There's A New Hampshire?

On last tuesday afternoon me ben, chris and joe took a road trip up the 302 to north conway which is inside new hampshire , was really pretty driving through the mountains. Went to a couple of places there then back to camp,

The last few days have been pretty crazy, kids everywhere, all sorts of random activities, lots of crazyness going on, Haven't been online in what feels like forever so im sorry if this is breif and if i don't manage to reply to everyone who has sent various messages!

Yesturday i had a suprise at flagpole, jeanette the secretary told me i had a phonecall from one of my family, so i ran to the office thinking something was wrong, it turned out that my (great) auntie joan was on the phone! She was ringing to suprise me after getting my postcard, was really ace! On the subject of postcards, have sent them to most of you who requested them, and on a rantier note, PLEASE WRITE BACK, the kids get so much mail, and ive had nothing so far,there will be a prize for the first piece to arrive!

Today we went to mataponi, a girls camp for 4th july, with fireworks and general patrotic scariness! Had to watch 'my boys' dance with the girls, and did a great embarresing dad routine of trying to get them together!

Hope everyone back home is well and not dying of the heatwave!

T

P.S. No emma your not blocked
P.P.S hiya susie, sounds like youve had lots of fun, hope youve sorted out your failingness/ fan-ness problem!

Gotta Love the Rain

For the last three or four days it has decided to rain,

Therefore yestuday instead of regular activites we went to rainy day schedule i.e. like wet play in school, which consisted of dogdgeball in the morning, watching a film in the afternoon, then capture the flag against the oaks in the evening, however because of this the kids hadnt quite got rid of their energy, meaning that when it came to my first night on my own in charge, it took FOREVER to get to sleep, arrgghhh.

We also had the joys of shower night last night, which was hilarious as you have to actually put the shampoo on the kids hair for them to make sure they put it on!

Overall the kids are quite nice tho, 7 of them, two of which are from puerto rico, i know i should know where that is, but i really have no idea! Even have one who is obsessed about being tidy because he thinks hes allergic to mulch!

Anyway, its my day off today and have nothing to do really but chill out and watch football! yay!

Portland Madness

Woo, today had an absoultely amazing time!
Sarah, Chris, Clevland and I went into Portland on our first day off,
First off we went to the mall, where i bought some more joggers (its sooo cold at night) and a new cap, then to a movie, then the beach which seemed to be where all of portland walked there dogs!
Then after exploring a church being rennovated, went to downtown portland, where we had lobster on the dockfront which was absolutely amazing, was soo beautiful in portland, have some good photos,

Bought some postcards too so they will be coming right up

yesturday we moved all the kids stuff in, now for people who think i take a lot of stuff to uni you should see the kids bags, most of them had 2-3 HUGE bags full of stuff, some including up 18 towels along with supersoakers and all sorts of other stuff, it feels as if the kids are here even tho there not!

As for the match we won 3 sets to 2 against ceder, i think i played fairly well, and then helped be a supporter for the football i mean soccer game where we won 3-1

anyway, time for bed

T
P.S Write Me

Im a Scyamore!

This afternoon found out who im going to be with for the next 7 weeks, ive got a bunk of '
sycamores' who are 12 year olds,

My co councellor is called nick or rosey, hes 19, from new york and has been here before as a camper, after ''the draft'' was made we moved into our bunk, 17a and unpacked everything onto the shelves, still yet to find a place to hang my flag tho!

Tomorrow we have to unpack all of the kids stuff, which arrived this afternoon as well, should be interesting to see what sort of stuff is in these huge bags!

This evening we went bowling, well i say we went bowling, but actually it was totally different to real bowling, had pins the size of a coke bottle and balls the size of a cricket ball! and i didnt even bowl! However there was airhockey!

In addition to my previous post, it turns out that vinny the head of tennis's bunk was half destroyed by the storm!

T

STORM!!!

