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A gourmet weekend in Glenshee
Last weekend of the year for Reality at Compass Centre in Glenshee. Dave and Lyndsey Roberton from Edinburgh and I took Jamie , Jordan and Stephen for a windswept and rainy weekend - and it was great. OK - so we got there an hour of so later than planned, but it was only because of the Friday night traffic from Kilmarnock, the sheeting rain while we put on the topbox (more in the box than in the carpark), the need to stop for someone at Big Macs, the arrival in Edinburgh to realise that (typically) the multimapped meeting place was lying somewhere on my desk back in Lenzie and I was like the Englishman in New York !! - but we made it, regaled by stories of the most extreme horror movies the lads had seen, gross smells from the back seat (see Big Macs reference above) and amazing conversations about the nature of GOD, dreams, prayers, evil and fate!!
The centre of course welcomed us like we were ....Time Lords - wonderfully warm rooms, supper served in our rooms and such expressions of friendship that everyone was left looking forward to the programme for the weekend.
OK - so getting to sleep is normallyvery difficult on the first night - but by 12.30am, I was able to leave their door closed to the sound of happy snores and snuffling.
Saturday morning everyone made it for breakfast at 8.30am without regrets. Stephen ate so much (minus the crusts) that he had to visit the serving table 3 times for extras; Jamie discovered the delights again of sausage rolls with sauce we felt he might start rolling over; Jordan hit the coffee pot and Dave and Lindsey discovered that the other group at Compass for the weekend was the youth group from her old church at Banchory, led by the minister who had married them 6 months earlier !!
Suitably refreshed and with the leaders suitably weatherproofed in matching suits (wimps!!), we went out to the ropes course which each lad completed twice - with the second time recording a substanially lower fall-off rate !! (Jamie did 2 sections blindfolded : the leaders .....supported everyone!!). Then after a short comfort break (with last night's leftovers supper bits) we went indoors to the sports hall for archery. Here the leaders came into their own, even though all the boys had tried this already elsewhere. High scores were made by everyone especially in the 'holidays' round after Richard had offered chocolate to each winning team ........... and strangely enough his team won twice !! But the best bit was when Stephen realising that he was on the winning team - probably for the first time n his life - just had to hug and dance with me to celebrate. You would have walked 500 miles to see his face light up - the first of quite a number of times this weekend!!
Time for lunch - and once again Compass were determined to fill us full of goodies. One lad, his plate of sandwiches so high it was in danger of spilling over, just averted the crisis by eating it all in less than 4 minutes; another discovered that it was possible to, put away 5 penguin biscuits and 2 bags of crisps in one 2minute visit to the serving table - but was discovered to have deep pockets....
So it was outside in the darkening afternoon for the challenge course which we all did together - NO PROBLEM!! Max scores for the Spiders Web, max scores for the Sacred Mole Tree (a joy for the leaders to realise that it would work !!) and max points for the crates and planks exercise across the white shark infested seas .... It was Joe the instructor's fertile capetown background that made it real. After the compulsory tea break, we found ourselves at the bottom of a HUGE tree - massive - hit the lowering sky - pine thingy - all dressed up in sumo slings and crash-hats. First up was Jamie the Catweasel - hit the hooter at the top and descended just as gracefully; wee Stephen followed but suffered from an absence of places to find his feet and hands halfway up, choosing to fly down like Spiderman rewind; Dave pretended it was like the escaltors in Jenners and tried to find the roof; Lindsey hit her target at the halfway stage; I kept sitting on the knee I wanted to move up from - imagine it's like trying to leave the egg you want lay; and Jordan ascended like a stunt man out of a James Bond movie. Just after 4pm and darkness fell so it HAD to be time for another massive session of tea and bix, soccer in the sports hall and pool ,table tennis and table football in the games room - so laid back, so easy to have so much fun, so great to engage with each other in a non-threatening way.
