So here I am back from France etc as some of you have already ascertained from the blog I posted saying I was back from France lol. It has been a good week overall but I am still feeling some of the effects from it and I will be honest that is not entirely in a good way my friends.

Bit pissed off right now as due to a cable being down I no longer have net at home or for that matter phone at home so I am sat in McDonalds hopefully posting this now. Just no pictures for now. I also won't be able to comment on anything as I will be limited for time. Sorry folks, I miss you all a lot, to think I thought I might be able to get a happy fun week. Thank goodness my 360 and the two new games I bought are still working. I wont go completely mad.

Actually I'm posting this sat on the train shanghaing Network Rail wi fi. Thank God!

Hopefully see you soon but take comfort in this 11,500 word blog, I will get the pics up as soon as I'm back on the internet. Any rate on with the show.

I kept notes as the week progressed to be able to write this blog in its entirety, in some cases it was full paragraphs but in others it was simply a small paragraph detailing words what happened. The photos below show the pages of my hand scrawled note book lol.

But without further ado I will begin the day-to-day blow-by-blow account of the week.

Starting naturally with…

Saturday!!!

I got up fairly early for a lovely awakening shower that brought me back to a semblance of life as I had done the old school plan to go to bed early and in fact done no such thing lol. Grabbed the rest of my gear that I needed packing like my wash bag (though I forgot my toothpaste) and my hand luggage (though I forgot my torch) so I was ready and raring to be off, last thought was I picked up my hat from the side, you know my new one with the feathers and whatnot.

We got down to Salem early expecting to be one of the first there and we were far from correct in this regard. The coach was already...

So here I am back from France etc as some of you have already ascertained from the blog I posted saying I was back from France lol. It has been a good week overall but I am still feeling some of the effects from it and I will be honest that is not entirely in a good way my friends.

Bit pissed off right now as due to a cable being down I no longer have net at home or for that matter phone at home so I am sat in McDonalds hopefully posting this now. Just no pictures for now. I also won't be able to comment on anything as I will be limited for time. Sorry folks, I miss you all a lot, to think I thought I might be able to get a happy fun week. Thank goodness my 360 and the two new games I bought are still working. I wont go completely mad.

Actually I'm posting this sat on the train shanghaing Network Rail wi fi. Thank God!

Hopefully see you soon but take comfort in this 11,500 word blog, I will get the pics up as soon as I'm back on the internet. Any rate on with the show.

I kept notes as the week progressed to be able to write this blog in its entirety, in some cases it was full paragraphs but in others it was simply a small paragraph detailing words what happened. The photos below show the pages of my hand scrawled note book lol.

But without further ado I will begin the day-to-day blow-by-blow account of the week.

Starting naturally with…

Saturday!!!

I got up fairly early for a lovely awakening shower that brought me back to a semblance of life as I had done the old school plan to go to bed early and in fact done no such thing lol. Grabbed the rest of my gear that I needed packing like my wash bag (though I forgot my toothpaste) and my hand luggage (though I forgot my torch) so I was ready and raring to be off, last thought was I picked up my hat from the side, you know my new one with the feathers and whatnot.

We got down to Salem early expecting to be one of the first there and we were far from correct in this regard. The coach was already arrived so I went over and said hello to Derrick the driver who we have been with for years and now stays on camp with us rather than drive to and fro all the time. He is a good guy it's just a shame him and his wife aren't getting on well anymore and they are separated. Poor chap. But everyone else slowly arrived in dribs and drabs and we got ourselves loaded up and on board.

Filled my cash box with as much of the lad's money as I could, I was minted in Euros and it was good, shame I couldn't take them lol. But we managed quite well getting our shit wired and for once we managed to get off and on our way rather early which was pretty impressive to me. I ended up sat next to Alex who I had sat with both ways last time and I had considered somewhat of a friend even though he can be annoying a lot of the time.

The journey down to Portsmouth went rather smoothly all things considered as I just jammed my headphones in, slammed some tuneage on and tried to sleep it through. We had been planning on watching films but Jamie couldn't get the coach dvd player to work at this point so we kinda gave up on that one lol. The sleep was rather elusive but it was at least a restful journey without any real problems and only one stop on the way which did help it not to be too dragging a journey. Though the only real bother point was we didn't get time to grab some food as I didn't have space for food so I hadn't packed munchies.

Portsmouth was lively and retarded it seems. We got directed one way so we went down there and told we should go another way and then got told no that was in fact wrong we needed to be over there. Brittany Ferries are a touch dense it seems but we managed well enough I think. The only real surprise was that we ended up getting off the coach and going on as foot passengers as they didn't want us to disembark from the coach on the ferry. So we got our meal voucher and boarding card then bounced on to our seating lounge that was reserved for us.

Wasn't a lot going on the Mont St Michelle (the name of the ferry), despite being the biggest there was few people on it. We got told we had to go and get food at 6 which meant that we were unable to go see a film in the expensive and tiny cinema. I was a touch annoyed at this as the really long journey would have been made a lot better if I had been able to watch Iron Man again. But I survived. The food was really good and for what we paid for the vouchers pretty damn impressive. I got a plate of melon and mango, lamb and chips, a bread roll, a piece of a weird chocolate cake that was like a lion bar with mousse on and a lovely little bottle of wine.

After this I spent the rest of the journey in the bar plowing through pints and American Gods to use up the relatively mundane time on board ship that the others were using to watch National Treasure in our lounge (I don't like that film much at all). I feel this was a good plan as I was drinking in spirit with my SGUK colleagues who were at this point in time in the process of Slobberknocking with Kai, which I am still a touch disappointed I missed, much like Brighton. But it was fun none the less as beer was quite cheap on board ship.