Well ive just survied my first ever proper american storm, was amazing!
After volleyball practice yesturday, we were in the showers when suddenly it starts to rain, then out of nowhere works itself up into a full scale storm with winds flying branches, etc etc,

When we wanted to get out of the shower it took both me and benji to open the door! then sprinted back to our cabin, a minite later the power went out, weve only just got it back about an hour ago!
Im currently in a room with dan from new york state and coby from carolina, both who are great and we are quite sad about the end of pre camp meaning we wont be able to hang out togther as much.

Yestuday evening we went to a pool hall to watch the miami vs. dallas basketball game, which was quite fun, lots of other people from different camps there too which was nice, met a girl who used to work in kingston! Took some great photos which i can't wait to show all you guys

Anyway after another 'mulch fest' this morning im pretty tired now, so better be off, have got volleyball practise at 2, then we find out what age group we will be with for the next 7 weeks!

Lastly, for those who were interested, my address is Camp Wildwood, 318 Wildwood road, Brigton, Maine, 04009 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Please write to me and or send me random things from home, anything to decorate my bunk with would be greatly apprtiated! I will write back!

T

What did you just say?

Wowa its been hot today and yesturday, i think i must have sweated out about 3 litres of water,

Yesturday morning we all went to our specialty areas to check them out and start preparing for when the kids get here on sunday, I therefore went into the illustrious studios of radio wild 89.5 where, along with steven the IT councellor we swept, cleaned the surfaces and equipment and plugged stuff in to see what worked, then we cleaned the transmitter and managed to make it reach all the way down to the lake! Driving around camp listening to the radio on stevens car was a fun method of checking out where was working!

Then in the afternoon we all went down to the senior camp to lay down the mulch, which was esp. hard as it was sooo rediculosly hot! Altough apparently im an expert 'raker', which is something to go onto the cv i guess.

This morning was the worst yet as far as the heat went, we were digging up weeds and removing rocks from the BMX track, which was errr not fun, as well as putting up the tarpaulin around the baseball feild. At least after all the work we were able to cool off in the lake, best swim ive had in a long time.
After a trip to portland to get social security numbers it was time for the try outs for the teams for thursdays inter councellor competitions with two other camps. There are four sports were contesting - softball, football, tennis and volleyball, so natuarally i plumped for volleyball and have made the team for thursday! woo, my serve worked really well even if i did knock one guy onto the floor!

One thing ive picked up so far is the amount of different words ive started to use, i go to school not uni, drink soda, like soccer not football and its liicour not alchol. Amougnst other accent amusement i was asked today if they dubbed the simpsons into english!

This evening we had another camp over for a barbecue that had to be inside, altough i didnt speak to many of them as had to spend most of the night dj'ing, tho did get a round of applause which was nice. Altough its the first time ive played when theres been a storm going on and had intermittent power supplies.

Anyway the stanley cup (hockey) final is on now so better go watch that, bye for now!

Oh and by the way Gatorade is goooooddd
T

Alive!

Heya everyone i am alive and have made it to camp! woo
Two days straight travelling really kills so apologies for this being brief, am also currently being initated in watching ice hockey!
Flight was err fun, got moved earlier then back later, then that was delayed, and as everyone else had been moved it became a group of six of us, who got to know each other quite well, tho were not going to see each other for the rest of the summer, odd
Got into NYC last night, nice touristy type taxi ride down broadway, then a walk down broadway to get food.
Woke up at 6 this morning to go get the bus up here, along with katy whos camp is nearby, was a fun ride, including one bus driver who thought he should be flying!

Got into camp about 5 along with paul whos the other councellor here from england.

Had some games and stuff tonight, including dodgeball where i lasted out to the last 5, to much appaluse despite not being able to throw! well comparitvley anyway

oohh hockeys starting, better get back to learn, im having some baseball lessons tomorrow too,

hope everyones well

T

What I'm Going To Miss And What I'm Not

First of All, thank you to everyones kind words so far with regards to the blog, especially thanks to those who have left comments or even set up their own blog in honor. Yeah that touched me a lot actually.

I've been doing some thinking over the last couple of days, over the things that i will, and won't miss about Britain over the summer when im away.. Partly this was a list i made on the train the other day when trying to aviod listening to the loud yet slightly boaring man behind me on the phone.


