Guidepost - Evening 5

The final evening was probably my favourite of all the evenings, though it is really difficult to decide between them because I always end up having so much fun.

I headed home with my friends Mylie and Milly, and we had great fun eating dominoes and salted caramel brownies (IKR!!!) and played with one of the new snapchat filters, sending one another the most unattractive videos of us singing Disney songs. We all got pretty overhyped and couldn't stop laughing, and actually walked into the guidepost site singing the Tigger song!

We sat in the tent for a bit and because it was the last night pretty much everyone came so we had a really nice group, and I was still pretty hyper so I couldn't stop laughing but that was ok because neither could anyone else really!

Then the speaker started and her story was absolutely amazing! Like on Monday, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about it because I don't feel like it is my story to tell and I don't really have a right to, but basically what happened was this lady's brother worked in the army and hit an unexploded mine when digging trenches somewhere in north America. The speaker and her mother were both rushed to north America, and because the speaker was at this point a nurse, she knew that when she was told that her brother had lost both his legs it would be very unsure s to whether he would survive. However, she went to the chapel in the church and she felt God spoke to her through a great warm feeling and a sudden assurance that everything would be ok - and everything was.

After she finished speaking and people asked her some questions, we went onto the main part of the evening which was band night. The people from the ark tent and main tent bands had come together to play some songs in various different groups. My favourite bit is when they play 500 miles by The Proclaimers, because everyone knows the chorus and we were all just screaming out the chorus and shouting out the dadaladadas and we formed our very own little mosh pit.

Then, because my friend Greta and I were literally the only people dancing, someone from main stage (who was also the only one dancing) came over and we all danced together in the middle of the crowd! They then performed an absolutely amazing version of Feeling Good, which some incredible vocal performances where they hit notes I couldn't even dream of every hitting!

And then because when you're at guidepost you can't escape it, Greta and I went to play ninja again with some new friends outside the tent, which was a lot of fun and I actually stayed in longer than I expected to!

And then it was time for the other planned activity of the evening, something that we'd been told about and my friend Mylie and I had stupidly signed up for, and the reason that I had brought a change of clothes that day - a game of gunge roulette.

The idea of the gunge roulette is that in the gunge tank (that's right, main stage have a TANK for their gunging - makes the ark tent's paddling pool look tame!), there are 8 strings hanging down from the ceiling and you have to decide which one to pull. Three of them are attached to gunge and 5 are safe, and it is impossible to know which is which.

We were able to sign up on our own or in groups which was lucky, so Mylie, her sister and myself all went in a group together. In total there were 8 groups or singles (hence the 8 strings) and we were all given a random number. Our group number was 5. Then the numbers were picked out of a hat to see who would go first. The first person was number 7, they went in and pulled one of the safe strings.

The second person was number 8, and they went in a pulled a string that gunged them in yellow gunge. However, they were standing in the centre of the tank and the gunge came out on the left hand side, so they were made to step into it as the gunge was coming out in order for it to count as a proper gunging.

I can't remember who went next, but there was another gunging, this time coming from the right hand side and it was bright orange and two more safe strings were pulled.

Then it was our turn. We'd been told that the last gunging left was by far the biggest, and we knew there were only 2 safe strings left so we weren't really in a good position.

The worst thing about it was probably initially getting into the tank. It doesn't get cleaned everyday, and so we were basically standing in a cabinet of everything that had been used to gunge people that week. It smelt like sick and we were standing in a pool up to our ankles of God only knows what. Yuck.

And then we reached up to pull a string, forgetting that it was one that had already been pulled and so we got all of the left over orange gunge all over us. However, this didn't actually count because it had already been pulled, so we'd been gunged for no reason. So we chose a different string, one hanging at the front of the tank, and the countdown started. My friend Mylie pulled the string and....

Of course we got the worst gunging of them all. It was bright green and reeked and covered us all head to toe! Actually, I am lying a bit, it didn't get my hair, but I just couldn't believe it! I must be the only person in the world stupid enough to volunteer for TWO gunges in ONE week!!!!

Although, that wasn't even the very worst bit would you believe. I stepped out of the gunge tank and there was a large plastic cloth covering and protecting the stage, but it was already wet from the other gunges, and my foot was wet too.

I felt my foot slipping, knew that I was falling, and the next thing I knew, I was lying on my bum on the stage covered in gunge! There was this huge collective gasp, and I wasn't hurt or anything, I actually completely fine but everyone was really shocked. I got up and went to go get changed, leaving with my dignity intact - possibly (but then no one has any dignity at guidepost, it's kind of a rule!). I like to go out with  bang, and this time it was quite literal. I'm still at the stage of finding it hilarious and not embarresing - yet!

It does give my friends (who already knew I was clumsy) license to mock me for the rest of my life however, which I'm sure is something I'll look forward to!

By the time I had changed and was slightly more presentable again (although smelling disgusting) my mum was waiting for me and I had to go. I was in a bit of a rush to get out so I didn't really say goodbye to anyone, but I'm hoping I'll see them at the final service and the official official end to guidepost on Sunday! Until then, I'm not allowing myself to get upset over the ending of guidepost at all.

Guidepost - Day 5

So that is it, the final day been and gone and I have really mixed emotions right now. The only way I can figure them out is by writing them down!

The day started the same as all the others. Now all week I have been stalking BBC weather forecast on my phone (not in a weird way) because all week I have been hoping and praying that it will stay nice for us. On Thursday, it was meant to be heavy rain all day and it was actually fine all day, so I had my hopes that it would be lovely all week. Now every time I have looked at the weather, it has always said that Friday will be really nice so I had most high hopes. I dressed in a most summery outfit of shorts (the only shorts I had worn all week). When I looked out the window however, it didn't seem to agree with what the BBC said but I decided to take my chances and wear the shorts anyway.

However I knew as soon as I got there that I had made the wrong decision because the weather still wasn't showing any signs of clearing and everyone else was in jeans and jumpers. Luckily, I had a pair of jeans in my bag for reasons that I will go into later, or perhaps in the evening post so I just ran quickly to the toilets and changed so that I felt a little more comfortable and a lot warmer.

It was then pray and prepare, and I do actually remember what they talked about today although not in a lot of detail. The priest was saying that in order to really connect with God, you need to be alone in the quiet without any distractions to be able to speak to him and hear him back. The priest said that at some point today we should all try to get even a few seconds of quiet time just to connect with God, and this is something I tried to do - mainly when I was waiting outside the loos for the kids to finish!