We disembarked in Caen and toddled over to our coach. I was planning on a lovely sleep on the way down to Jullouville. But no this was not to be as Alex decided he could be the most annoying person in the world and spent the time constantly annoying everyone in a ten metre radius by telling the most awful jokes often several times. I could have throttled him but restrained myself even when he started hitting me in the shoulder when he thought I was teasing him, something which could have gotten him thrown off camp as he isn't supposed to hit an officer, least I'm mellow unlike some. My eye was sore too thanks to a stye so I could have really done with the sleep.

At around midnight we rolled up at the main entrance of the campsite and it was decided that we wouldn't bother getting the luggage out of the coach until morning so we just attempted a quiet entrance to the campsite and to our beds. I got into our bit of the site and was told I might as well go straight to bed which was very nice I thought. I got a touch paranoid however when nobody else showed up for some time and my mind thought it might be an insult of some kind but eventually I mentally let it go and turned in for a lovely well earned sleep.

Sunday

Due to the rather late arrival time we set breakfast and therefore wakeup time a little later in the morning than we usually would in France. But I woke up fairly early anyway so laid in my bed and listened to music for a bit until I needed the loo. Everyone else was on an obsessive shower kick but I simply went over and had a brief wash as I didn't need to wash my hair yet and the showers there are a bit hit and miss. Toddled over to the Marquis and sat my bum down at a table in anticipation of breakfast after saying hello to most of the other risen staff.

The lads started swarming in and eventually we were all seated and we had the brief introduction and a chat about the way things would be at camp and then on to breakfast. The cereal was as usual lovely but the main thrust of breakfast was a bit naff as allfather help me I detest French sausage, weirdly spiced and far too fatty for me. Didn't help that they had also in error bought bloody garlic sausage so everyone was a little worse for wear scent wise that morning. But we finished off and I bounded up to my tent to find my bag had already been brought across from the coach by my bro while I was sorting money with the Salem lads.

Ditched my tired clothing and went with my new shorts, a t-shirt and a bandana over my hair to save me from the sun. Pretty much spent the rest of the morning such as it was dosing about trying to sort things in my bag so I knew where they were and reading a little more of American Gods. I was at this point still getting into the book as it hadn't got to any of the really interesting point. Of course I hit the point with The House on the Rock so it became a little better right away.

Lunch was as it would be for the rest of the week baguettes with bits of cheese and ham. So a ham sandwich it was for the Geoff man. Wasn't too bad and I enjoyed it quite a bit as there is nothing quite like a nicely fresh piece of Baguette or Pain. Lloyd started twittering that he thought it was stale as it had a harder outside, he is a muppet sometimes and doesn't seem to get that bread varies by type and UK French Stick is not the same as a Baguette proper.

We had a brief church service as it was Sunday and it is supposed to be Christian organisation the BB. Phantom did the honours as always and actually managed a short and quite manageable sermon and kept it down to two hymns. However a little while later the French kids over the hedge decided to try and out do us and started singing some crazy French song, all of them at once and achieving a remarkable harmony. Shame their song choice wasn't better as it just came over as mind numbingly repetitive but good effort to the crazy little sods.

It was around this time and after a little asking around that I found because of the shit exchange rate my euros would not go very far at all. Pints I found out were about 5 euros each, making them nearly £4 which was not a very happy thing to discover, last time it was closer to £2 a pint. So this thankfully curtailed a lot of the people on camp from planning any real level of drunken revelry. Not being the biggest fan of getting wasted as it is I wasn't planning to do this at all very much but it did but a bit of a shadow over any of my plans of this sort.

The afternoon all the lads went off to play Volleyball as part of sports and my bro got dragged along to help so I went and lay in my tent ostensibly to read. In the end I however got hit by a massive bout of depression. I mean the real kind that blows in and out of my head mostly when I'm bone tired. In this case I was thinking a lot about that certain lady I have mentioned a few times before and it really started to kick my arse. I was getting so bent out of shape with it I was almost crying. I hate admitting this as it isn't me it's just what happens when I get worn out completely.

Still I kept out of people's way until I could master myself. This took quite a while as it was a really bad little bout there and in the end after a few hours I managed to work myself up to go for a walk to the loos. After this I bumped into Wez who decided to do his Black Momma impression (he is a big fat white guy with huge defined moobs), he grabbed his moobs in his hands and explains he wants a good tan so he can be a Black Momma. Fucking scary but it made me laugh and so I went to watch the end of the Volleyball feeling at least a little better in myself.

We came back across for tea which was Roast Pork, I was never a big fan of Pee Wee's cooking over the years but he is getting a lot better and this meat was delicious. It was just a shame there wasn't a lot of it as with the increasing price of stuff on our travels we can't afford to budget as large and do mass seconds anymore. I in the end decided I would have to get something to eat in the town as it was the only sensible way to do it. As all the lads and no small number of the staff do this anyway Pee Wee doesn't mind much but I don't like doing it as I feel it disparages his cooking.

Anyway after all this and the washing up were done I toddled off into the town to see what was really different this time round. It has after all been four years so you expect a few changes. I got to the dodgems which are the centre of all the activity in Jullouville to find them closed which was a big surprise to us. The little bar to the side had not changed at all and it was once again the same guy running it who had been for the last 8 years, that is kinda nice though I know for a fact he didn't recognise any of us. I mean the only person he would recognise may have been me as I had my hair back then but I'm sure I have changed a lot. The kebab stand that had grown into a van was now two vans and fully branded as well as enjoying an alliance with the dodgems and bar as their menus were all around now.

I settled in for a few pricey pints while keeping an eye on the mischief of the lads which was a bloody good thing. The Salem lads had already been to the off-licence and bought a shed load of two litre bottles of Smirnoff Ice and such things. They were planning to go to the beach to drink it but I told them no way as the camp rules said nobody on the beach without an officer and as part of the beach party. The booze I could handle as I knew it was going to happen and it turned out most of it got smashed when they knocked it off the wall they decided to sit on.