So what shall I say about dinner? Sweet and sour pork, vegetarian ricey stuff - Jamie tried it all and said it was OK; the other guys hit it with avengeance and the leaders murmured comfortably all the way through. If that wasn't enough, Douggie in the kitchen then bribed us to stay another day with a dessert which crossed the boundaries of civilisation, cream, tangerines, biscuit base and chocolate sauce dribbled over it all. Nothing else for it - we shared the tangerines, some had the choc, some had the base and everyone had the cream - seconds and thirds. We initiated a toast to the pudding !!
Had to go out for a walk to shake the whole lot down - in the rain, in the wind, in the full moon and the clouds - sheep spotting, shadow chasing, talking about were-wolves and persuading that the end of the lane was just around the bend.
40 mins later it was TTI - time to imagine (previously known as Time Out / the GOD slot / oh no not again). We all joined in the story cards game, learned to ask loads of questions and got the final story of the lad who woke up with a pig in his bed (or rather , the pig that woke up with a lad in his bed - its OK , it's in the Bible) - and then 20 minutes of almost silence as we painted pictures of things to remind us of something special about our time so far - magic : come up and see my etchings.
Time to break out for 20 minutes of footie in the sports hall and then back to the lads' room for ..... supper kindly served by Douggie and accompanied by the DVD ' Cheaper by the dozen - 2'. Sadly I wasn't up to speed with the volume settings of the laptop, so we all had to sit very very quietly munching sweets and cake for 90 minutes to follow the plot. Stephen went to his bed and fell asleep and Lindsey just closed her eyes for 5 minutes which stretched for an additional 60 minutes !! Strangely enough, when it came time for bed, Stephen woke up, the boys wanted to be silly and the previous night's routine was followed unbtil ... the same time.
How can you get 3 tired lads up on a Sunday morning before 8 o'clock ? It was not easy, no animals were hurt in the clearout, Jamie tried to have a shower with his clothes and trainers on, the beds were also stripped at the same time and Jordan went through an atheist stage in 3 minutes. But breakfast was the reward : if the porage wasn't perfect - and it was, just ask Stephen '3 bowls' Woods - then the ultimate - and to our shared knowledge, this only happens at Compass - treat were the woffles, poured over with softfruits in their syrup and lovingly PLASTERED with cream. THIS is breakfast. Heaven is obviously round the corner.
Becoming alive and fortified for the day meant we started with packing up the rooms, football in the sportshall and orienteering in the grounds. The bottom fields were flooded so we thought we might have to try sheep rescueing but instead completed the 3 courses without problems. Following Simon's (the instructor) insistence, we had a tea break before the final activity of our stay - crate climbing in the sportshall. It's about pretending to be the hunchback of Notre Dame with this artificial hunch making harness, making a statement about personal worth and confidence on top of a stack of beat-up milk crates which you have assembled under you whilst trying to keep on top of the business, daring suspended like a mannequin from the Cirque Rondo routine. Easy to describe - bordering on the torture end of having fun scale. Jordan won with 11 crates; Dave flew off with 9 or 10 (same as Jamie) - something about having a height advantage; Jordan found his feet couldn't easily fit; sorry, but cannot actually recall Lindsey's attempts and I was excused on medical grounds!! The biggest kick - when you fall off and kick the crates away - all over the hall - whilst dangling like a spider descending on its victim - most excellent.
Lunch - that peculiar mixture of d-i-y sandwiches which for some reason invites the lads to invent the 'how-many-layers-of-filling-can-you-get-in-yours?' games which resulted in loads of leftover crusts. cheese bits all over and under the table ... but which couldn't detract from the serious intentions of the soup lovers of this world. Lentil with spices. The words themselves begin the droll to form (as Yoda said). Dave and Lyndesy did 1 each, Jordan managed 4 and the sad person scripting this epistle was left alone at the table at the end of the meal, reflectively and lovingly swirlingthe contents of bowl 7 round his gums like a hackneyed wine buff at the end of a date with his destiny.
The final hour blurred into football, rooms cleaning (loose trainer spotting), car packing and the round table talk to discover how much we had really all enjoyed being together (a group hug without the histrionics). Then Dave folded himself in the very back seat of the Zaphira, Lindsey found herself keeping the peace between the lads in the middle bench and we were gone -returning Compass to its natural state of peace and quiet - and the odd sock left in the shower.