The day then started and for the last day I was inside with the children. There was a bit of drama going on with one of my fellow group assistants, so I probably wasn't paying as much attention to the children and I should have because we were all trying to sort it out. We also got into a bit of a muddle when sorting out the workbooks because half of the kids had one set of pages and half of the kids had the other! So all in all, it was a little hectic, and on top of that, it seemed that we had scared off 5 children who weren't turning up. I am exaggerating a little, we knew that 3 of them weren't coming because they were going on holiday and one hadn't been there the previous day, so it wasn't quite as bad as it may seem!

Then we saw the girls planning the final stages of the party when they realised that neither of them had sent out the invites! So after getting some help, and preaching the religious lesson for that day, we went out under the incredibly grey clouds to craft for the last time.

Today in craft the children were making little bead people out of pipe cleaners and beads. I personally think that it is a little too advanced for 5 year olds because they all struggled and we all had to help them out a lot, showing them how it needs to be done. They did end up looking really good however, and I think that the children should be pretty proud of their (my) handiwork!

We then headed back to the ark tent for the last bible study lesson of the week, and today we were looking at the story of when Jesus blessed his disciples, who were also fishermen, with a really large catch. It's probably one of the more lesser known stories in the bible, but I think it may have been the first time Jesus showed himself to his disciples after the resurrection - don't hold me to that though because I'm not sure! There was one funny bit though, because today, instead of the children acting out the story, they made the group assistants do it. Then everyone else in the audience had to be fish, but later in the story all the disciples eat the fish and the look of horror on their faces when they had to eat the children was just hilarious. They were told it was just role play though, so that makes it ok!

One of my favourite moments that happened on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday was that we sang one of my favourite songs: Let It Be Known. However, for some reason our band didn't practise this and so we have a baking track for it and don't need the drummer. So every time we sang that song, they got the drummer (who I know from school) up on stage to dance, which was pretty hilarious because he doesn't know any of the dance and is used to hiding behind the drum kit. He did earn a sticker for the band though, so I guess it was all worth it!

After this, we went to the final drama session of the week where we had the gripping conclusion to the story. The bad knight as it turns out isn't really bad (surprise surprise), and said sorry, and then all of the characters collected the secret ingredient (bright orange sparkly flowers) and got back to the castle to make the kings birthday cake. And they all lived happily ever after! The end.

It was then lunch time, and this was without a doubt my busiest lunchtime by far! Right near the beginning, I took several people to the toilet and it suddenly started to pour. You know in movies where it starts raining really suddenly like out of a watering can, and it never looks realistic at all - well that's quite literally what it was like! So we all ran back to the tent, but then the rain kept getting heavier and heavier. People tried to close the tent doors but they couldn't, and my group leader who went out with an umbrella came back looking like she'd just been in the bath! And my group sits in the corner for lunch, inbetween the two entrances, and so we all got completely soaked, and we had to move everybody to the front of the tent, and move all of their possessions and our box and everything away from the sides of the tent where they were getting wet. And then, people needed to go to the loo would you believe.

However, it didn't last for long and five minutes later the rain had stopped. Our tent was pretty ruined with the rain seeping through the carpet into the area that we had been previously sat. Nevertheless, we continued with our day like normal and went to nap time. Today the story was Superworm - a story about a worm who is super strong and super long. Although I never read this one in my youth, I remember hearing it last year so it was nice to hear it again.

Then we sent someone outside to check the state of the weather and to see whether outside games would still be possible. The rain had stopped and the sun had come out so it was ok to send the children out. The sports team are really good, and they were prepped the entire time for a quick getaway if the rain decided to make another appearance, but we were safe the entire time!

We then went back into the tent for our final final session of the week and after singing a few songs, we were meant to play Chinese Whispers in our groups. I don't know why but there was one child in our group who didn't seem to understand the rules no matter how many times we explained them, and so he always changed it to whatever he wanted which caused a bit of a catastrophe. Luckily none of the groups were much better, but it meant that the whole thing was a bit of a disaster!

The children all then got invitations to the thanksgiving service on Sunday which they were able to colour in and decorate, but we didn't have very long for this as the day was quickly drawing to a close.

It was then time for the group leader pieing in the face. But, because it was the last day, they decided that even if the group got the question right, the leader deserved to get pied in the face. But our group leader had been pied the most out of everyone and so when it was her turn, she took the microphone and announced that it was time for the stage people to be pied because they have been on the other end of it all week. The band had a fabulous time pieing all of them! They even pied the tech guy for our tent, despite him turning their microphones off when they were announcing his turn!

Then, because us group assistants had been gunged all week, it was time for the group leaders to be gunged. However, this time, our group leader was safe and the leader from my friends group got the worst gunging of all - the left overs from all of that weeks gunging!

But then we were saying goodbye to the children and making sure that they all had everything that they came with plus all of their crafts and extra bits and bobs because they wouldn't be able to come back and get it. And then, too soon, it was over.

All of us helpers got a bag of sweets and a certificate of participation and then we were heading to the final relax and reflect, where today we heard from some of the band members who talked about guidepost from their point of view. They showed this really funny video that had been taken previously that week where everyone had swapped instruments, and they sounded absolutely terrible!

As it was the last day, there was a water fight for all of the helpers, but I was going home with Mylie to Milly's house until the evening so I missed out on it. But believe me - it was not water fight weather!

Guidepost - Evening 4

Tonight was incredibly thought provoking and so poignant.

I headed with Milly and Mylie, who had been around my house during the time between the day and the night, to the evening activity which we had been told would be a usual speaker and then a performance by the Rise theatre company.

We got there and hung around for a while, we had been told to get there too early but it didn't matter because there was a group of us. We decided to have a little photoshoot because the evening setting sun was working for us and creating good lighting. However every time we tried to take a picture of someone, someone else would photobomb it, making some incredible and hilarious shots. My favourite is when two girls were doing the titanic pose, so I decided to be the boat and Milly was the waves crashing against the boat. Mylie then assumed the position of the iceberg, and the genuine look of fear on her face when we all ran at her is quite priceless!

We then headed into the main tent and heard from the speaker that evening, who was another local priest who had been drafted in to talk to us. He said that he always thought that he was a bad Christian because he wasn't very good at reading the bible and he was quite ashamed of this. But then he learnt that you can be a Christian and still be you, in fact that is exactly what God wants. He doesn't want you to change yourself completely to be a Christian, he just wants you to be the best version of yourself when you are a Christian. I thought that this was quite an interesting way of looking at it.

