National Citizenship and a Promise Kept

From Facebook archives…

😓feeling anxious.4 August 2013 at 22:39 ·

Ferretfingers all packed for his first week of National Citizen Scheme residential,

What will we do without him for 5 days and 4 whole nights!!

(bust not as anxious as this emoticon would suggest)

Drummerman Glad that your bust isn't anxious 😉

Bentonbag Sadie's got a lot to answer for 😜

5 August 2013 at 10:55 ·

So Ferretfingers and I are up at 7: me to make sure his packed lunch and himself are ready; him to get in as much screen time as possible before he goes.   

Drive him to Segedunum where he gets out, carries his bags to the back of the bus, hands them to the driver, goes to the front, boards and sits himself down in the front seat without so much as a backward glance.   

When I asked "Haven't you got a kiss for your mother?" he kissed the ends of his fingertips and flicked them at me.

9 August 2013 at 23:30 ·

Ferretfingers has just come back from his first residential with National Citizen Service, five days at a PGL adventure holiday camp in Lincolnshire.   

Catch 22 (the company organising it in this area) took the participants on a warm-up getting-to-know-you day last Friday and Ferretfingers wasn't too enthusiastic about any of the activities.  So when on Saturday afternoon he asked for a Battered Mars Bar in Benton Chippy I said "Only if you take part in all the activities next week".  

So he's taken part in almost everything (climbing, shooting, archery, orienteering) only jibbing at abseiling.   He climbed up but refused to go down the rope; to be fair I wouldn't have done that either.   

We've been talking about this and he's just come out with "and I'm having a battered Mars Bar tomowwow".

Those of you who have known me long enough will remember that in the summer of 1979 I worked fro PGL as a kitchen assistant at their canoeing centre in the Ardeche (France).

Drummerman Regrettably (For several reasons) you weren't the kitchen assistant on our PGL organised school trip to Austria & Yugoslavia in 1966.

Bentonbag I was 10, there is a limit to PGL's child labour policy.

Worked 'fro'!? Worked to and fro and for.

Bess Cavalier Yes, I remember you doing that.  I spent that summer working on an equipment inventory for the Institute of Geology.  The highlight was trying to work out how a Landrover got sent to a field team in Peru without any paper work.

Bentonbag I suspect I had more fun; lots of sunshine; cheap wine and Kanterbrau bier; fit canoe instructors/repairers to ogle (Ooh God the shoulders!); gorgeous countryside to wander about it; kids leaving disco every 4th night

Bentonbag Both boys had battered Mars Bar and chips for tea.  Disastrously both liked them. However I shall endeavour to keep them as a treat for very special good behaviour for as long as humanly possible.

 

PS Neither boys has had a battered Mars Bar since - at least not to my knowledge