Any rate I decided I was getting hungry after my second pint so I thought I might try one of the pizzas from the Kebab wagon. The last time we had been there they had been delicious and of a reasonable size for the price. This time however it was a small thing that they took heat sealed off the counter and stuck in the over for two minutes. It was about the closest you could get to micro waved food without actually using a microwave and I was very disappointed let me tell you. The search for a good Jullouville pizza was now officially on.

I had another quick bear and then followed the older lads back to camp. Though as an officer I was entitled to stay out later my heart just wasn't in it so I gave up and came back. After signing in I went straight to bed feeling a bit down still and jammed some tuneage on to keep my spirits up. My bro rolled in and informed me that the Salem lads has been bollocked for being too noisy coming in so I felt a touch disappointed in them but it was only due to the down feelings as they are only teenagers away from home and naturally will be rowdy. Dropped off to a rather pointless sleep.

Monday

I woke up to the rather delightful (can you sense the dripping sarcasm there) feeling of Wez cuddling my feet like a teddy bear. It appears in my rather disturbed sleep I had slid on my airbed down the tent as we were on a slight slope and Wez had rolled over and decided to take comfort in my orange sleeping bag wrapped feet. I slowly waited until his grip relaxed and dragged myself to safety. This would be only the first of his bizarre sleeping incidents. Anyway I felt a shower was in order and I gathered myself together in anticipation of a lovely warming and cleansing scowering with high pressure water.

Well I was to be a little disappointed as the shower I ended up in was a bit on the weedy side and not very warm. I ah dot keep pressing the button to get it to start again and it lost the heat every time it went off. But I did manage to wash my hair and get out of there feeling somewhat cleaner than when I had gone on which was all that matters. I dried off and donned my shorts and flip flops to allow myself the maximum drying potential and dragged myself back to camp for breakfast.

Now we had changed the modus operandi of breakfast slightly by this point as we were on croissants instead of cooked food as the second part of breakfast. I have yet to figure out what in the hell happened in my head that makes me not want to have croissants more often, goodness me I love the little buggers and I went back for a second. Think I might even start eating them for lunch at work. Anyway it was a nice and refreshing change and brightened my morning up quite a bit.

Today was going to be relatively free of in camp activity as it was decided that we were going to be off for a day trip. First stop Le Mont-Saint-Michel which was a good long drive away from camp. To get by this journey I resorted to what can only be described as my classic tactics in a travel situation, surprise surprise, I stuck on my mp3 player for a bit. We got there to discover it was in fact a bit of a scorcher, now at this point I hadn't thought about the sun cream in my bag but luckily I had long sleeves and my hat with my so I wasn't exsactly too worried. But we disembarked for a two hour walk around the town.

Last time I had come I hadn't wandered up to the top I had pretty much just sat in a café and ate and drink expensive food and beer. This time however knowing that if the beer was expensive in Jullouville I knew it would be astronomical here so I gave up on that plan and headed with my brother, Sam and Nathan to the top of the hill aquiring, Jake, Adam and Issac along the way. Turns out it costs an arm and a leg to get right to the top of the church and the que to the ticket machine was almost as long as the one to the stairs to get in so we didn't bother with this and just went for a walk around the walls.

I took a large number of pics, some of which turned out good but let me tell you I was missing my Nikon something fierce. It was a double pain as every bugger and his Grandma was toting either a Nikon or a Cannon and I got told off by my bro for complaining about it. But its like being single and having to hang around with couple all the time, and boy howdy do I know what that feels like. Anyway we wandered around and found some cool spots to get some pics including a really cool one of a giant rabbit someone had drawn in the sand on the beach.

One of the most interesting things I noticed while walking around was how much I have changed in myself. When I went into the shops that sold lots of swords and things last time I was gob smacked and actually really impressed. This time however I was looking at each one and able to point out how useless as a weapon every single one of them were. Most of them were pointlessly ostentatious and in a lot of cases pieces of very inexpensive cast steel. I actually had to restrain myself from laughing at one guy who bought one thinking it was a really awesome practical weapon. The only practicaly blades in those shops were the original swiss army knives that most of them were selling alongside the crap stuff.

Anyway we had worn out Le Mont-Saint-Michel in under an hour and a quarter so we found a nice set of stairs in the shade and sat down for a while and had a chat and noticed some interesting things like a guy who looked exactl like one of mine and my Dad's colleagues. I also decided it was time to take a few pics of my old mug for posterity lol. Eventually it came around to time so we went down and got our lunch, some sensible soul hadn't bought enough water bottles however so I had to go without in favour of the lads which was no problem on my part and I managed to find a bottle of lemonade left from the trip down in the coaches drinks cooler.

Next on the agenda of our day trip was Ssaint Malo. Now we didn't go there 8 years ago so I reckon it had been a good 11 years or so since I had last been there. I had therefore no idea really what to expect but it was a fun old trip across with the old mp3 player blazing and I had a bit of a nap to keep me fresh. We got there and were dumped in a car park, so naturally we wandered over to the area where there was a lot of noise going on. Turned out there was some whole big celebration about the something or other'th anniversary of Quebec we think.

There was some pretty cool old school games set up that we had a mess around with and in most cases failed ot make work properly lol. There was also to some of our great ammusement a set of stocks that we put to good use with my brother and Big Al, good times. We wandered a bit further round and found some big to do going on with some guy with a microphone, it turned out to be woodcutting stuff and special challenges and such. We observed a couple of French guys try to cut through a log and doing it rather badly though still managing a respectable time of two minutes and thirty three seconds.