The Rise theatre group then took to the stage, and they were absolutely amazing. The started by performing a 15 minute sketch called The Carpenter, and this was my personal favourite of the evening. It's quite hard to explain, but basically they had this huge backdrop of white paper and some buckets and trays of paint all around. These two characters who had all sinned a lot were invited there and when 'the carpenter' (aka Jesus) tried to help them, they pushed him away. In the end they kept pushing him away, until he was against the white backdrop and they painted a cross around him. Then, when Jesus was resurrected, he came to them and washed their hands and feet to show that he had taken their sin and forgiven them, and then together they got some more paint and turned the painting of the cross into a large painting of a tree. I thought that this was just incredible, and I loved the way that it was done, with hardly any dialogue, just music, movement and paint. It also showed the message really clearly - Jesus died so that we could have a new life, be forgiven and have a rebirth.

The next thing they did was one of the actors came out and gave us a short talk about him and his faith, and how and why he became a Christian and when it has helped him.

One of the other actors then came out and played her guitar and sang a song that she had written called Echo, and it was just completely beautiful and lovely to listen to.

Last of all, they performed one slightly shorter sketch called To-do List, which is about us, in todays society, seeing all of those terrible things happening all over the world and not doing anything about it. It was based on the mustard seed theory, that a small change or a tiny bit of help can do a lot of difference, the way the smallest seed can grow into the largest tree. Again, there was absolutely no dialogue, it was just done with music and a PowerPoint presentation.

If you ever get to see Rise theatre, I would strongly recommend that you do because they are an absolutely fabulous Christian theatre company who are all immensely talented and I have seen them a couple of times now, and I just think they are amazing with the messages they send and the way they do it.

Guidepost - Day 4

The second to last day kicked off much the same as the rest, apart from me getting up earlier again because I needed to wash my hair and tidy my room because I had friends coming around later that day. I must admit that over the course of the week, my room has been falling further and further into disarray, with my frantic multiple outfit changes and rushing from day to night activities with only the time to write a blog post in-between, so it felt good to tidy things up and sort out my dirty washing and just make things a lot nicer and neater again.

I then set off for guidepost a little earlier than usual because my friend had to get there early and was lonely. However it was lucky I did because our group leader was a little late arriving and so we barely had time to organise the workbooks and everything before the children came.

The pray and prepare session that day was again taken by a local priest, but I don't know what it is about these services, I can never seem to remember what the talk was about or what the point was. Which I guess is really bad, considering that these are important, but then again I do have a very busy day right afterwards!

Today I was standing outside collecting the children in, but a couple of friends in a different group were also doing this so I didn't get too lonely. Also, where we stood, we were in a pretty perfect position to hear the music from the ark tent and from the main tent, so we all had a great time dancing along to all of the songs.

The day started and today we watched the two girls that were planning this party have a falling out because one of them wasn't doing any work to help prepare for the party. However at this point I was fussing over some latecomers, so I didn't really hear the point of this again.

We were soon out the door and off to craft where the children were making puppets. They started by just making plain scarecrow puppets on a person shaped cut-out to which they added clothes and hair and a hat and then decorated very vigorously. They then made another dog puppet out of a Muller corner yoghurt pot, where the large section had the eyes and nose and then the smaller section was the chin and the gap between the two was the mouth. It's quite hard to explain, but it ended up that when the children put their fingers into the yoghurt sections, the could make the dog talk by moving the sections.

After craft it was back to the ark tent for bible studies again, although we got there a little bit early and so entertained ourselves outside by playing duck duck goose. Got to say though, I am very offended that I wasn't chosen! In bible studies that day we were looking at the last supper, the crucifixion and the resurrection, which is probably the most famous story in the Christian faith - except perhaps Christmas!

The crucifixion and resurrection can sometimes be quite a difficult topic for children, but everyone seemed ok and no one appeared to get particularly upset. We then sang one of my all time favourite guidepost songs that we hadn't yet sang this year. Group assistants were invited up on stage to dance, so I went with my friend Mylie and we had a great time!

After that it was then time for drama where today we saw the good knights finally catch up with the bad knight where he had captured the princess and rescue her before the good knight and the bad knight engaged in an immense duel to find a winner. It had a cliff hanger ending with the good knight standing over the bad knight telling him to surrender. Ooh I just can't wait to find out what's going to happen!

After drama it was lunch where I actually got to have quite a peaceful time for once, only making one toilet trip the entire time! However, there was something today that made all of the children very restless. I don't know whether it was the weather of the fact that it was the fourth day or what it was, but our group of really good enthusiastic but quiet children were crawling all over the place, refusing to sit still and being very loud. Keeping them all together was like trying to keep an armful of ferrets. A bizarre metaphor I grant you, but it was what popped into my head!

Then today, instead of having the usual story and nap time, the children sat down to watch some short sketches performed by the absolutely fabulous Rise theatre group, who were a Christian theatre company. They did one about penguins, one happiness-fitness regime thing, and one about the difference of having a lot and being spoilt and having a little and being grateful.

After this it was time for games during which I spent some of my time running around frantically looking for a child who's parent had come early to pick them up and the rest of the time playing my normal game of catch with my friends and some kids. I've got to say though, and witnesses will back me up with this, I made some pretty spectacular catches, including leaping up in the air and catching with one hand. And believe me, that ain't normal for me!

We then went back into the ark tent for the final part of the day. As we were still talking about the crucifixion, the children each had a little picture of a cross to colour in which will all be attached to a very large model of a cross to make a beautiful sculpture creation covered with the children's artwork to show the beauty and wonder of the resurrection.

It was then time for the daily quiz with the group leaders being put in danger of being pied in the face. Unfortunately our group got the question wrong and so our poor group leader got pied in the face for the third day in a row! Fingers crossed that she may finally get a day off tomorrow!

It was then time for the daily gunging. Today the competition was a joke-off to see who could tell the funniest joke. They then had a competition to see who could gather clothes from around the tent and put them on. Unfortunately, it had been rigged so that the band member who was competing couldn't collect all of his items of clothing and therefore had to be gunged. Today the gunge was made up of rice pudding and bits of cake and things like that - so I'm sure it tasted lovely!

After that it was the usual end-of-the-day rush where we struggled to get everyone's crafts and lunches and everything they needed back to them before their parents came to collect them, but we got there in the end!

The relax and reflect session that day heard from the special guests which included the head techy techy person (did you know there are 193 lightbulbs on site), and the lead dancer on stage who does the actions for all of the children to follow.

I'm sorry this is coming a little late, I had some friends around because I am very occasionally sociable and I didn't really have the time to write!

Guidepost - Evening 3

I headed to this evening with my friend Greta because she had invited me back to her house after the day was done.

We arrived at almost the exact same time as my friend Mylie and her sister and headed in where we saw my other friend Milly. We sat on some hay-bales for a while, just having a little chat and some of us eating, before we headed into the main tent to hear our speaker for that day.

