13th December 2004 - Christmas Party @ The Faversham
(Driving) Paul arranged a great venue for the Christmas Party. The conservatory at The Faversham was ideal for our needs, and was soon full with club members. The buffet dinner with Christmas crackers gave everyone the necessary energy for the rest of the evening. The party got underway with the traditional party game "Musical Chairs", with (correct me if I'm wrong) Mark W and Laura eventual winners.
Musical chairs was followed up by the less traditional game of "Balloon Stomping", which entailed tying balloons around everybodies' ankles, then trying to burst everyone elses balloons through stamping, whilst avoiding having your own balloon burst. The extraordinary large number of participants in this game made it almost impossible to referee, however, despite Steve's blatant cheating, it was Fran who came out the eventual winner!
There were many more games planned for the evening, but the first two games had succeeded in igniting the party spirit, and it was dancing from then on. David took charge of the music, thus messing up the hours of careful preparation by DJ Paul, but successfully kept the dancefloor full.
During a brief interlude in the music, the Secret Santa gifts were distributed to all. Some gifts looked quite extravagant considering the £3 price limit, whilst others can only be described as 'interesting'! (Driving) Paul got his alcohol, (Dancing) Paul deodorant and Martin got Men's Health magazine - mmm, is somebody trying to tell you something boys?! ;-P
The dancing concluded with The Fairytale of New York, which saw every single member remaining at the party up and dancing together, without exception. The slightly sour twist at the end of the night where a restless bouncer decided to cause trouble was unfortunate, but hopefully didn't ruin what was otherwise a highly successful night! |
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11th December 2005 - Hebden Bridge Day Walk
by Magda
We met probably around 9.30 or 10 am. It was after Dutch Elise's birthday party, me and Jack slept actually only a couple of hours, some people like Driving Paul didn't sleep at all, so it was quite a funny walk. Well, Martin (sorry ;-) ) didn't manage it at all :-)) so that's why I'm writing this story, and there are no pictures from this trip. :-)) Anyway, aproximately 12 people met at the station, bought tickets to Hebden Bridge and set on the trip. The sun was shining,so we were looking forward to walking really a lot.
In Hebden Bridge we walked only 5 minutes when guys decided to have a breakfast in a local breakfast cafe or how to call it. Then Tom couldn't resist a shop with alcohol and bought a couple of beers. Then a proper walk could start. We walked up the hill, up the stairs so after quite a demanding "climbing" we found ourselves at the top of Hebden Bridge. The view was amazing. We continued. On our journey we met cross-country runners enjoying the race. We wanted to support t hem as much as possible (brave guys!!!), so we clapped our hands and all this stuff. The walk was wonderful. The sun was shining all the time so we could enjoy everything perfectly. "Winter" nature (although nobody would say it was already December), sheep, fields...
In the afternoon the wind started to blow. I experienced it quite well when I wanted to go to the "toilet". After saying to Eirik "My bom is freezing", he started to make fun of me all the time and "beat" my poor bum by his hat. :-)) Anyway, we arrived back to Hebden Bridge. We were quite far away from the station, so quite a long journey through the Christmas-decorated village houses was ahead of us. The "long night" started to have its consequences and we were suddenly so tired.. When we arrived at a pub, it was already almost dark. Some people had a pint, some only a juice or coke. Suddenly we realized that there was time to catch our train, so we rushed to the station and "jump" in the train. And as we are s upposed to be adult and mature, this maturity was really "denied": Eirik found newspapers in the train and started to make bowles from them and throw it on the rest of our group. So finally it ended by a great fight which some elderly people in the train couldn't bear and decided to change their seats. :-)) But the main thing is that we had fun, the strongest members survived :-) and we enjoyed a great day walk. |
2nd-4th December - Yorkshire Dales Weekend
Friday
We reached the bunkhouse relatively early, so it was straight to the pub! (Driving) Paul had great fun with the sax-playing Santa and much local beer was drunk before seeing in Lynne's birthday at midnight.
Saturday
With German punctuality, the group was already off and walking not long after 9am (much to Jane's confusion, who was used to the 2004 schedule of 10am onwards!).Theoretically the group was to split in two after Pen-Y-Ghent, but it soon became apparent that the day would be a one-peaker for everyone. Eirik started well by losing the path shortly after Stainforth, resulting in a scramble over a stile-less wall and the first river crossing of the day. The weather worsened as we neared the top, the the lunch-stop at the summit was brief as the rain began. Martin was happy though, as he finally got his hands on a bit of long-awaited snow.
Once down the other side of the peak, and after a stop in the local pub (obviously!), most chose to walk along the river back to the bunkhouse, whilst the tired, injured and just plain lazy waited for Chris to pick them up in the minibus.
Back at the bunkhouse it was all hands on deck to help Chris with the final preparations for the Christmas dinner. Roasted turkey, gammon, stuffing, sprouts and all the usual trimmings made for a meal never before seen on a walking club weekend (well, except for perhaps last year!). It was all finished off with a delicious chocolate cake for Lynne's birthday; poor Martin lost out on the left over cake, stolen from under his nose by Jack and Laura! After the tennis match between Chris and Jenia (anybody know who won?) it was back to the pub for another few pints to see in (Driving) Paul's birthday.
Most people didn't stay in the pub as long as midnight, but still waited patiently in the t.v. room for Paul to return to give him his cake... One by one people headed off to bed until there was nobody left waiting up, and it's anybody's guess what time Paul actually made it back from the pub! Despite numerous empty beds, Mark Lee decided to sleep in his car, leaving the lights on all night, thus flattening the battery - well done Mark!
Sunday
The Sunday walk was to Ingleborough, with the option of climbing to the top, or taking the easier route around through the valley. The weather across the valley looked black, but stayed fine on Ingleborough. The group split halfway; those braving the weather headed up, those braving Lynne's first walk stayed low. The easy-walkers soon lost two of their group, as (Driving) Paul and Tom decided to run rather than walk (although this desire was thwarted at the first sign of a hill!). Despite (Dancing) Paul's worry that they had gone the wrong way, they still made it to the Hill Inn before anyone else. The easy-walkers arrived not long after, shortly followed by the hard-walkers, in plenty of time for a couple of pints before heading back to Leeds for the traditional curry @ Nasams. Although the left-over food was shared out at the end, we never did see a slice of Paul's birthday cake.... |
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