Summer Camp 2013 [13-21.8.13]

It was that time of the year again. Time to pack my bags for 8 days of camping in a field with my friends, a multitude of bugs, (and trust me there were many) and to have fun with the activity’s that were already planned out for us. Yes, Summer Camp had arrived once again.

An event that has happened every year and one that I had been attending since I was 9 years old, and again I got that excited feeling before going. This was to be my last year as an actual camper, as next year I will be 18, old enough to be a staff member. What a great camp to end my time as a camper!

This is my amazing group of friends, we had an afternoon in the forest.

Camping in Athlone, Ireland is really most enjoyable. It was made so with the activities that we did each day. We enjoyed several activities including; Zorbing, tag archery, shopping in Athlone, a trip to an island to which we have nick-named Tick Island -as once campers slept over on the island for one night and some got ticks…- Canoeing, kayaking, Archery, rock climbing up walls, were all examples of the things we got to do. On our last full day of camp we had an inflatable day with bouncy castles, inflatable assault courses, a bungee run, an inflatable slide and so on. So as you can tell it was 8 days of exhaustion with friends that made everything so much more fun and to top it all off we had a hilarious last night watching the annual talent show. All of these things could not have been done without the organisational skills of Adam Keough and the help that all the staff members did to keep us all safe and happy! I am most thankful to all of them and I look forward to joining the staff team next year.

All of my friends, once again, just a different angle 😉

As some of you know, we have a guest speaker to talk to us every year about a certain topic, in the last few years we have had 2. One for the teenagers and one for the younger kids. Since it is a Christian camp, each speaker would focus on a topic relevant to us to encourage and inspire. I was especially excited to hear that Pastor Stephen Eastwood would be taking the teenagers and flew from America just to be with us. (This was a tale in itself and I will leave the link to his blog here so you can read about the close incounter he had that almost meant that he couldn’t come to Ireland: http://simplepastor.com/) He had been with us before, four Years ago, and he has ever since been one of my favourite speakers at camp. This year we were studying the book of Revelation, a highly interesting book from the Bible to me and we couldn’t of asked for a better person to study it with us. The way he can take a story from his own life, and blend it together with Revelation was simply fantastic! Stephen was funny and could relate to us so well, I really looked forward to his story’s every morning and night.

Me, Stephen Eastwood and others on our last night of camp.

Now camp is over for another year, I am missing the time we spent together with everyone. However I am happy because I now have a new bank of amazing memories that I will never forget. Despite the bug bites I received, the occasional rain shower, and the travel time to get there, I had thee best time I could wish for. I have come away from camp happier as a person, and energised by the time spent with my friends and from the studies we took with Stephen Eastwood. I look forward to next year.

Kat xx

Travelling again. [20.4.13]

Hello there, it has been a while.

Assuming that I still have readers here, I thought it was about time that I write something. So what have I been up to for the last few months? Honest answer, nothing. Its all been school studys!

Apart from today. Right now I am writing to you with the sound of soft muffled chatting of strangers against the clickedy clack of the train tracks. On my way home at 80 mph trying not to fall asleep while I look out into the darkness of Ireland at night. Its lovely actually, however I am exhausted. For me it has been such a stressful day mentally.

Up at 5:30am, it was still dark outside, I did not want to be up at this time but I knew I must get up if I was to get out of the house in time to get the Enterprise Train to Dublin at 8am. After some struggle, me and my brother got out of the house bleary eyed and still half asleep. Already my mind was whirring around running through everything we had to do in the day. You see, it was the first time that I was travelling through Dublin with no adults, I had my friends but this was little comfort. Sure the first part was, get a train from Belfast to Dublin, in the words of out favourite television Meerkat it was ‘Simples!’. It was the second part, finding the bus stop in a completely alien town and getting to a place I had only been too once. I am a worrier, any one can tell you this. So outside the train station I had no clue where too go. So we walked, and missed our bus. Oops. We waited after a while, and thankfully another one came soon enough.

<-Us waiting for the next bus

The only time I could relax was once we arrived at our destination – after we got off at the wrong stop and had to ask for directions, twice – and seen our friends we had travelled to see. Iwas so incredibly happy to see them.