The speaker was a lady from a very local church, just up the road I think, and I have to say, she was pretty incredible. Her actual story was quite short, it was about when and how you hear God, whether it be at a huge great big Christian music festival or when you are just standing in a tiny shower cubicle.

But then we were allowed to ask her questions, and although it took a while to get them going, soon people were shooting off some very difficult questions which she answered really really well. Like last night she was asked her favourite colour (green), and the her views on homosexuality (our God is a God of love who wouldn't ever discriminate against anyone if they shared true strong love towards someone else, regardless of the gender). She was then asked why God, who is meant to provide the people come to him allows people to starve, to which she said that he doesn't allow people to starve, because he has given mankind everything that they need, all of the food they need for everyone of earth. Is it God's fault that we don't share it equally? I then asked quite a similar question as to why God allows disasters like terrorist attacks to happen, and she said that God doesn't disrupt the nature of the human kind he created. We have made these problems, and we are to fix them. She said that the only time God disrupted the nature of the earth was during the story of Noah's Ark, after which he promised never to do it again.

She was then asked whether she thought heaven and hell were specific places, and if they weren't then what were they. To that she said that she didn't think they were physical places, and she didn't really know what they are. But then she said something that I thought was quite poignant. It was a theory of hers and she said that the day when everyone acts resembling Jesus, or acts in the image of Jesus, then we will have heaven on earth and that is what heaven is.

She was asked a lot more of very difficult questions, all of which she answered incredibly well, just like all of the ones above, but sadly we had to move on to the activity for the evening.

The activity this evening was a treasure hunt all the way around the town in which the guidepost site is situated. This year, the theme was the story of the lost sheep, so all around there were pictures of sheep with different names in different colours and with lots of different patterns.

I remember doing a very similar hunt last year which was very special to me, so I was really excited for this one. We got into a group of 8, named ourselves The 1976 (you know, like the band, The 1975), and set off around the town. It was actually a lot of fun, because we would just be walking normally and then someone would scream because they had seen a sheep and we would all go running towards it. Admittedly, we weren't very good and only found about half of the sheep, but as the others in my group said, we found fun instead! We listened to music and sang as we walked around, making complete fools of ourselves, but it didn't matter. And believe me, even you would've been impressed by our rendition of Bohemian Rapsody, dispersed occasionally with yells when people have found sheep.

 We then made it back to the Guidepost site and handed in our slightly pitiful attempt, and then went a lay down in the main tent, just playing with all of the snap chat filters and making funny videos of ourselves before I had to head out because my mum was waiting to collect me.

Guidepost - Day 3

This may be a slightly rushed post as I am writing this while my friend Greta is in the shower because I have come to her house during the annoyingly short gap between the day and evening sessions.

Today started off a bit later than yesterday, as I had learnt that I didn't need to get up so early and it just ended with me hanging around with nothing to do. I had chosen an outfit the previous night, but as soon as I put it on, I glanced outside and saw the rain dripping down my window and decided to go for my more practical and warmer jeans instead.

I then set off and arrived pretty much perfectly on time to the guidepost field, and helped my friend Milly to set out all of the work books and badges in preparation for all of the children.

The pray and prepare session that day was done by a local priest who talked about the beads in the craft tent. He said that the children were so pleased and thrilled when they we allowed to choose any beads they wanted rather than be told that they were only allowed certain ones. This was a really great metaphor for a point he made, but unfortunately I can't remember for the life of me what that was. Oops. 

The guidepost gates were then opened and I spent half of my time inside with the children and half of the time outside collecting them in. I always find it quite amusing because there is a count down at the entrance to allow the parents to enter, and it always reminds me of the hunger games, the way that the numbers echo ominously throughout the site and the sudden surge of people.

That day, the girls who were planning the party had a bit of a problem because they had been working really hard to make a birthday cake but then one of them tripped and it went all in the other persons face! Don't worry though - it was only shaving foam! However, they went off to pray to ask for some help in their predicament and we went off to craft.

Today in craft the children were making stain glass window pictures with a black piece of paper with a fish shaped cut out and some colourful tissue paper. They then added smiley faces to the fish and a nice gold frame and piece of thread to hang it from and their wonderful creations were complete!

After craft we headed back to our ark tent where we had our lesson. Today, we were being taught the story of Jesus feeding the 5000 (Jesus fed 5000 people with 5 small loaves of bread and 2 fish - a miracle), and the children had a great time pretending to be diciples dispersing the food out into the crowd and everyone else pretending to eat it!

It was then drama where things are just beginning to get interesting with the bad knight stirring things up and leading the good knight and his squire to completely the wrong place and ending up by tricking and capturing the princess!

It was then lunch when I sat with my friend Milly, and we played a game of 'Most likely to' out of all of the kids in our group. It may sound a bit mean, but we didn't do anything bad, just who's most likely to become and genius and who's most likely to get married the youngest!

The story for nap time today was the lighthouse keepers lunch, which is one of my all time absolute favourites, so I really enjoyed hearing it again for the first time in several years. 

After nap time the stage team went through the post box (a box where the children can post letters and drawings they have made for the band and the stage team). One of our kids had drawn and picture for the band and had explained it to me, so I thought it was appropriate to write down what it was on the back so that everyone else could appreciate it to. When the band saw it, they found it hilarious because it was a picture of them all playing their instruments on top of a train! He ended up winning a sticker for up group though so it was all good!

All of the children then went out to games, where my friends and I entertained ourselves with another fairly tame game of catch with a few of the children. Although, I say tame, but some of my friends were definitely out to get me after a couple of accidents on purpose which ended up with them getting hit on the head! Whoops!

We then went back into tent for the final session of the day. As the stage team are still planning this party, the decided that they needed lots of cakes and so got the children to colour in lots of pictures of giant cup cakes. I've got to say, some of them looked absolutely amazing, all different colours with sprinkles and everything. Some, however, looked worse than the ones that I make!

After that it was time for the quiz where the group leaders may get pied in the face. Unfortunately, in our group we have a boy who puts his hand up for everything whether he knows the answer or not, so we ended up getting the question wrong. This meant that our lovely, poor group leader had to get pied in the face for the second day in a row!

It was then time for the competition to see who would get gunged. They had to have a wheelbarrow race, and then a hopping race and eventually a girl who I know very vaguely because she goes to my school but is in the year below me got gunged. It was a horrible mixture, mushy peas and things like that!

Then all of the children went home and we headed to the relax and reflect session where we heard from people from some of the other tents, including the craft tent, quiet tent and sports team.

And after everything was finished with for the day, my friend Greta and I headed to her house which is where I am now!

