours adorned the facades of massive blocks of identical “apartments”. The occasional tree set betwixt them casts shadows over a dreary grass, scattered with litter lingering amidst the blades. It’s charming, no really, it is. Beautiful spot, can totally understand why thousands of families choose it as their holiday destination.
I shared a room with Lou and Cath (Well, I know I slept in there anyways, no comment about the whereabouts of my flatmates…) and it had a grill. I’m not sure that you necessarily quite understand just what a bonus that is. A grill, while not the ideal tool for the job, is capable of making a rather archaic version of toast. Real Toast. Not this rubbery squishy stuff that we’re accustomed to at Little Canada. So when at all possible, I indulged in the simple pleasure of cooking toast and spreading it with strawberry jam. (oh, though, how I miss Anathoth.)
As 3D is a separate company to Pontins, it was required that we sit in on a company induction. Thrilling as that was, I was glad to see the end of it some three hours later. The afternoon and following two days consisted of site work. I did some routesetting, cut some ropes (and sealed the ends with a hot kitchen knife heated on the kitchen stove) and replaced some safety lines at the top of the tower. We built an Aeroball court and a quad-biking track (Pictures to come.).
I had no dinner on the first night – everything was closed and we had no food. On the second night, everything was still closed, it being the raging beach-side town that it is, so I bought a tortilla kit and sat in the hallway eating vegetarian tortillas and melted plastic. I think it was about this point that I gave up pretending to be happy – I sat on my bed and ate a can of creamed rice whilst reading Farside comics. Ha.
I was perturbed, I have to say, by the blatant lack of initiative and common sense that was shown through various statements and actions of my colleagues while at Camber. First prize goes to Alex for throwing a cigarette lighter from the top of the tower onto a concrete slab whereby it exploded. (The lighter, not the slab. Sheesh.) Lou tried to convince me that the small quads would be ok if they ran out of fuel. Apparently they switch to battery-powered quads. After all, she is the head of Quads and she knows these things. Further to that, I do not believe that a hug and a kiss will persuade a quad bike engine to start. Another of my favourites was Jenny telling a small child that was too short for the rifle range that should he stand on tippy-toes, he’d be tall enough. Where is the logic? This is a child. A child holding a gun. A child standing on tippy-toes, peering over the top of the range, holding a gun. And, is a pretend race not still a race?
They have an entire staff team designated to entertain the three thousand or so people on site each night. Entertainment varies from a sickly barney-the-dinosaur-like show to live cabaret which well, is equally sickly. It’s glamorous, it’s glitzy, it’s, well, Cheesy. So I went downstairs to the arcade and gambled 2p coins. On my way out I found £1 on the floor. This was more than my total winnings from the entire time I was away. I decided to give up on gambling and sleep instead.
Days in though, sleep came without choice. I’d contracted a viral throat infection when I shared a can of drink in Brighton. My glands were swollen and my tonsils very nearly filled the void that is my throat rendering me almost unable to breathe. With the huge SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a flu-like plague that is currently sweeping it’s way across the eastern world killing hundreds and infecting thousands. No really, it is, go look it up on google.com or something.) panic over here it wasn’t surprising that I compared all of my symptoms to those of SARS and found an uncanny resemblance. Panic is contagious and it’s rampant over here. I attempted to see a doctor; in fact I tried really hard and failed miserably. In my sickened state I started getting all depressed, assured myself that’s what I had, and prepared myself to die. Luckily, perhaps, I woke up in the morning without the symptoms, without the swollen throat, and feeling like wandering out to laugh at the world.
there is a beach where i am going. and an abseil tower. that's about it. it's called camber sands and it's on the south coast of the mainland near hastings. I leave tomorrow on a school bus with a load of kids and head ofr brighton or hastings, then we'll stay over somewhere and then head for camber the next day, tuesday. working there over easter for ten days doing mainly quads and abs and circus skills maybe. aeroball as well. will be an interesting change as it's an entirely different setup to here. Instead of schools there are families. hmmmm, will update on this later. not sure if i have net access while i am there. i certainly hope so.
have yourself a lovely ten days.
oh, and five days after i get back i am headed away to scotland and wales for six days. love that. more details later...
There's something kind of cool about playing poi in front of 600 cheering children. Every Thursday Nik and I spin blue glowing poi in a dark gymnasium surround by kids. It's loads of fun and the kids love it. No really. They LOVE it. I mean, i will hardly be able to move tomorrow without some kid running up to me and excaliming just how cool they thought it was.
Daylight Savings happened. Now it's way late when the stars come out to play. I am just learning about loads of constellations in the Northern Sky and now all of our evenign activities are finished byt he time the stars are out. That sucks.
I went to the beach the other day to look for fossils. It was cold. I spent about two hours sitting in the gravel trying to shelter from the wind and gather in some sunshine. I rummaged around and managed to find about twenty bits of turtle shell and aligator skin. I also picked up a jaw section from something. maybe a fish. maybe a little tiny aligator. I am going to try and figure that one out. It'll slot nicely into my collection of fossil jaw sections. That's not that weird is it? is it?
i am not very happy with my current web-hosting solution. It is about as reliable as a fox trying to swim. I am investigating my options. Suggestions are welcome. Please. Thanks.