We attended the event we were there for, and the rest of the time was spent talking, chilling and even at one point we were able to lie out on the grass in the sun hoping that the seagulls that were soaring above us would not leave us in a messy state!
However this moment of peace and happiness was soon to turn to stress once again for me. I have been told that I am the mother of the group, and I guess this is true. SO when it came to getting a bus back into the city centre of the busy noisy Dublin, I was conscious of the time. Our train left at 7pm, and we still needed to eat food. Amongst one of our friends stopping every few minutes to talk to people, as it became apparent he knew EVERYONE in Dublin, we found a place to stop. Food ordered I then checked the time and panic set in. It was 6:50pm. There was no way we were going to make it in time.

We ran but did not arrive in time.t we were supposed to do.

Phone calls to parents later, we had no choice but to wait 2 hours for the next one. Stress levels at this point were at a high for me…. but we did get extra time with our friends where we walked a bit in Dublin, with the pigeons quickly moving out of our way to pass the time as the sun was setting.

There was a point in the day where we came across one of many homeless people and gave him some money to go get food. This sort of thing makes me really upset, not us giving money, but the fact that there are so many homeless people in Dublin. I wish we could have done more for him, and that’s the honest truth.

Walk over with, we were soon before we knew it back here where I started typing, exhausted and wanting my own comfortable bed to curl up into. I miss my friends, but I’m glad to be getting back home.

Next time I know to be more on time with trains….

I shall write back soon hopefully!

Kat x

Old Places. [27.1.13.]

Very old places. There is something about them. Something mysterious and luring. Ruins of castles, old houses, prehistoric sites like Stonehenge and graveyards, they all have the same effect on me. I want to explore, I want to walk around and let my imagination go wild.

A few nights ago, is when the old graveyard was noticed. Me and my Dad were out driving in the snow and decided to take the less travelled route home, purely because the snow would be deeper there and that is when I saw it. The Rashee old cemetery  only with in walking distance from my house and I didn’t even know it existed. Its funny how I lived so close to this place and never seen it, and all I wanted to do was look around. 

A matter of days after the drive in the snow, I found my self walking back to the ancient place. The snow was replaced with rain and the wind in places sounded like a roaring lion (which was rather scary I must admit) as I walked the 1.5 miles. The graveyard had been eating away at my curiosity all weekend, and I was itching to see how old exactly this place was. 

With music playing in my left ear and the wind howling in the right, I actually walked passed my destination.  (after all it was hidden on the side of the road, and I had only passed it once before in the dark.) 

 

As I entered the old cemetery, it was very apparent that it was indeed very old. I walked round quietly with my dog, looking at each gravestone as I passed. Most were hard to read as time had eroded the inscriptions away or they had been engulfed by moss, and some were quite clear.

Something struck me as I looked around. It wasnt the fact that I was in the graveyard by myself, wishing for spring to come quickly as the wind cut through me like a knife, or that there were many body’s beneath my feet. But it was the fact that these gravestones seemed to have been forgotten about, and for some unapparent reason I felt sad.

Yes, many of these burial places were a good 200-150 years old, but I felt sorry for the state they were in. most had fallen over, or broken, time taking her cruel toll. I wondered if anyone actually came here any more  did the generations after these people know that they had ancestors here? 

I quite liked looking at the names and wondering what their lives were like judging by the time they were alive during. For example Samule McClea had died in Decemeber 1883 aged 75, 20 years after his wife who was on the same headstone, what were their lives like?

 What was Samule McClea’s life like during 1808-1883?

The 1800’s was a tough time to live, you were either rich or poor. I wondered of he was born intoa rich or poor family and what  it was like to grow up. The industrial revolution was happening in Britian at the time, did he work in the Factory’s? Later on in life how did he meet his wife? and did they have any children? These are the questions I liked to ask myself. 

The oldest grave stone I had found was lying on the ground, covered in leaves and moss, I almost missed it, and if it wasn’t for the fact I had tripped over it, I wouldn’t have noticed it. after moving the leaves away I could see the date. 

1813. 200 years old. 

I could not make out the name, but the lady buried in 1813 was 82 years old. 

 

Why I have such interest in old places I do not know. But I do love it. I guess I like history, I like the story’s we can pull from history, and what we can learn from these story’s.

 

Well, there is another odd interest of mine, you now know about! 