Guidepost - Evening 2

Tonight was fun. I think that I probably preferred last night slightly, because it was a lot simpler to just get on with people and flow, which is something that I am usually not particularly good at as it goes against all of my natural instincts.

Tonight was games night. After arriving, I met up with 2 friends and we just hung about for a while. We sat in the tent and wandered around while we waited for the leader to finish her preparations. One of my friends, Greta, is just one of those people who seems to know everyone and everyone seems to know her, so we were never without company.

Eventually, everybody gathered in the main tent to listen to the speaker for that evening who was a priest from a couple of towns over. He talked to us about how difficult it is to actually hear God, and how we never know when he will speak to us. He said that the more you open yourself up to hear him, the more you actually will which is something that many young people find quite difficult.

It was quite a short talk, after which he invited many people to ask questions, some of which were very challenging and some of which weren't so. By this I mean the questions ranged from views on homosexuality to his favourite colour - which is red btw.

Then, somehow, and I can't quite remember where the link came in here, the speaker mentioned that he was in one of the emergency rescue organisations and he knew how to use a defibrillator. Then the chief first aid lady came over with her mock up defibrillator so we could all see it and before we knew what was what, we were being giving a demonstration on a medical plastic dummy on exactly how to use a defibrillator. I repeat, there didn't seem to be any link between this and his previous speech, only that we should be given some valuable life lessons.

I don't know, this may sound really ungrateful or something but I just didn't find it that interesting. I'm sure that maybe one day it will come in useful and I'll be forever thankful for the demonstration, but it just wasn't really what I wanted to do on that evening in specific.

However, after our demonstration and training, we went outside to start the planned activities. The first was a twist on the classic boat, fox, chicken and corn riddle. I'm sure you've all heard it but the basic principles are that a farmer needs to sail a boat across a river taking only one thing at a time and he can't leave the fox and the chicken together and he can't leave the chicken and the seeds together.

In our groups of four, one person was the boat, one person was the fox and so on and so on. The person that was the boat then had to transport all of the other people in the correct order across the river (field) through the use of a piggy back. I, unfortunately, was the boat and I had to carry everyone else across the river (field), in fact I carried my friend Greta (the chicken) across 3 times!

Then we had to get into groups of 10 which wasn't particularly difficult, it just involved a couple of groups joining together. We went over to this web like structure that the leader had constructed out of string between 2 tent poles and we were told that we each had to travel through a different hole that had been made by the string. The way we did it was that the heavier and stronger people went through the bottom holes, so that they could lift the other lighter people through the higher up holes.

This was probably my favourite bit of the evening, and we all laughed a lot, especially when we lifted someone over the top of the web which involved getting her tangled in it and someone else nearly getting strangled. It sounds very dangerous, but trust me you had to be there - it was so funny!

After that we played a game of over-under, but with water. Everybody split into two teams and there were 2 buckets, one filled with water and one empty. The idea was to transport the water in cups by going over peoples heads and through peoples legs from the water bucket to the empty bucket. Our team was very careful and cautious and so none of us got very wet, but we were pretty slow. The other team went a little mad and everyone got soaked, but they won so clearly it worked!


P.S. Tomorrows day diary recount thingy won't be up at normal time because I am going to a friend's house and will be unable to write it. I'm not exactly sure when I'll get it up, but I'll try my best not to fall behind!

Guidepost - Day 2

So day 2 out of 5 is all over and done and dusted, and before I head off to my evening activity I get to enjoy the great pleasure of reliving everything as I write it down for you!

I woke up (too early, but hey, I'm a late phobic!) at 7:00am, and after a quick shower I dressed in the outfit I had pre-picked the evening before - there are wonders as to what your mind can do when you can't sleep! I decided to wear a midi skirt, with some shorts underneath, although this probably wasn't the most practical choice!

After making my lunch and wandering aimlessly around for a while, we headed off (and by 'we' I mean my mother driving and me being fabulous in the passenger seat!). We stopped off at a petrol station so that my mum could refill the car and I nipped into the shop to buy a few newspapers that we'd been asked to bring the day before.

When I got to guidepost, I met up with my group and made sure that things were organised before we went into the pray and prepare service. In today's service we were told about how we have to make everyone feel welcome, especially the difficult children because we don't know why they are difficult. Instead of getting angry, we were meant to reach out with friendship and love to help them. This is a message that I tried to keep in my head all day, but believe me, when the kids are playing up it is pretty darn hard!

The day then officially started and today I stayed inside with the children as they came in rather than being outside to collect them. It was actually really nice because each child has a work book that they fill in each morning with pictures to colour and activities to do all based on that day's lesson. One little boy was so pleased when he managed to finish the word search all by himself. I'm lying of course, I did it all but very subtly! And I don't mind not getting the credit, I can live with that!

Then we sat and watched the next part of the story unfold, where the two girls who were planning a party together had a falling out over the invitation of one rather odd fellow named Bob. However, I've got to say that my highlight of this session was one of the children asking if it was lunch yet when they'd only had breakfast half an hour ago!

We then went to craft were the children made these incredible pond pictures. They had a large sheet of blue paper and a large frog and lily pad cut out with lots of stickers and sequins and pipe cleaners and all sorts to decorate with. I went around and asked each child what they had named their frog, we had 2 Fred's, 2 Bob's and a Speedy!

We then went back to the ark tent for our teaching session done by one of the local priests. Today we were learning the story of Zacchaeus, who for those of you who don't know, was a very short bad man that no one liked. When Jesus came to his town, Zacchaeus climbed a tree in order to see him and ended up with Jesus going to him and talking to him, much to the disgust and horror of everyone else. There was a wonderful Jesus played by a 5 year old who had to stand on the stage and wave at the rest of us who were meant to be the adoring crowds. There was then a poor little 5 year old who had to walk around on his knees to make himself seem short enough to be Zacchaeus!

We then went to drama where the next part of the play was revealed. In todays part, the princess, and the knight and his squire had to use a boat to cross a swamp and ended up getting divided, much to the glee of the bad knight who was following them. We then finished off that session by playing the bean game (you know the one, runner bean, broad bean, French bean...) but there wasn't any winners or losers because it's a little hard to name and shame when you've got over 100 people playing at a time!

It was then lunch time, where once again I spent most of my time running to and from to loo and the first aid tent with various injuries and owies. I did also have a very nice chat with my group leader where we got to know each other a bit better and complain about the kids and how Frubes and the worst things in the world!

It was then nap time where we read one of the classics, I think it's called Farmer Duck or something like that. I actually remember hearing this story for the first time when I was in year 2 in school! We got to make all the animal noises as well, so it was quite fun really!