Now as we were there Andy and Wez took on the challenge and we all cheered them on, there is a video on Youtube of the very event. I shall post the link but not the embedded version as it traces back to here from Youtube and I would rather that everyone didn't find here if you know what I mean. But in the end they won and beat the French guys by approximately 32 seconds I think. Take that French logging skill ha ha, lol. After this we mainly just wandered around the are a little bit then headed into the town.

Saint Malo is a lot more lively than Le-Mont-Saint-Michel and there is a lot more to do overall and to be seen. There was a large number of street performers including a crazy girl dancing in a weird fashion to an odd song, didn't get a pic of that though. I did get pics of the cool guitar guy who was singing in English that was pretty good and of the two saxophone players who were playing pretty damn cool too. After this we settled into a café for a rather expensive drink of coke and alas had to bring Nathan with us again so the adult content had to be muted down quite a bit to some of the other officer's disappointment. Didn't bother me as sitting around discussing how hot women walking by are still seems a touch juvenile to me.

They do seem to have something of a pirate obsession in Saint Malo as there were pics of pirates everywhere and things about pirates and people dressed as pirates. Hell there was even a barber shop named Cors Hair, which both made me laugh and want to cry at the same time. Not that it's a bad thing, pirates are fun but still it did seem a tad ridiculous. But then each to their own and if that's the way Saint Malo wants to play it more power to them, I guess it must have been a popular corsair hang out back in the day much the same way Jersey was with smugglers.

The whole bit with Nathan was beginning to bug me a little at this point as he was plainly not mixing and not interested in mixing. At the same time he never paid attention to the fact that he needed to be with someone at all times. If me and Al hadn't been paying attention he would have gotten lost in Saint Malo. I was annoyed as I had predicted problems with Nathan from the start as he has some learning difficulties and they are obvious in this context. But I was willing to play benefit of the doubt and let it ride for the rest of the week. But one thing I will not do is police social interaction, I cannot force him to make friends or force other people to befriend him. Frustrating it was proving.

We got the coach back home and it began raining on the way there so we were a little damp when we eventually got back to camp which was a touch amusing. Well not for long as after tea I was on town patrol duty which to be honest wasn't much different than what I was doing the night before, hanging round the dodgems keeping an eye on the lads and then signing them in and walking them home when they were due. I had a sly pint while waiting but got twittered at by one member of staff who criticised me doing the sign in at the bar at the dodgems, well it was wet outside and the only dry chairs were occupied so nerr.

I did manage by way of my brother to find a good pizza place which was nice. Had me a delicious margherita from a shop down the road that was run by a guy who spoke quite good English and likes Arsenal lol. So I scoffed that down and then made plans to wander home for a nice early night and a good long sleep as I was feeling a bit run down to be honest as the days were quite active.

Tuesday

Started out like any normal day as far as it goes so nothing special there I don't think. Croissants again for breakfast which was once again a lovely treat. But the day took a sharp turn for the bad when after breakfast I was volunteered to go with the sports to the beach. Now I'm not the biggest fan of the beach as it is and I had my jeans and hoody on today so it wasn't like I was prepared for it either. I also had my book and notepad in my possession and no time to drop them off. We got there and it started drizzling so I had to hide my paper up my hoody.

I was eventually volunteered to mind one of the football posts as they kept falling over, took my hoody off and piled it with my books and stuff on the sand, my hat kept blowing off and getting full of sand which annoyed me no end. But I had fun holding the post up and chatting with Nick as he was drawing artful things in the sand for a laugh including a testament to one of Lloyd's new nicknames taking his official list of nicknames to the following - Lcoyd (as Nick miss-spelt it on the sand lol) 56 Mario Freddy Mercury Rodrgigueg Peter Griffin. Eventually the sports got called off when it started to piss it down and I got soaked and everyone ran off leaving me to carry the post, try not to lose my hat and get my books and my brother's towel to safety while putting my hoody on.

I managed it but the stuff got a bit wet and lo and behold once I got off the beach it stopped raining. Bloody typical thinks I, but I did have fun walking back as Nathan was lagging behind so I chased him with the pointy end of the football post until he got back into camp quickly. I was a little cheerier about the whole thing by this point despite my hat getting messed up with wet sand, which traces of can still be found of on it to this day.

The afternoon was one of a few free times available to the lads. We got told there was a market on in the centre of the town so me and a few of the lads toddled on to see what was cracking with that. Turned out of course that the market was only operating in the morning and so therefore by the time we arrived they had all packed up and were off on their way home. So instead we wandered up to the bar at the dodgems and I bought myself a drink and as I was feeling a bit hungry decided to have one of the "American Steaks". This is basically just a large burger cut in half in a baguette with chips on top. It was nice enough but was lacking a little as the burger was a touch too pink in the middle. Suffice to say I didn't have one again.

We wandered around the town for a bit more and I began my secret quest for Ryan's birthday cake for Thursday. Firstly I figured out where all the local Patisseries were and went in and had a look at the sort of thing they had. It eventually turned out that for cake like things I really needed to go back in the morning as they usually sold out quick and they stopped making them in the afternoon. I also found out it was going to be a pricey affair. After this we wandered off to get a birthday card and left the lads on their own for a short while, which resulted in the sudden appearance of more beer and some firecrackers much to my complete lack of surprise but a certain amount of horror.

On the way back to camp Nick told me that one of the other lads had in his possession a bottle of vodka ready to tear it up on Thursday. There was no real way to deal with this I just told Nick he had to watch himself and the others to make sure nothing silly happened and left it at that. Apparently they weren't the only ones at it I later found out but I will save that for then. We stopped off at the gate café for a quick beer which turned into a long beer as the lass on the counter had to change the keg. She hadn't done it before and made a bit of a mullock of it. The beer we eventually got was cold but it was lifeless and Stella just isn't the same with no life in it. I didn't hold it against her as she was obviously new and she was rather pretty, but I did have a little giggle at a couple of her techniques to make it work.