 

Kat x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An interesting time of events. [24-25•12•12]

Christmas Eve. What a wonderful exciting time, especially for all the children. When I was little, I couldn’t contain the excitement! I couldn’t sleep, I would toss and turn, hoping to hear footsteps on my roof of the magical man, we know as Santa clause.
This year, for me it was a time to wrap the remaining presents that I had left to do. I was still excited, well who wouldn’t be?
Here I was wrapping, then suddenly, the lights flickered. Me and my brother both looked up, the T.V had gone out and then a few moments later, we were plunged into darkness… ‘Brilliant‘ I found myself saying. I called out to my parents, and it was the whole house, everything was out. No power, no lights. Darkness. It wasn’t just our house, it wasn’t just our street even. The whole village was out.
A feeling of excitement grew inside me. I love power cuts. They used to happen often in our little village, and for some reason I always remember it happening during the Christmas holidays. Indeed this was not the first time we have no power on Christmas Eve, it’s happened before and once on Christmas Day through to Boxing Day. I was very young then I think, as I don’t remember that time.
With the power gone we had the task of finding torches in the pitch black. Scrambling around In cupboards and walking round occasionally tripping up over our Cocker Spaniel who was running round finding it great fun, was not an easy task. Torches and candles found and family phoned, it became clear it was just our village.
The lack of power, as I said made me excited, but it also gave me an opportunity to go round to my neighbours and offer help, and simply to talk and wish them a merry Christmas. Back at home, my brother and Dad, decided it to be a fun idea to throw an American football at each other with nothing to aid them but the glow of candles that we had set up in the room. Every time the ball was thrown I would hear an ‘Ouch’ from the reviving end of the ball. Why they thought it was a good idea, who knows, but it was funny.
With no power, came no cooking facility’s in the kitchen. So a take out pizza was in order! That was certainly a first pizza on Christmas Eve. My mum read by candle light and just talked in general, it certainly was a different way to spend our Christmas Eve. Every so often the lights would flicker, at least we could see that they were trying to get the power back.
After 3 hours of darkness, the power finally came back on! Result!
The wrapping of presents could resume at last.

Christmas morning came, and I woke to a giant chicken asking if he could borrow my hair drier. The giant chicken was indeed, my brother who thought it would be funny to wear a chicken costume on Christmas Day. Ironic as it may seem, it was a strange sight to see first thing on the morning.
As far as Christmas Traditions go, one that has become a tradition in my family’s home, is home made Pancakes on Christmas morning. When I was younger I used to hate waiting to have breakfast first, then open the presents, it was torture! But now it doesn’t seem to bother me (ok maybe still a little). With pancakes cooking, my mum called me over to look at the current pancake, it looked like Cassandra from Doctor Who! With me amused at the fact my mum even made a Doctor Who reference, we say down to eat.
Christmas to me is a great time to spend with family (and this is what we did for the reat of the day at my Grandparents house) and give gifts and to receive them but also to remember that Jesus was born and he was born to save us!
I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and I hope to bring some more blogs soon!
Lots of love!

Felix Baumgartner. The man who jumped from the edge of space. [14.10.12.]

Felix Baumgartner. What a man, we can all agree on that cant we? He did something special, something we will never forget.

Lets rewind a few months first. This is when my Dad first heard about this man who was planning to jump from the highest point a man had done, from the edge of  space. I remember thinking he was a mad-man, but a mad-man who had some guts to do something like that. It was either that or he had no fear at all and was doing it for the adrenaline rush. Or maybe it was both. At the time I was not aware of Joe Kittinger who had set the record in 1960, afer all it was 36 years before I was even born.

After my Dad talking about it now and then, in the months leading up to the jump, we were all excited to see how a man would cope falling from such a hight and what would happen when he broke the sound barrier with his own body. No one knew what would happen.

We watched with anticipation on the 9th of October, only to hear that the mission was being called of due to high winds threatening the balloon. We were disappointed, however this would have been a fraction of what the Red Bull Stratos team must have been feeling. After all they had put years of work and months of training into this project. The word that comes to mind on how they must have been feeling is frustration. 

We watched the Twitter feed from the Red Bull Stratos team and also updates from the website, to see when the mission was to be done again next. A few days went by, and in that time I talked about it with my friends at school, telling them of this crazy man’s dream and the risks he was putting him self through to compete his dream. By the end of it, they all also wanted to see what would happen.

On the 14th of October 2012, we got conformation from Red Bull Stratos that the mission was a GO for the second time. We just had to hope everything was to go to plan this time.

I sent the Red Bull Stratos a tweet to say good luck to Felix, and we watched the live feed from the website as everything was being set up and checked. And they replied! It made me smile.

Although it was almost 3pm for us,it was early morning for them.

We watched in anticipation as the balloon and the capsule was deployed and started on its long assent into the earth’s atmosphere. It took a few hours, but we continued to watch as he climbed higher and higher and the balloon expanded to the length of a football pitch, until he reached the hight of 128,100 ft  or 24 miles up.