We then headed out to games, which is basically the children's opportunity to run wild and that's just fine by me. Myself and a couple of friends set up a little throwing and catching game with a couple of the children who didn't have anything/anyone to play with. It was a combination of hot potato and piggy in the middle, and we just kept switching between the two! Almost ironically enough, one of the children that played catch with us was Jesus in the earlier teaching! However, me and my friends didn't take the game too seriously and with myself being incredibly unskilled in the area of sports, I ended up being on my knees a lot and being piggy a lot! It was amusing though when a 5 year old told me I wasn't taking things seriously and being silly!

After that we went back into the ark tent for the remainder of the day. We started by playing a wrapping up game (to go along with the party theme) except instead of wrapping up a present we would wrap up one of the assistants! We chose to wrap up my friend Milly in newspaper (see that's why I had to buy the newspaper earlier!) because she is the smallest and probably the easiest to wrap. We actually got a pretty good system going, the children would hold the newspaper onto Milly, and I would run around with the selotape binding her up! We ended up finishing eons before any of the other groups and basically winning the entire competition. However, Milly could walk because we had bound up her legs, and she couldn't see or talk because we had covered her head!

After that it was time for the group leaders to face their fates (or, you know, a shaving foam pie!). Each group is asked a question and if they get it wrong the leader is pied in the face! Our group was I think the only one out of the 7 or 8 groups to get the question wrong, something that our group leader wasn't particularly happy about!

Then it was time for one group assistant from each group to compete to find out who would get gunged that day. It was my turn for my group, and the competetition was a game of musical bumps. Now let me just tell you that musical bumps hurts A LOT, especially when you play it over an over, and I don't have very fast reflexes... so I ended up coming last. Which meant that I had to get gunged.

I had to sit in this little paddling pool on the stage while they held a bucket ominously over my head filled with pasta, porridge, couscous and quinoa, all mixed with water into a mush and counted down to gunge me. Most terrifying thing ever.

When it happened, all of the water ran down my left side and then all of the pasta and stuff kind of came out in one huge clump and fell down my right side. Not that this made it any better of course. And because I was wearing a long midi skirt it all just kind of sat there in a little puddle in my lap! The worst bit was that I got all this porridge stuck in my hair where it dried so I couldn't get it out!

So when I stood up I had to shake myself off, but I was still dripping as I jumped off the stage and ran through everyone, spraying them all with bits of gunge. Now I'll let you into a little secret - this was all pre set up. I knew that this would happen, in fact I actually volunteered for it (why??) so I had a dry pair of clothes all waiting for me to change into immediately. There wasn't anything I could do about my hair though, I just had to hope that I could pull off my new porridge-in-hair style!

It also turned out that we had won the sticker chart for that day. The groups are given stickers if the do things particularly well, like really good dancing and singing or sitting really quietly, and so on. However I was actually in the loos, de-porridging myself when it was announced.

After all of the children went home we went to the usual relax and reflect session where we heard from some of the other helpers on site. When you think about the helpers, you only tend to think about the group leaders and assistants and the teachers, but actually there are so many different roles. We heard from one lady who works in the water tent, where there is always water ready available in-between the sessions. It just reminds you what a huge project something like guidepost is, and how many people there are putting their full one hundred percent of effort in. It is most humbling.

Guidepost - Evening 1

This evening was so much fun! I don't think I've ever felt such a range of emotions in such a small amount of time, and I'm quite a bi-polar person with my crazy teenage mood swings!

I started by getting there and meeting up with my lovely friend Greta, we met outside because we're both to scared to go in on our own! And with me being the late phobic that I am, I was completely freaking out that we were going to be so late, but in actual fact we were some of the first to sign in.

The evening activities are much more relaxed and casual than the days. There aren't any kids, or even that many adults, it's just run by a lovely lovely girl for all of us teens. Last year when I went to some of these evening activities, the format was that someone would come and speak to us, telling us a story or whatever and then we would do the planned activity for that evening, and it's pretty much the same this year.

We had been told earlier in the relax and reflect session after the day had ended that the leader had ordered a bouncy castle and another inflatable, which myself and Greta were incredibly excited about being the big kids that we are. When we went in, we were told that we could spend 15 minutes or so on the bouncy castle before the speaker started.

Greta and I went straight for the bouncy castle, and were in the first group of people to be on in. Now please bear in mind that this is a standard sized bouncy castle, not some super big adults one and 10 people (big scary teenagers) were allowed on it at any one time. When Greta and I went on it, there was only 9 of us, but it was still like some kind of murder oven or something. Don't get me wrong, it was so so so much fun, but it would be very easy to just explode. At least you would be happy though.

Because everyone was bouncing at different times, there was no rhyme or reason to it, meaning that if you bounced at the wrong time you would become unbalanced and fall over. And because there was so many people in such a confined space, it would be like dominoes and you would all end up sprawled over the floor in a big mess.

I found the back right corner and just kind of hid there and I did actually manage to occasionally mind some of the human dominoes going on. Occasionally. But then Greta would just come along and grab me and pull me down too!

We weren't on it for very long, less than 5 minutes definitely, but that was long enough believe me! And when you get back onto solid ground you have that really weird feeling that you always get after being on something bouncy like and trampoline, like the floor is to hard or something like that.

We then paid a quick visit to the tuck shop (because why not??) and then went and sat in the unusually empty main tent to watch a slideshow of all of the photos that had been taken by the professional photographers on site that day. Soon, the 15 minutes of bouncy fun was up and the tent started to fill up with people coming in to here the speaker that day.

Then we just sat and listened for like 45 minutes while the speaker told us this amazing story about his faith and how it came to be so strong through his son. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, because I don't really feel like it is my story to share, but the long and short of it is this: when his son was born he couldn't each without choking because of a problem with his food pipe (I can't remember the name). After a series of many very series operations and about 6 months, it looked like the baby wasn't going to survive, and so the speaker had asked the hospital priest to baptise the baby before he died. When the priest drew the cross on the babies forehead, the baby suddenly began to recover and didn't need any of the life support machine it was attached to. It sounds completely unbelievable but it's true - and the speaker finished by say that if that wasn't a miracle, then he didn't know what was.

After the speaker finished, we went outside and weren't really sure about what to do with ourselves. It was only 8, and our parents weren't due to pick us up for another hour. So we had an idea to play the game Ninja, because it's kind of one of those inside things between myself, Greta and the leader. (If you don't know the game ninja, look it up or get someone to explain it to you because it is possibly the most fun you'll ever have!) So we set up a small game with a few of our friends, probably 4 or 5 in total.