A gourmet weekend in Glenshee
Last weekend of the year for Reality at Compass Centre in Glenshee. Dave and Lyndsey Roberton from Edinburgh and I took Jamie , Jordan and Stephen for a windswept and rainy weekend - and it was great. OK - so we got there an hour of so later than planned, but it was only because of the Friday night traffic from Kilmarnock, the sheeting rain while we put on the topbox (more in the box than in the carpark), the need to stop for someone at Big Macs, the arrival in Edinburgh to realise that (typically) the multimapped meeting place was lying somewhere on my desk back in Lenzie and I was like the Englishman in New York !! - but we made it, regaled by stories of the most extreme horror movies the lads had seen, gross smells from the back seat (see Big Macs reference above) and amazing conversations about the nature of GOD, dreams, prayers, evil and fate!!
The centre of course welcomed us like we were ....Time Lords - wonderfully warm rooms, supper served in our rooms and such expressions of friendship that everyone was left looking forward to the programme for the weekend.
OK - so getting to sleep is normallyvery difficult on the first night - but by 12.30am, I was able to leave their door closed to the sound of happy snores and snuffling.
Saturday morning everyone made it for breakfast at 8.30am without regrets. Stephen ate so much (minus the crusts) that he had to visit the serving table 3 times for extras; Jamie discovered the delights again of sausage rolls with sauce we felt he might start rolling over; Jordan hit the coffee pot and Dave and Lindsey discovered that the other group at Compass for the weekend was the youth group from her old church at Banchory, led by the minister who had married them 6 months earlier !!
Suitably refreshed and with the leaders suitably weatherproofed in matching suits (wimps!!), we went out to the ropes course which each lad completed twice - with the second time recording a substanially lower fall-off rate !! (Jamie did 2 sections blindfolded : the leaders .....supported everyone!!). Then after a short comfort break (with last night's leftovers supper bits) we went indoors to the sports hall for archery. Here the leaders came into their own, even though all the boys had tried this already elsewhere. High scores were made by everyone especially in the 'holidays' round after Richard had offered chocolate to each winning team ........... and strangely enough his team won twice !! But the best bit was when Stephen realising that he was on the winning team - probably for the first time n his life - just had to hug and dance with me to celebrate. You would have walked 500 miles to see his face light up - the first of quite a number of times this weekend!!
Time for lunch - and once again Compass were determined to fill us full of goodies. One lad, his plate of sandwiches so high it was in danger of spilling over, just averted the crisis by eating it all in less than 4 minutes; another discovered that it was possible to, put away 5 penguin biscuits and 2 bags of crisps in one 2minute visit to the serving table - but was discovered to have deep pockets....
So it was outside in the darkening afternoon for the challenge course which we all did together - NO PROBLEM!! Max scores for the Spiders Web, max scores for the Sacred Mole Tree (a joy for the leaders to realise that it would work !!) and max points for the crates and planks exercise across the white shark infested seas .... It was Joe the instructor's fertile capetown background that made it real. After the compulsory tea break, we found ourselves at the bottom of a HUGE tree - massive - hit the lowering sky - pine thingy - all dressed up in sumo slings and crash-hats. First up was Jamie the Catweasel - hit the hooter at the top and descended just as gracefully; wee Stephen followed but suffered from an absence of places to find his feet and hands halfway up, choosing to fly down like Spiderman rewind; Dave pretended it was like the escaltors in Jenners and tried to find the roof; Lindsey hit her target at the halfway stage; I kept sitting on the knee I wanted to move up from - imagine it's like trying to leave the egg you want lay; and Jordan ascended like a stunt man out of a James Bond movie. Just after 4pm and darkness fell so it HAD to be time for another massive session of tea and bix, soccer in the sports hall and pool ,table tennis and table football in the games room - so laid back, so easy to have so much fun, so great to engage with each other in a non-threatening way.
So what shall I say about dinner? Sweet and sour pork, vegetarian ricey stuff - Jamie tried it all and said it was OK; the other guys hit it with avengeance and the leaders murmured comfortably all the way through. If that wasn't enough, Douggie in the kitchen then bribed us to stay another day with a dessert which crossed the boundaries of civilisation, cream, tangerines, biscuit base and chocolate sauce dribbled over it all. Nothing else for it - we shared the tangerines, some had the choc, some had the base and everyone had the cream - seconds and thirds. We initiated a toast to the pudding !!