It was a barbecue for tea today which was a nice change I will say and turned out rather well. There were burgers, sausages and kebabs. The burgers were nicely well done, the sausages too and weren't too bad for French ones. The kebabs were very good for pre-bought junk and there wasn't much in the way of problems picking the green bits off the skewers to get to the chicken which was at least nice rather than some dark rubbish I have seen on some pre-bought ones. It was all in all good and just what I need in the way of fuel for my night in. I wasn't on duty but had felt the need of a bit of a relaxing night in and it also helped remove some of the burden of looking after the lads from the officers on duty.

I decided as I wasn't going to get any official training being in France and whatnot that I would go outside and do some for myself. So I took myself through a series of stretches and then did the 49 exercise. This intrigued enough of the lads that a few of them came out and wanted a go. So I took one or two through the 49 again and then some more wanted a go so I took them through the full exercise regime that we go through at the Armouries. They were very impressed and I was feeling fairly bouncy about it all.

At this point I was getting over my depression episode and feeling in love with the world, I was looking at my body and feeling happy about the way I was coming along. Despite the near constant pain in my foot that seems to be getting worse I am overall very happy with me. Now if I can take that attitude to a club with me and find a nice girl or anywhere not just aw club for that matter maybe something might happen. Who knows eh?

I believe I will end up going to the Doc's soon about my foot as it is really getting worse, I started getting short stab like throbbing pain at different times pushing back up into my heal. If it isn't right at the end of the week I will book an appointment. But for now I need this week to slap the CKE in to shape at Leeds Met. It was bothering me a lot that it is turning out like this and I have been playing if it's not right at the end of the week for nearly the last two months. Yes folk I'm a silly bastard.

The weirdest and best thing to come out of the day was a blossoming of my faith. I cannot understand how it ended up happening the way it did but I was telling a couple of the lads tales about the old gods after talking about American Gods with a couple of them. As I went through them I could really feel something growing in me and a sense of wholeness and completeness with the world I haven't felt for a long time if at all. It sounds silly that at a Christian camp I would end up refinding my faith in the old gods but it's true and I felt wonderful for it.

I eventually hit the hay with a profound sense of wellbeing and prayers on my lips to the gods and the allfather. It turned into a very good nights sleep and very restful overall. I think the peace in my heart I had gained that day was truly what set me on a good path for the rest of the week making no bad thing bother me really and allowing me to get through what were in some cases trying times.

Wednesday

Got woken up early twice during the night but it didn't affect my sleep too much. Twacky and Wez turning in from their night on the town woke me up very early as did my brothers eventual return. Neither of them bothered me too greatly I just rolled over and went back to sleep. This day however was a bit different as it was a trip day. The lads and most of the staff were off to the Normandy Landing Beaches and Bayeaux War Memorial by way of Pegasus Bridge. Now I have seen all this stuff before so I had been put on duty and was therefore staying in camp.

Once they had gotten off on the trip I took my opportunity to go into town and scope out a cake among a few other things that was needed. Colin had asked me to find him a torch too, as he had forgotten to bring one with him as well (I had luckily by this point borrowed the spare my brother had with him). I searched all the shops I could think of to find a torch including the supermarket but to no avail at this point. I then headed to the cake shop to try and get a cake for Ryan.

Well this turned into rather a large amount of fun. I had prepared my statement in as clear and correct a fashion as possible using my limited knowledge. Une grande gateaux chololat pour une anniversaire. Well she understood that part, then I explained my French was a little poor and we ended up dickering about regarding size of the cake and I finally got that she was asking how many. So thinking for a moment I said 40 plus, after a little while I got that they had no cake available at that time but I should come back in an hour.

Toddling back to camp I sat around for a while and did a few bits and pieces before eventually with everyone's agreement deciding to get a few small cakes for after our lunch, there were only six of us after all so it wouldn't be too bad. So after an hour I toddled back on to the cake shop to find they only really had one option cake wise and it was a bit small so I picked it and picked up 6 small chocolate cakes. The total bill came to 33 euros and honest to the gods I nearly shit myself. But I paid it as I knew I was getting reimbursed from camp.

Once back at camp we had lunch and I noticed that the cakes I had bought were in fact identical to the birthday cake. They were delicious but I had noticed that for 13 euros I had got more cake in six of the small ones than I had gotten in a whole cake for 20 euros. No bloody wonder the great Yorkshire battle cry is "How Much?!?" as I think it would have been appropriate in this situation from any angle. Any rate after lunch I grabbed me a shower and sat out reading for a bit in my shorts and tshirt.

I went on another shopping run once the supermarket had opened to get some essential things that we needed for camp like spuds and breakfast cereal. I also stopped in at a general bits and bobs shop near camp to find a torch. Luckily I managed to find a torch for 3 euros in a little basket randomly on a table. I was well chuffed and in the end only needed to buy some batteries which I got for 2.50 from the supermarket. Colin had been quoted about 20 euros elsewhere so he was pleased. I got three boxes of coco pops and a bag of spuds from the supermarche too which was amusing to carry back as they wanted to fall over lol.

Now after this point I had been slowly tanning as I had put some sun cream on due to the day being an absolute bloody scorcher. Normally I parranoidly avoid the sun but I did well and was wearing my shorts and a short sleeved t-shirt so I got me a good level of tan. Well not by some people's standards, to them I am now just a slightly darker shade of pale lol. It was nice to notice though, the best one was I had first gone out in my jeans and flip flops so had a tan line across half my foot due to this lol, it faded soon as I was wearing my flip flops a lot.