But then one of the main stage people came over (and believe me, being on main stage is like being a celebrity in guidepost) and said he loved the game and could he play. Then more and more people came over and suddenly, somehow, it was like the biggest, funnest, most extreme game of Ninja ever played. I mean, we had people doing rolly pollies across the floor and slide tackles, and some far too intimate positions...

And the kind of positions people would get themselves into were even funnier, we had people pretending to be fish and people lying across the floor with one leg in the air... and everyone would just break their positions because they were laughing too hard.

We then took it even more extreme. There was this little semi circle, or a horseshoe shaped ring of haystacks that were designed for people to sit on. We, however, all started on a haystack and had to jump into the middle. Can I just that that this was probably 2m in diameter and there was a good 15 people in it, all playing a furious game of ninja.

I really am not very good at ninja - I came drew first the very first time we played (when there was only 5 of us) and that's just because I kept edging further and further from the rest of the group! After that I was always in the first 5 to go out because my reflexes are non existent. Plus, I had a habit of standing next to completely the wrong people!

But like I said, it wasn't really the game but the fun. I spent the entire time laughing, I just couldn't stop, and neither could anyone else! In my head, I just kept thinking over and over that this is why I love guidepost, because you can take a group of 15 complete strangers, teenagers, all different ages and sizes and shapes, but get the one thing that unites them all (that's religion by the way) and 5 minutes later be inventing new rules to extreme ninja.

Guidepost - Day 1

I just got back from my first day at guidepost!!! EEKK! For any of my friends reading this, you will know just how excited I have been and just how much guidepost in general means to me. It truly changed my life last year when I went for the first time and was so inspired and so filled with all of these wonderful emotions that I decided to pick up my Christian faith again, which I had lost for a few years when less and less people my age were becoming religious. I can honestly say a year on that I don't regret my decision in the slightest, and although this year hasn't been easy (when is life ever easy?), I have found so much comfort and joy from my religion.

So, last night there was a commissioning service where you basically just pray for the week ahead and ask for all good things, and then a training service where we had to go through all of the do's and don'ts  of guidepost, including the hang able offence of wearing a hat inside a tent!

After that, myself, my friend Milly, and another friend went to Mylie's house, yes another friend of mine (I'm just so popular) before the first day of guidepost. We had dominoes and watched possibly the chickiest chick flick ever, Clueless. We settled down quite early (in sleepover terms) and although we did get a fair amount of sleep, it was groans all round when the alarm clock went at 7:30am.

As today was the first day, we had to be there by 9, so after a quick breakfast of Krave (mmmmmm), and some fussing over clothing and makeup (you know girls) we were out the door and headed full speed ahead to the guidepost field where around 11 huge marquees have been erected for the event.

We started the day with a pray and preparation session for all helpers where we again prayed for the day ahead and just went over some of the super important points from the training again before separating into our teams. I chose to work with the 5 year olds, and because they are so young they have their very own tent that they share with the 4 years olds called the ark tent.

Within the 5s, there are a lot of groups, and each group has a leader and lots of assistants (I'm an assistant) and between 10-15 children. Each group then has a name based on a theme, and the theme was parties, so our group was called the Presents. We then grabbed our colourful sign and waited outside while the countdown played in the speaker, counting down the seconds to the official start of guidepost and when the parents would be let in to start the chaos. The first 40 minutes were just spent by the children coming up and being assigned to a certain group, and then being taken in to sit with the rest of the group to do colouring and activities while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive.

After everyone had come, we got on with the starting show done by the leaders of the 4 and 5s. See, all week they are planning a party and need everyone's help to make sure it's perfect (this is designed for 4 and 5 year olds, please understand). We then went off to the first activity which turned out to be craft.

In craft the children made these incredible hats in the shape of lighthouses. They had this large cut-outs probably about 35cm from top to bottom which they coloured in and decorated and then a spinning shining light was added to the top. My favourite was a little boy who is clearly going to be an interior designer, because he made extra sure that all of the curtains in the windows were beautifully decorated. A band was then stapled onto the base of these lighthouses so that the children could wear them on their heads. When they all got them back at the end of the day and were all wearing these huge self decorated lighthouses on their heads... there are no words.

After craft we went back to the ark tent where a local vicar came and talked to the children about Moses, and how God fed all of the Israelites after they had been rescued from Egypt. It's always really good because he gets children up to act out the story and everyone in the audience to make the various sound effects and actions to go along with the story.

After craft we headed to drama, where everyday a part of a big play is put on for all of the children. This year it's all about a knight in shining armour and his squire, a beautiful princess, the bad knight and the missing secret ingredient for the King's birthday cake. Again, there is a huge amount of interaction with the kids boo and hiss and shout things out. There was a very funny bit where the knight and his squire got eggs cracked on their heads. We finished by playing musical statues, but it was very difficult to find a winner because everyone was so good!

Then, it was lunchtime! A favourite of everyone's, I think we can all agree. It passed rather uneventfully, only with a few trips to the loos. Although, during lunch one little girl's tooth started bleeding and I had to take her to first aid. Those damn apples!

We were still in first aid for most of naptime unfortunately, where the children all lie down and someone comes and reads a story. Today it was the gruffalo. Unfortunately, we'd only just back into the tent when the fire drill alarm went off - which meant we never got to finish to book!

Then after nap time, it was games which is when the children all get to go out onto the field and play with balls and hula hoops and things. There is a whole team of people who are meant to play with the children during this time. I can't actually tell you much about it because I spend 95% of the time at first aid with the 3 injuries that came about. Interestingly enough, 2 of them involved girls hitting themselves in the face when playing with hula hoops.

After games, we filed back into the tent for just under an hour before the end of the day where we played lots of games. One of the best bits is when all of the group leaders have to go up and their group is asked is question about what they have learnt that day. If the group gets the question wrong, then the group leader gets pied in the face! Luckily that didn't happen to our group leader today!

The after that, one assistant from each group has to go up to play a game in which the looser gets gunged by something different and disgusting each day. Luckily it wasn't one of our group's assistants that got gunged! However, when they were playing a game, one little girl asked me what happened to the looser, so I explained to her about the gunging. Her eyes widened in fear even after I tried to assure her that it wasn't at all scary, but she refused to watch it so I had to take her out of the tent while it's happening. There's always one kid like that every year, so we now need to work out a rota as to who is going to take her out of the tent each day. I can't get too mad though, because I know that when I was little an went to holiday clubs, I was the kid that was afraid of the gunging!

After that, the mad chaos ensued of all of the parents coming in to collect their children and their lunches and their beautiful hats. Of course, there's always the one who looses their lunchbox but all too soon it was over and done with.