I held my breath as he stepped outside of the capsule, and could help but

admire the view of the Earth and what he was about to do. ‘I’m going home now.‘ and with that he jumped, and we watched from the capsule as he fell with great speed, soon becoming a white dot. The cameras switched and we saw the worst.  Felix was spinning, he was out of control, and all we could do was watch and pray. My heart felt as if it had stopped momentarily, but then he regained control and we all let out a sigh of relief. But it wasn’t over just yet.

We continued to watched as he hurtled towards earth, pulled his parachute and landed safely on the ground once more.

I have to say, It was one of the most tense 4 minutes and 19 seconds of my life. He did break the sound barrier at 834 mph and broke the record for the highest  jump. However the record for the longest free fall still is held by Joe Kittinger.

Im glad he landed safely, and he did accomplish his dreams. It shows us no matter how crazy, our dreams can be accomplished if we try!

Field Trip to Magilligan! [2.10.12]

Another mini bus, another long journey, and another mini adventure. That is, however how I saw this trip.

Monday morning, I found myself sitting with a small suitcase, travelling north to a place called Magilligan field centre, to do some field work for our AS Biology coursework. All I knew was that we would be looking at biodiversity in sand dunes and how it differed as we travelled further inland from the coast. But apart form that I knew nothing else!

I promise this wont be all about how we carried out our experiment to get our required results as frankly I have had enough writing about it, and also I don’t think you want to read it either!

We arrived in the morning and were shown our dorms and then directed to a classroom where we were briefed on what exactly we were going to do in the day. Once our briefing was over, and we got the chance to eat lunch, we were given some waterproof overalls.

Those overalls. My first reaction was, ‘Oh dear me.’  They were bright orange. Bright orange! It only got worse when I put it on. I looked like a fisherman who was preparing for the day of fishing ahead. I am not joking, we all looked so funny! It wouldn’t have been so bad if there were no camera’s about, but no! Our teachers insisted snapping away through the day as we carried out our little tasks. And on top of that we had some rain showers through out our time at the sand dunes, so I was even more adamant to avoid the camera’s. My teachers knew this fact as I constantly shied away from the cameras  when they pointed it at me. As we were walking through this beautiful forest ( which had formed on top of a sand dune) one of my teachers tapped me on the shoulder and made me turn around, I instantly saw another one of my teachers standing ready to capture me with their camera. I was not amused one bit, and no matter how much I begged for it to be deleted, my teacher would not, just out of badness.  They had tricked me! 😦

Anyway, forgetting about that photograph I shall move onto the second part of our day. This part of the day involved snails. Yes pretty snails.

We travelled to a place called Magilligan point, I am sorry but I do not have any photos of my own, but this one is from Google images :

You can see the point quite clearly in this aerial photo. Across the stretch of water (lough Foyle) to the left of the picture is Donegal, Ireland. Magilligan point is part of Northern Ireland. Any way, back to the snails…

At Magilligan point, an area was  drawn out for us to search the maram grass for a certain type of snails and place them in a tray. There were pink ones, purple ones and brown ones, all very pretty indeed! Why were we collecting snails?

Well we were collecting them to paint the bottom of there shells with a but of tip-ex (don’t worry this wouldn’t harm them or make them more liable to be eaten by predators.). So the next day we could come back to the same area and see how many we could find again. This was all to calculate the snail population as an estimate on that particular beach. Random I know, but I found it kind of fun painting pretty snail shells. It is also funny when a snail falls out of someone’s hand and down your friends top, now that had me in stitches of laughter! (I am so mean for laughing, but it was funny) And we did it all to the sound of gunfire. I am not kidding. Beside Magilliagan point, there is a military firing range and they happened to be doing their thing that day.

So yes, data acquired  it was time to write up everything we did, the analysis of our data, and our evaluation  do graphs and tables and explain all and why it was relevant… We all thought it wouldn’y take that long. We started at 6pm, and 7 pm came and went, 8pm…9pm… my head began to hurt and things began to not make sense…10pm…10:30pm came and we could belive we were still awake and working… 11pm! 11pm came, and by then we finished.

That was 5 hours of writing everything. My head HURT after! I am so glad it was all over!

So yeah… that was a fun filled 2 days away. I am now going to enjoy a hot chocolate and head to bed. Good night!

Kat 😉 xx

I have been oh, so busy. [30.09.12]

Hello there!

You are maybe wondering where I have been over the last month or so. Month?  Has it really been that long? It seems to be.