In the evening I went out for a drink to celebrate Odin's day. I had planned on food and drinks so had a reasonable sum of money on me. After discovering grosse biers however this sort of went out the window. These things are the equivalent of two pints in one mug so I had a couple of these and then got dragged to another bar for a good long chat with the Gills and Colin and a another four pints. Now when you are eating basically nothing 8 pints do a lot to you.

This was shown as we wobbled back to camp and eventually got shoed off to bed by the other staff on camp which was rather funny. I once I had hit the pillow started speaking in my RP English accent (BBC English to those who don't know) involuntarily and my brother kept talking to me to hear it making me laugh and even made a video of it which I will add if I can get it to load right. It is bloody silly though and I sound a right prat lol. But I got to sleep fairly well and slept long and hard.

Thursday

This day wasn't much of one I will be honest, I arose later than usual but then I had been hitting the booze pretty hard the night before so I was a little slow in getting going by my standards but was still happy and bouncy all round all day so everything was fine. I had a good laugh in the morning with the kids many of whom looked worse for wear than I did despite I had been drunker and awake longer lol. Good times.

After another lovely croissant breakfast I disappeared to my tent to read as I was making what can only be described as a concerted effort to get through American Gods. It did also happen to be a major coincidence that this allowed me to get out of being dragged in to help with the sports. It wasn't like nobody knew where I was as plenty of people came by or in and out of the tent and I made no pretence of my hidingness but the only time I emerged for a while the conversation in the marquis was utterly dead so I in no way felt bad about staying away.

I had however that morning been running around before breakfast trying to get all the remaining people who hadn't been able to or hadn't been there to sign the birthday card for Ryan the night before. I then had the unique fun of announcing his birthday, leading the sing along of Happy Birthday and dragged him out to get his card. It was quite amusing the look on his face but it was all in good fun and I had a really good time. At least this year we were doing it properly, some funny bugger last time thought it would be a good idea to give him a pork pie with a candle on it. I didn't find this funny at all.

I spent the afternoon reading again but I did take a brief trip out to the supermarket to get some extra cake so everyone could have a little bit of cake above and beyond the small bit in the fancy cake. Pee Wee needed some oil for the food too so I got a bottle of it. Luckily Sam was in the supermarket so I shanghaied him to act as a carrying bag while I managed to fettle out my change that I was using after balancing it out. I also got some batteries for my camera so I could take some more pics as the pack of batteries I had brought with me had already dwindled out shockingly.

The cake giving ceremony with tea was good but it was awkward before hand as the cake for Ryan did not want to cut well due to being very soft, and rather unsurprisingly Pee Wee wanted to lick the knife. I took it through and we had another round of Happy Birthday and everyone on his table enjoyed the cake. It was very nice, I was sore tempted to go round to the Patisserie in the morning for a rerun. I stayed in once tea was done and worked hard at finishing American Gods and finally managed it a little bit after 9pm.

Now I really enjoyed the book and the ending I thought was very well done, especially the ending where he finally goes to Iceland and meets Odin. It was very well done, I really hope that we get something more about Shadow as I felt it left it on such a note that we need to see what he can go on and do now. I also really liked the other gods like Mr. Nancy and Czernobog. Especially the rather amusing part with the chequers game and Czernobogs bet, it was very well done. I truly felt each of the gods really did have their own character as well as the creatures and the folk heroes, I even really felt sorry for Mad Sweeney, shame it turned out bad for him in the end.

Anyway I toddled out to town with my camera and took pictures all the way, it was quite fun and there are some really funky houses along the way to town. Including the one where the roof is the entire house and the one that was very Addams Family in its vibe. I took a fair few pics of the dodgems and the rest of the bits in the centre of Jullouville. Then I headed off for a pizza after a single beer as I wasn't in the mood for a large amount of drinking. This time however I had a Vesuvio which is basically just a ham pizza but I got to chat to the guy at the pizza place this time and he is a pretty sorted chap as is the woman there who I assume is his girlfriend.

After eating I came back to camp and warned gently about the possibility of a party in the Salem tent so we went and did a bit of browsing but found they must have taken all the booze with them, but had left the bags which I bet had the receipts in if we had been bothered to look. But I therefore went to bed expecting mayhem when the lads came home. Turned out it was only Nick who ended up pissed as mu brother had to carry him home. He wasn't sick I don't think but he was definitely worse for wear. As the smartest lad of all the Salem lads I expected it wouldn't be him but there you go, shit happens.

Friday

I was up extra early on Friday morning as I had morning duty and it allowed me the wonderful benefit of waking up the camp. I went around to wake up Pee Wee so he could come and do breakfast, then I had myself a couple of coffees to give me a bit of a buzz and then went to wake the lads up in as fun a fashion as possible. They couldn't be arsed moving for the most part so I went around again every few minutes, I got told to feck off by Alex who then complained at me later when I mentioned it to his Captain and he got in trouble, sorry not my problem.

Most of the lads eventually got up but a few were a bit lazy so we had to go with my favourite course of action, drag them out of their sleeping bag. Jake the deaf lad was being extra cheeky so he was the first to get this treatment, apparently he seems to think the world revolves around Jake so we had to be a bit harsher with him than some other lads. After this we had another great breakfast and then all the lads went off to finish the sports off and me and my bro had the fun of cleaning the porridge pan, this is amusingly usually a punishment drill but as the lads had to be off we took it off the lads and did it ourselves allowing them to sort out.

After doing this I spent the morning listening to mp3s on the borrowed speakers I had from Nick. I was having a bit of a celebrate as it was the first day of my new contract and I was pleased. I sang through a large part of my playlist and got told to shut up after a while but sod them ha ha, I can sing a fuck load better than any of them and don't give two liberal shits about their opinion of my choice in music. Even if I did spend a large amount of time singing through Start Wearing Purple including the Ukrainian sections which was highly fun.

