Madness and Mayhem: The First Reality Camp of 2007

Well, I (Lorna) was involved in my first camp the other weekend, which just happened to be the first Reality camp of 2007! I actually felt the pressure of making it a success so I packed my bags, put on my friendlist smile, said goodbye to my cats and headed to the Compass Christian Centre at Glenshee with two other volunteers and two young men....who shall not be named!

All in all I had a blast, and so did everyone else. I know this because there was lots of laughter and general merriment. Plus, the food was outstanding, the two boys ate like horses and I had to hold back on not having two helpings of apple strudel, which made me want to proposition Dougie into not emmigrating to Canada this year, but instead coming and cook for me! In return he would receive the use of my car and my extensive DVD collection. However, I didn't think he would appreciate such an offer so just settled with home made flap jacks and hot chocolate. The accommodation was also fab and very comfortable. Also, the staff and instructors were amazing!

The two boys really enjoyed the activities provided for them over the two days; low ropes course, rock climbing, orienteering and archery. Although I have to confess that Orienteering reminds me of my days back in secondary school when you had to wear shorts with long socks and trainers in the nastiest of weather, in order to use a random map with numbers all over it like a dot-to-dot puzzle it to find different tags in woodland areas, and for what I ask???? 'The experience' we were told by teachers. Not really a good enough answer in my opinion. Plus you had to run as fast as you could! What a nightmare! However, on this occasion I actually quite enjoyed it as there were no shorts or long socks in sight. Woo hoo!

The low ropes course was really good fun as once you had gone round it successfully, you had to do it blind folded or with a cup of water!! The two boys jumped at the chance to do this, and I took the role of 'buddy' for the one with the blindfold. He did extremely well and only fell off once, much to his dismay, but he got back on and tried again. I think the other young person only managed to spill a small amount of water from his cup, which in my opinion was a miracle as he had to negotiate himself over several difficult bits; rope swings, through a tractor tyre and on a tight rope. They both did extremely well and had a ball doing it.

We returned from camp on sunday and to be honest I was exhausted and all the cats wanted to do was play. I had a fab weekend, and I'm sure the young people did too, well they said in their evaluation sheets that they did so that should be indication enough! I'm really looking forward to the next one in a couple of weeks.