My last post was about getting my GSCE results and before that, camp. And yet I am still not finished my story there, I will finish it, but for now I just wanted to give you an update.

Since the summer ended, I started back to my 13^th year of my education, my 6^th year in High School, the start of my A-Level course. Whatever way you would like to put it. I can tell you I am doing well, but this was not the case when I started back.

The first day back, I have to say I was nervous. I am not too sure why, it wasn’t like I had changed schools, I just could feel like I would have to step up from GCSE work. We had many people talk to us on the first day, telling us the same thing over and over again, drilling it into us that we needed to work hard from day 1. And that is exactly what I and everyone else has been doing. The first 2 weeks of school I came home, and after a short break I got back into my work, and I was absolutely drained with the amount of work I had to do at home. The cycle would continue and at times I felt just like quitting. I still do, but I am getting used to it all now, what is scary is that this month has gone so fast! Here we are, almost October. I know soon I will find myself at exam time once more in a blink of an eye.

So there you go. I haven’t been here in a while because I have been so busy with school and haven’t had much spare time to do anything else. I have been out and about, been down in Dublin, been out with friends and I have been having a good time the last month. I just haven’t had time to stop and write it all down. Things have changed for the better and the main thing is that I am happy.

I hope now, that I am managing my time better that I will be able to write my favourite memories down again, and also write some Doctor Who reviews down from the new series!

Lots of love, Katnip xx

Getting those all important GCSE Results. [23.08.12]

I awake from my sleep to an all-to-familiar alarm call, and instantly my heart begins to beat faster. This is it, this is the day that ultimately decides if I get to go back to my school for my A-Level’s and the course of my life would be changed with the results that I receive this day.

It is all I can think of, my mind doesn’t think of anything else. My hands shake, I cannot eat any breakfast, the nerves make me feel nauseous.

The car journey to my school seems to take forever, and my nerves only get worse. I fiddle with my hands, they shake more than ever. I studied so much for these exams, and after the 2 years I had of being in and out of hospital, being at home,sick, and not being able to be at school because of my asthma, which was out of control, I was doubtful about my results. I set my self up for failure. I set my self up to be disappointed. I set my self up for tears of sadness.

My Parents waited outside my school as I walked inside. I instantly found my friends, gave them a hug and wished them all the best also. I knew they would all be fine, after all they are all so smart. I had faith in them, I wish I had the same faith in my own self.

My name was given, and the thin piece of paper which had my results printed on  it was handed to me. I did not look, instead I walked quickly back outside to my parents, away from everyone else inside the building. Now I felt that I could look. I turned the piece of paper over and quickly skimmed the results, my hands still shaking. Relief swept over me like a sudden tidal wave, I didn’t fail, I did better than I had expected and I felt so proud with my self.

I kept hugging my parents, and looking at the results again, I genuinely couldn’t believe it! My Parents were also so so proud, and that made me feel so much better still. As I said, I set my self up for failure, and the one thing I didn’t want to do was to disappointing my parents. I seemed to do the opposite. 

Hands still shaking, I went for my interview to see if I got into my A-Level courses that I wanted to do. I saw my friends again and found out that they too had done amazingly I knew they would, and I was so happy for them, I truly was. Many hugs were given all round, everyone was so happy.

Afterwards, it was time to spread the word! We called to both my Grandparents houses, they too were so happy and proud of me. As the day went on, I still couldn’t believe the day that I had, had.

Later it was time to celebrate 😉

I hope everyone got the results they wanted!

Now to study for my A-level subjects ; History Geography, Biology and Religious Studies!

Lots of love,

Kat xx

The water looked magical. [11.08.12]

It was gorgeous sunny day, with a slight warm breeze blowing around us as we ate our dinner by the coast in Northern Ireland. Today we were quite far north up the coast after visiting the Giant’s causeway and now we were resting, and enjoying the last rays of light the sun was offering us to lap up before it set behind the hills.

As you can see we had a lovely view to the end of the day, and in a way I was sad to go, but yet the sun was setting and soon the temperature would drop so it was best to leave before it was too late.

We had a long drive home mostly driving along the coast line. Unlike the long journeys we took at camp to get to places, this was a journey I didn’t mind taking one bit. The coast road in Northern Ireland is one of my most favorite roads to travel upon, especially in the summer time.

The sun had now set and we were now in twilight as we drove down the windy road, bringing us in and out of the landscape, following bays and passing green hills and steep cliffs. As we drove on, the less light we had, however now, as we drove through the bays and the little villages situated there, everything seemed more peaceful. The orange lights from the towns reflected off the still, dark blue almost black water, with the silhouetted hills and glens behind them giving a perfect photo look. Unfortunately we did not have our good camera with us and I felt a phone’s camera would not do it justice.