I had another shower and noticed rather disturbingly that I was getting a rash in my belly button. Now this was really horrible to me as I can;t understand how you get something like this. If course would you believe it there are no creams or anything in the first aid kit and damn me I wasn't nipping out to get one specially for one little bit of red flesh. I was noting shed loads of insect bites that had appeared since I had started wearing my shorts and in the shower I kept rubbing them which was a real pain in the arse. I was itching like mad and some of them were so close together that it was impossible not to start scratching large areas of my flesh.

The afternoon was full of rain in intermittent bouts so I kept having to run back an forth between tents and I had a good laugh. As usual it was the staff tents that were in the worst states. Including the tent belonging to the officer in charge of the lads tent inspection. Hell his was the worse as there were towels and clothing all over the canvas and the doors were fully roped open. I nearly pissed myself laughing. Especially as he was miserable with me when I came back down to the tent and told them about it. Too bad, your problem not mine lol.

While lazing around I started packing my bags and managed to get most of my clothing packed away despite and interruption from the Salem lads demanding money from me. I couldn't give them the money as I had been leaving my cash box in the presidents car for protection and then she had gone for a drive taking it with her. They took it well and as soon as she got back I went and got the money and sorted them out. Some of them were totally minted and it was hilarious, one had over 130 euros left, hell I had only brought 20 more than that with me in the first place and I had spent 80 across the week thanks to judicious budgeting.

The sun came out for a blast at one point and I was looking forward to working on my tan, this was a shame as it only lasted a short time before the drizzling started again. After tea I toddled out into town for a short while, claimed a beet Pee Wee owed me and drank a few of my own which was nice. I then cadged a free go on the dodgems out of John and went for a lovely if somewhat bouncy ride with Sam, shame at the point it was most of the other lads weren't on and the only person who was on with us was Andy one of the other staff though we had a good laugh. I however managed to bash my knee on the driving column and my knee was and is still quite sore.

I went for another pizza and Sam came with and Alex tagged along. I had a good laugh at/with Sam after he coerced me to teach him to say voule vou qushe avec moir ce soir or however you spell it. He said it to a waitress which was highly amusing. When he came back with me to camp we had a great chat as we went and I appreciate Sam a lot more now. He like me and my bro and a couple of the others suffer in the BB because none of the other staff understand where we come from. They are all "normal" people and much in the same way to outsiders and SG they don't understand us long haired "mosher" types. He is a good kid who has been dealt a really shit hand. I mean his foster parents dumped him back into care and fucked off to live abroad with one year left in the system to go. He got screwed and I feel really sorry for him.

I eventually went to bed early as I knew I would need a nice long rest to prepare me for the hard work of the morrow. Despite the potential for vast and diabolical mischief most of the lads came in on time and very well behaved so I was quite pleased with them and very happy overall to end the camp week on such a positive note.

Saturday and early Sunday morning

Saturday started out like any other normal day, a lovely breakfast and coco pops as usual. It was a delicious meal and I once again and for the last time went back for croissant seconds. We cleared up after breakfast as quickly as we could and managed to get the rest of the stuff packed away that needed packing away. After getting everyone sorted we then started what we assumed would be a really long process of getting camp packed up before we set off to Caen at no later than 1:30pm.

First order of business we packed up the tents in the lads sections. The lads were not in a frame of mind to do it so we circulated among the tents trying to sort it. I helped the back few tents out once I had their bags as they were Colin's tents and some of the few that were actually well labelled up. I got me a good group of lads doing quite well but had an easy time getting the tents down as they damn things were pitched on the only area that could still be called the sand pit and the pegs came out of their own accord. Only trouble we had was when one of the ropes was stuck in and I dropped them while it was still tied down, made me feel a bit silly but the lads had told me that they were no longer dug in.

Next we went and started dropping the staff tents. This was more amusing as they were well dug in. I grabbed a few of the lads who were available and we managed quite well. The only real problem was the damn central poles were so tightly down that we couldn't take the ground sheets out before we took the tent down which was awkward but we dealt with it. We ran out of tent bags which was rather amusing and we weren't sure we had the rest in the right bags. Well sod it we got them away and everything was ok. Everything got loaded on the wagon and while we had been doing this the first of the two marquis was taken down.

Now this part was done it was still 10am so we sent the lads into the town, even though most had no money left, so we could take the marquis down easily. This was surprising as well as we managed to get the thing down in about ten minutes and then we got everything else packed up on the wagon and everything was done. So we all decided to go for a wander as well. I frankly couldn't be bothered so me and Al just wanted to go and have a sit down and a drink so we had a beer. All the other staff arrived and pulled faces that we were drinking while they got coffees. Hell that was the cheapest option as coffee at the gate was quite pricey.

We wandered back for lunch and we performed the wonderful and amusing task of calling all the names for the lads to make sure all had made their way back. Here now comes my heart attack moment when the phrase "Nathan is lost" rings out over the group. So me, Al and Andy had to go looking for him, by the time we had gotten to the gate we fortunately got a call from Andy Kay saying he had found his way back to camp and had only gone to the toilet without telling anyone. But this was endemic of what was happening with him all week long. I cannot allow him to go to the Isle of Wight if this will happen as that place is massive and we are surrounded by miles of cliffs at that site whereas Jullouville is 2 minutes walk away and he couldn't have gone more than a mile in any direction.

Anyway we got set off early and the coach ride was a little more entertaining this time as they had finally managed to make the DVD player working so we watched The Simpsons Movie which I fell asleep a little bit before the end though I had seen it before so I am not too worried. Then we had Johnny English on that I did actually watch as I haven't seen it for a while, I do like the film but it is not the best Rowan Atkinson film, I think the first Bean movie is. By the time it was over we had arrived at Caen and had to sit around doing naff all for a while waiting for the ferry to let us board.