Had to go out for a walk to shake the whole lot down - in the rain, in the wind, in the full moon and the clouds - sheep spotting, shadow chasing, talking about were-wolves and persuading that the end of the lane was just around the bend.
40 mins later it was TTI - time to imagine (previously known as Time Out / the GOD slot / oh no not again). We all joined in the story cards game, learned to ask loads of questions and got the final story of the lad who woke up with a pig in his bed (or rather , the pig that woke up with a lad in his bed - its OK , it's in the Bible) - and then 20 minutes of almost silence as we painted pictures of things to remind us of something special about our time so far - magic : come up and see my etchings.
Time to break out for 20 minutes of footie in the sports hall and then back to the lads' room for ..... supper kindly served by Douggie and accompanied by the DVD ' Cheaper by the dozen - 2'. Sadly I wasn't up to speed with the volume settings of the laptop, so we all had to sit very very quietly munching sweets and cake for 90 minutes to follow the plot. Stephen went to his bed and fell asleep and Lindsey just closed her eyes for 5 minutes which stretched for an additional 60 minutes !! Strangely enough, when it came time for bed, Stephen woke up, the boys wanted to be silly and the previous night's routine was followed unbtil ... the same time.
How can you get 3 tired lads up on a Sunday morning before 8 o'clock ? It was not easy, no animals were hurt in the clearout, Jamie tried to have a shower with his clothes and trainers on, the beds were also stripped at the same time and Jordan went through an atheist stage in 3 minutes. But breakfast was the reward : if the porage wasn't perfect - and it was, just ask Stephen '3 bowls' Woods - then the ultimate - and to our shared knowledge, this only happens at Compass - treat were the woffles, poured over with softfruits in their syrup and lovingly PLASTERED with cream. THIS is breakfast. Heaven is obviously round the corner.
Becoming alive and fortified for the day meant we started with packing up the rooms, football in the sportshall and orienteering in the grounds. The bottom fields were flooded so we thought we might have to try sheep rescueing but instead completed the 3 courses without problems. Following Simon's (the instructor) insistence, we had a tea break before the final activity of our stay - crate climbing in the sportshall. It's about pretending to be the hunchback of Notre Dame with this artificial hunch making harness, making a statement about personal worth and confidence on top of a stack of beat-up milk crates which you have assembled under you whilst trying to keep on top of the business, daring suspended like a mannequin from the Cirque Rondo routine. Easy to describe - bordering on the torture end of having fun scale. Jordan won with 11 crates; Dave flew off with 9 or 10 (same as Jamie) - something about having a height advantage; Jordan found his feet couldn't easily fit; sorry, but cannot actually recall Lindsey's attempts and I was excused on medical grounds!! The biggest kick - when you fall off and kick the crates away - all over the hall - whilst dangling like a spider descending on its victim - most excellent.
Lunch - that peculiar mixture of d-i-y sandwiches which for some reason invites the lads to invent the 'how-many-layers-of-filling-can-you-get-in-yours?' games which resulted in loads of leftover crusts. cheese bits all over and under the table ... but which couldn't detract from the serious intentions of the soup lovers of this world. Lentil with spices. The words themselves begin the droll to form (as Yoda said). Dave and Lyndesy did 1 each, Jordan managed 4 and the sad person scripting this epistle was left alone at the table at the end of the meal, reflectively and lovingly swirlingthe contents of bowl 7 round his gums like a hackneyed wine buff at the end of a date with his destiny.
The final hour blurred into football, rooms cleaning (loose trainer spotting), car packing and the round table talk to discover how much we had really all enjoyed being together (a group hug without the histrionics). Then Dave folded himself in the very back seat of the Zaphira, Lindsey found herself keeping the peace between the lads in the middle bench and we were gone -returning Compass to its natural state of peace and quiet - and the odd sock left in the shower.
posted by Reality at
6:56 pm
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