The water in the bays, was so still, so quiet, that there was a real magical feeling to the water. It gave off a fairy tale feel to it, something you would hear about in myths and legends.

In my imagination, I could see a knight riding on his horse in the night, maybe on a quest, looking for a safe place to rest. Where he comes across a lake, the water is so still that the moon reflected perfectly in the water, and there he see’s a beautiful girl cooling off from the hot summer night in the water at the other side. The knight stops, freezes, unsure what to do, hypnotised by the girl, and the stillness of the water around her.

Or it could be a lake where something learked deep in the water, the water was so still because nothing dared to go near the water in fear of the beast below. It could be a place where only mist and fog could skim over the calm water as if anything else touched the water, the beast would wake from its slumber, annoyed, groggy, and ready to fight whoever or what ever woke it from its sleep.

This is what my mind goes through, its childish I know. The evening looked so beautiful as we drove home, I just couldn’t help myself.

Do you guys ever think of such things? And is there a place you love to drive or go to? let me know 🙂

Kat 🙂 xx

Day 6, Part 2 – Kayaking – IMYD Summer Camp 2012 [5.8.12]

Our stomachs fully satisfied with food, we were ready for the second activity of the day, kayaking. After a quick change of clothes in preparation of getting wet we made our way to the lake. The camp site is situated next to Lough Ree, so it was a simple walk with our ors and life jackets we were given and we were there.

We did a warm up activity with the one of the 3 instructors and then made our way to the kayaks, I shared one with my friend, we were pushed out into deeper water and we began to paddle. At first I looked at water and froze, I had forgotten how dark the water was in this lake. It wasn’t a dirty lake, the water was very clean, however it was dark because of the seaweed and the depth of the lake itself. You see, another irrational fear of mine is dark, murky water, where I cannot see the bottom, or has a lot of seaweed, and this is why I froze. I will not go into why I have this fear now, it may come up in another blog at a different time. This always happens when I’m out in open water, I soon snapped out of it and ignored the water, as the instructors were calling us to follow them.

We made our way to this small marshy island, it seemed to be built on reeds and mud that had accumulated, and gotten trapped over years amongst the reeds and out of the water this small island was formed. Here, we stepped out of our boats, brought them ashore  and it was time for another warm up activity. We had to run round this small marshy land, and get back into our kayaks and not be last. ‘All right’ I thought ‘Its only small, easy enough to do.It will be fun!’ The instructor then decided to add in, we could only run if we were screaming, if we stopped screaming we could not run. Have you ever tried running and screaming at the same time aross muddy, soft marshy ground? I seemed to get out of breath faster than normal, most likely it was because of most my breath was in putted into my screaming. I soon made it back with others and into my Kayak, waiting for my friend who was yet to appear. Once we were reunited, out onto the water we went.

Now it was time time for a game. A sort of chase or tag, what ever you would like to call it. Out of all of the kayaks out on the lake, 2 of them with be ‘Bongs’ and the rest ‘Bings’. We would all be shouting either Bing! or Bong! to let others know what we were.  The aim of the game was for the Bongs to catch the Bings and for the Bings to try and avoid the Bongs. Once you were tapped by a Bong, you too became a Bong, and now you were to help catch the rest of the Bings. That certainly got us moving about the water.

After, we were lead to a small bay, that was only accessible though a small, narrow water way with tall reeds on each side. Once inside this small bay, It too was surrounded in reeds, we were completely in closed. The Instructors asked us all to line up beside each other, and hold on to the boats beside us to make a giant raft. I knew instantly what was about to happen, they did this every year. It was a game I defiantly did not want to take part in. A volunteer was asked to stand up in their kayak and then try to run across the other boats with out falling in. The first person got to the end of the raft, lost his balance and fell in, with everyone laughing in their own kayaks, we watched as he climbed out of the water and started to make his way back to his own kayak, again walking across the other boats. But, before he got there, he decided to capsize another guys kayak, and of course everyone laughed apart form the unsuspecting person. Who looked shocked and very unhappy that he had been tipped into the water. With no one else wanting to attempt the same, we raced back to the main shore then messed around in the shallow water with each other out of the boats. This was soon followed by most people heading back cold, hoping that the water in the showers were warm and inviting after the cold water of Lough Ree.

Kat 🙂 xx