It’s not often that you get the chance to personally look after over a hundred and fifty rugby-playing children and their parents. This weekend I came across that particular circumstance. Perhaps you’re wondering why they’d put me in such a position when I’m about as akin to rugby as a goat is to flying. I wondered that exact thought myself. However, despite my concern the weekend went off largely without a hitch. Now, I won’t take all the credit here – I did have bones (aka matt) there helping me. Ok, so maybe bones had me there helping him. Or maybe we both did an amazingly large amount of work in order to keep loads of kids under control, and over a hundred alcohol-consuming adults content.
The fun started earlier than we’d expected when two of the four coaches arrived about five thirty. We kept them busy until the next coach and then finally the final coach arrived almost an hour after the first. Twenty-five cars had to be parked as well. Usually when schools arrive it’s no worries mate, in over there, smile loads, hype hype, sit there, say this, do that, eat their sweets and lead them off to dinner. This was nothing like that. At all. However, thanks to the help of about twenty instructors we pulled the entire thing off and had everybody in one place so we could welcome them and explain a few things like the lovely brick-building fire alarms that sound like irate car-alarms. We also told them when the bar would be open. They cheered.
They drank a lot of beer. No, I’m not sure that you quite understand just how much beer. I mean LOADS of beer. I’d tell you just how many pints, but the number is too scary to add up. There were quite a few hung-over fathers on Saturday morning. They were accompanied by their tired children who’d been up banging on doors at three thirty in the morning. Not surprisingly, the teachers of the one hundred and eighty school children on site were not impressed. But hey, I mean really, who takes kids on a school camp over the weekend?
The kids were free to choose which activities they wanted to partake in from a choice of about ten. Quad Biking was very popular. Fun bowling was not.
The bar opened again at two. Sunday brought more hung-over fathers. Immediately after breakfast they collected their bags and boarded the coaches to head for the local rugby grounds. We then collected three hundred packed lunches from the kitchen and delivered them to the Isle of Wight Rugby Football Club. It’s in Wootton. There’s not much in Wootton. There is quite a large rugby ground though. Nice.
Bones and I then stayed to watch the kids play and the parents get rather aggressive from the sidelines. The under sevens were the most entertaining. Their little interpretation of rugby looked more like a rabble of arbitrary protons sporadically orbiting an egg shaped nucleus.
We waved to the coaches as they drove away one last time. I then ran back to centre getting in just in time to grab some lunch. Then I slept. Next is the good bit. At this point I’d suggest that you’re sitting down and mentally prepared for what is about to come. When I woke up I went and did laundry. Weekend : complete.
During a lull between songs, Jess looked up at Beth and in the sweetest little voice she could manage in her rather intoxicated state she said, “it’s my birthday today.” Beth stopped, looked down at Jess, smiled and said happy birthday, then proceeded singing to her. Part-way through the first line the entire audience joined in and almost eight hundred people sang Happy Birthday to her. Bliss.
There aren’t many buses on the Isle of Wight. On Sundays there are even less. This makes for rather awkward travelling conditions when one is headed for Portsmouth, or, anywhere for that matter. However, inevitably the day you will want to travel will be a Sunday. We decided to walk. This was perhaps one of the best decisions we made all day as we saw two red squirrels playing along the way amidst the surrounding woodland. Red Squirrels are well cool.
The Ferry journey isn’t all that long, however, when you know you could be there in a third of the time had you caught the other ferry, it’s somewhat frustrating. I bought a paper (the first nineteen pages were about mr bush and his little men running around in iraq) and sat back on the comfortable seats. It didn’t take as long as I thought it might.
We knew we wanted to find Gunwharf Key; a huge collection of outlet stores from leading brands. We did. And it was worth the search. We spent several hours browsing around looking at things we wished we could afford before heading off to find the concert venue. Guild Hall stands in the centre of Portsmouth South Sea. It’s massive and gothic and towers over an empty square. Music from a walkabout pub wallows amongst the pavers.
Having found that, we decided we may as well carry on and find the cascades mall. I’d already bought a fone sim card – but got over charged £10. bah. So, spent AGES trying to get my money back. As most people know – I do not get ripped off and let people get away with it. Hell no. Of course – everything worked out alright in the end.
We ate dinner back at Gunwharf Quay. I had real chicken. How good is real meat? And mixed leaf salad. Oh my god – bliss.
We had an extra ticket for the concert so we had to try and sell it outside the door. The bouncers laughed at us – they thought that we would not be able to do it because presales had been so low. Five minutes later we sold it and went inside for a drink.
The support act had finished by the time we arrived so the sage was being prepped for Beth. The crowd slowly grew; the lights dimmed. A lone Beth strolled out onto the stage and casually approached the mic. The lights came up, Beth started to sing. We all stood, awed by her voice. This went on for the duration of the concert; her singing, us awed. Beth has a gorgeous voice. I was near to tears.
It ended all too soon. We struggled to stay awake on the ferry. We hitched a ride from on the ferry with some crazy guy that was extradited from New Zealand in the sixties when his rock band was found to be too offensive or something. He took us round the road to Wootton. I tipped him a pound. We walked back to the centre. We slept. Bliss.
i emailed frank haden (word guru extraordinaire) to ask him about hoo-roo. His reply:
Hello....nothing romantic about it, I'm afraid. Hoo-roo is just an Australian variant of hooray, which means "goodbye" in Australia and New
Zealand rather than the English exclamation of delight. It is indeed more common on the West Coast than in the rest of New Zealand.
+ about