We went back into the main tent afterwards for relax and reflect, where people talk about their 'wow' moments of the day, moments that really made them stop and think, and it was just a nice calming session after the busy day. And although I haven't mentioned it here, the whole day was spent singing and dancing which is probably my personal favourite part of guidepost.

And that pretty much brings us up to the present! I am about to rush off to one of the evening activities that are held for all of the teenage helpers, but I'm planning to write about that when I get back and I'll probably upload it around 8:00am tomorrow, so look forward to that!

Here's to an amazing evening and an amazing rest of the week!

P.S. You may have noticed that this is coming a bit later than usual - just for this week I am moving my upload time to 7:00pm so that I can actually have time to write and regenerate between the busy day and the eventful evening!

The next week - Guidepost

Some of you may remember a while ago I did a post talking about a holiday club called Guidepost and how it pretty much changed my life. Because that's not melodramatic at all.

Well at the moment I am very excited because over the next week I am returning to Guidepost for another year!

I am planning to do a series of blog posts in a kind of diary format just so I can always remember everything that happened. I doubt it will be anything you're interested in, but let me tell you there's going to be singing, dancing, and maybe even some gunging!

Enjoy!

Italy Day 5 - Olive Oil Farm, Solfatara and Home

We awoke on our last day in Italy ready and waiting to set off on the planned activities before heading home.

After breakfast, we packed up our rooms and made sure we had all of our cases with us (I sadly lost a very useful makeup brush), loaded everything onto the coach and set off to an olive oil farm on Mount Vesuvius.

Because of the eruptions that have happened over the years, the ash has settled into the soil and made it very fertile and very good for growing things. One of Italy's main produce and exports is in fact olive oil. At first, I really wasn't looking forward to this activity, I thought that it would be really dull and not something that I would be at all interested in - but I was actually really wrong! When we got there it was really interesting.

Like the day before in the morning, it was a lot cooler and was a nice break from the sun especially when the people at the farm took us into their olive farm. They showed us how they had these large nets which when the time was right they would unravel and shake the tree causing all of the olives to be caught in the nets. They also told us that olives are very important in Italy, and therefore so are the olive trees. Apparently it is actually a crime to cut down an olive tree, and if one was to fall down, for example in a storm, someone would have to be sent to confirm that the tree did die of natural causes with no human interaction whatsoever. It was also very interesting because they don't just grow olives, but oranges and lemons too, however on a much smaller scale. They had found a way to genetically modify some trees, so that half of the branches would grows lemons and the other half would grow oranges.

 

We were then taken to see the old fashioned methods of making olive oil. I can't remember exactly how it was done, but a donkey was strapped to a machine and walked around and around in a circle, moving the machine so that the olives would be squeezed and pressed and filtered.

We were then taken to see the modern methods of creating olive oil. The method was very similar to what it had been, but without a donkey and with a lot of mechanics involved.

We then went into the olive oil shop. There was so much olive oil, and so many different flavours. We had the opportunity to taste some, and there were about 20 different bottles on this little table all with different flavours and designed to go with different dishes. There were also some baskets of bread to dip in the oil. However, because everyone crowded around this table, and I'm not actually a very big fan of olive oil, so I didn't end up sampling any of it - I just ate my little piece of bread!

I did try to get some artsy shots of the shop.

 

We then went outside to wait, where I spotted some sewing machines which completely made my day!

And Alice, Leah and myself decided to take a super cool foot trio picture. No prizes for guessing that I'm the one with the least sensible shoes on! But come on, you've got to love my funky red nail varnish!

After we left the olive oil farm, we all hopped back onto the coach and made the very long drive to Solfatara, a very small supervolcano. It was during this particular drive that one of my all time favourite trip moments happened. About half way through, I popped my head up over the seats to look at everyone else, and pretty much everyone was asleep. I found it hilarious that in a coach with 26 teenagers, there was only about 3 awake!

Now for those of you who don't know, a supervolcano is not really like a regular volcano, because it's a lot lot lot bigger. Not that you didn't get that from the name or anything. And instead of being a kind of cone shape that we expect volcanoes to be, supervolcanoes are more of a sunken dip in the group because the magma chamber is just too large. The most famous and largest one is in Yellowstone National Park in the USA. It is predicted when that erupts it will demolish pretty much everything around it, lower the global temperature by 10 degrees which will then lead to worldwide starvation and around 2 billion deaths in total. Oh, and we're overdue for an eruption... so happy thoughts everyone!

However, the one that we went to visit, Solfatara is a very small supervolcano, although it's quite amusing to think of it like that.

I actually found this bit really really interesting, though many people really didn't like it. Because of the heat in the magma chamber below our feet, where there are cracks, even of the smallest amount, it lets up steam that we can see on the ground. It has a lot of sulphur in it, and incase you didn't know... sulphur gas isn't a particularly nice smell. Actually, it's down right horrible and many people could stomach it. I found it ok though.

You can see the sulphur in the ground, the little yellow bits.

It was also quite incredible because our tour guide showed us that when you drop something heavy on the ground like a large rock or when you jump, it echos, making the ground sound completely hollow. It isn't of course, I think that our tour guide said it was something to do with the minerals in the soil.

There were 3 steam vents, and they were called the queen, the princess, and I can't remember what the other one was called, but they were amazing to look at, even if a bit pongy to get too close to.

There were also these chamber thingys that had been built, I guess to try an enclose the steam, but you were allowed to go in them. I did, and it was like a very bad eggy smelling sauna. I won't be taking it up as apart of my beauty routine!

We then went and saw a well, though unfortunately I can't remember the significance of it... oopsie!

Lastly, we saw the huge bubbling mud bath. Our tour guide told us that it was about 200 degrees in it, and it wasn't actually the mud that was bubbling, but the water. The mud was just all around and underneath it, making it look like it was bubbling mud.

We then set off, and caught up with everyone else who had bailed on account of the smell. Puny insects. But believe me, we all began to feel a little queasy after the long coach ride to the airport with everyone smelling of sulphur gas! However, we had been pre warned and so we all had a change of clothes for the airport and the journey home. I can't imagine the pleasure of the other passengers if we hadn't been so well prepared and wonderfully organised!

We got to the airport, did some shopping in the ridiculously overpriced dutyfree, got on our plane, and before we knew it we were landing in Heathrow once more. We got another coach, the last we would get on for a while, and headed for school where are parents were waiting to pick us up. It was quite amusing however, because my friend Leah had clearly gotten very tired and it all suddenly caught up with her and she went really delirious, and acted like the was drunk. I had to carry her bag and everything!

We finally got back to school about 11:30pm English time, I met up with my parents and talked non-stop for about an hour and then fell into bed and stayed there for quite a while!