We were in fact there so long that by the time we got across to board the ferry the cheeky French buggers of Brittany ferries were telling us to hurry up as we were running late. This was such a joke considering they were the ones who had made us wait in the first place. We got to our "private" lounge and got informed the wonderful little tale that even though it was our booked room we had to stop people coming in as they wouldn't. So we had random buggers coming in all the time and in some cases they went to sleep in our chairs and we had to threaten them out. The ferry was totally packed more than the first one was even though it was the smaller of the ships running the route.

As food wasn't controlled due to the number of passengers on the ship we decided to go and watch a film. Thankfully for me they had Hancock on and I hadn't managed to see this yet. Alex was being annoying while we waited with my bro and John. I found out John is a rather devout Christian, he was wearing a big cross, a religious t-shirt and a hoody with the symbol of Leeds Diocese on it. This could be awkward for me with my newly re-found heathenry. So to stop having any potential problems I didn't say anything at all about the religious stuff. Anyway we got in fine and got some lovely seats, the film was quite good I think and I enjoyed it a lot even if it did feel far too short and very rushed at times. I think they could have done a much better effort with another hour to work with.

We went off for tea after this and it was pretty well packed out in there. Got me some ham though this time which was nice, Jamie had managed to nick it last time but there was plenty to go at, otherwise I had the exact same but had to pay for butter for some stupid reason this time annoyingly. John suffers with travel sickness and thanks to the rather choppy seas he wasn't feeling too good, he managed his tea except for the cake and in the end disappeared before the end of the meal to sit down near the toilet. Me and Al decided to wander around the deck for a while and take a few pics and make a video from the top of the ship.

Back in the lounge it was a touch boring so I went up to the bar again, the ship was swaying and loads of folk were wobbling about. My sea legs are impeccable lol so I had a good laugh at those silly people. I got me a beer, poured it perfectly and then drank it in three gulps. To put on a good show for the silly doddery sea legless people I danced out of the lounge, jumped over the lip on to the outside deck and danced over to the back rail to look out at the wake and bid a final goodbye to France. I stood there until the final lounge return point and sung to myself, I gave my voice a great work through and it was so awesome for that. Some people were clearly impressed but I hadn't been paying a bit of attention to them. I was just having fun.

We got off the ship eventually despite a delay thanks to the choppy seas and got ourselves onto the road and ploughed back towards Halifax. We had Dad's Army blasting out which prevented any chance of me being able to fall asleep which sucked something chronic so I was getting really and totally knackered. Got a call from my Grandma telling me that all the taxis were on strike so they were going to pick us up and I leant my phone around after we got to the services so the lads could sort out lifts for themselves. Luckily we managed to get sorted out and got back to Fax before our estimated arrival time quite happily and got back home with my Grandparents for 5am.

I toddled about on the net for a bit and in the end had myself a fantastic nights sleep. Well it would have been fantastic if I hadn't gotten woken up by my Gran calling in the late morning and I had to have a shouting match with her that managed to get across to her profoundly deaf ears head that I did in fact want to come for tea on Wednesday. It was a bit knackering but I got up and had some cereal and a coffee for brunch to keep me stocked up on fuel.

Got ourselves down to Carlton to unload the wagon on time and we got the job done quite quickly. I took the position at the middle of the stairs again thus meaning everything went through my hands and I had the hardest part of the job to do too as I had to lift everything from the bottom of the stairs over my head to the room. Then I also had to carry both the steel chests which were hella heavy and had to balance them on my feat at one point when they nearly started dropping, frag my arms hurt after that.

After the fun we got a lift up home and we lazed around for some time and in the end I decided takeaway was in order so I looked at the Dominoes menu we had just gotten that was full of vouchers. We abused one and got a pair of pizzas delivered for half price and this marked my first foray into the world of Dominoes. They were very nice and I enjoyed it immeasurably, I was so low on energy and hungry it disappeared in record time. I got to bed rather early by my normal standards as I was pretty dead on my feat but I had trouble falling asleep which was daft but in the end I managed it. So that's the end of the trip.

I will leave the update of today's events for some time later. I'm pissed off I won't be able to post this tonight as the damn net is fucked in our house thanks to the bloody update cycle. But here we have a general observation about France. I hate the fact that most of the women I met in France are not all as attractive as Valium is and many of them were totally uninterested in talking to a lovely chap like me as Jullouville is a fairly chavy place as far as it goes. I still blame the French for chav style, they brought shell suits and baseball caps over here damn it. Never mind though at least they have grown out of it now it seems.

So a good holiday overall with only one annoying part. Alex accused me on Sunday morning of ruining his camp by acting like a knobhead all week. This made me very annoyed as I had been nothing but lovely to everyone all week. I made a point of checking all the lads were ok all the time, I was genuinely concerned when they were sick and I was always willing to listen to them and mix with them. So this made me angry especially when he claimed other people and other members of staff had been thinking and saying the same thing, I checked with my brother and others and they told me its a lie. So I blocked him on msn and will have to be careful not to smack him when I see him.

Actually this did cause me to drop into a funk of depression as my anger burned away to leave me feeling empty and really sad. I needed some of my friends to be available to talk to and none of them were so in actual fact I went to bed feeling really bloody low and it hurt a lot. Its bad enough that there were enough things that could make me more depressed like a sign from the gods telling me that nothing will ever happen with the girl (in this case a text that wouldn't send to her) and this made me messed up. Well I won't say any more about it, it's not worth it. I don't resent my friends living their lives but I was really in need of help last night.

So here you go this is the tale and have a look through if you have time and appreciate the 11,500 words or so that have gone into it.

Toodles

G