Things I'm Going to Miss About the British Summer:

1) The Cricket Season- Yes i know i am a 'cricket badger' nee addict and theres nothing like the experience of listening to Test Match Special or spending vast amounts of time on cricinfo looking for the latest Surrey score, oh well, may have to pay a little more attention to Wisden next year
2) Wimbeldon, not for the tennis more for the perculiar occurance that is my grandma dissapearing for two weeks.
3) Deal or No Deal, Nuff Said
4) The random summer afternoons spent with my mother watching a combination of watercolour challenge and countdown.
5) Pubs. Freedom to inhabit at will.
6) London Pride.
7) The legitmacy to ware shorts
8) Outdoor Gigs
9) Catching Up with old freinds
10) The Cinema, all the best films are in the summer, i never know why
11) Strawberries in season


Things I Definately Won't Miss About The British Summer:

1) World Cup Hype nee Hystria, especially if England do make it past the inevitable embarresing exit on penalties. Especially the over-jealous use of the st george flag on everything.
2) Being stuck indoors on the one nice day of the year. Typical
3) Not having air conditioning in the car on the one nice day of the year. Typical
4) The rediculously early start to the football season. One word SEPTEMBER.
5) Silly news stories, remeber William Hauge's ''14 Pints''?
6) 'Summer Dance Crazes' They're Crap. End of.
7) Those stupid battery powered fans .
8) Government cock ups. actually no i will miss them they're funny.
9) Mindless wheather talk. 'ohhh isn't it nice' Well done, maybe you should join the observer corps.
10) 'The Ashes are coming soon', oh dear, not sure my nerves can take another one
11) The inevitable summer romance,
12) Captial Radio playing crap music, that's not exclusive to the summer mind
13) Big Brother Fueled Hype and Spin-off's
14) Water shortages whilst its raining
15) Exam results. Both my own and everyone else's. Though more my own
16) Realising trousers were a mistake.
17) Mindless transfer speculation, no Thierry Henry isn't going to sign for accrington stanley, he didn't last year did he?

Well i think that's most of my rant gone, incase you couldn't tell, im really looking forward to going now

Oooh its gone past midnight. That means its a week to go. Hoooorayyy

Stay tuned folks


T

Embassy Madness

Today was the day i had the joys of going to get my visa from the american embassy! What fun it was!

For starters im a little peeved, i only got to speak to one real american! Never mind the four hours of Q-ing no no, it's all about meeting americans, altough he did make me feel about 400% better by saying those immortal words 'have a nice day'. It was a moment of pure magic. The system itself was quite amusing, you started off in a cue outside the building confronted by a siginificantly rotund security guard with a magical folder, and he knew how much power he held. The main dissapointment here was that he had a cockney accent and not the mid-western drawl i'd imagined from such a man.

In the Que I met two fellow Bunac'ers (yes im not enitrely sure of the grammer here), one a friendly sort of girl who was from Nottingham and going to New Hampshire, and another a Scottish boy who was also heading to Maine, but a different camp. Once threw the guardian with the folder, a long walk around the outside of the building led to a strange portakabin type affiar with two security guards and one of those airport type security devices that beep hideously. I even had to remove my belt!

Then walked back around the building again the other way, back past where i'd just walked to meet yet another security guard who asked me to turn off my phone, and hand in my camera or laptop if i had them, which i didn't but why were they so desperate to make me hand them in anyway, is it in case i were to actually try to combat the boredom of the process, however, there are always other means to these sorts of things.

Once i entered the waiting room, which most closely resembeled and eastern european airport lounge, i was handed a pair of barcodes with my alloted number- 598 which for the rest of the afternoon would become something close to an obsession. Despite me wanting to cry out 'i'm not a number i'm a free man, i began the search for a seat, which at this point was little close to a mission that james bond would be hesitant to accept.

I eventually found one, typicall right in the middle of a packed row, but negotiating this was still a better prospect than pearching in the corridor as many had resorted to. It turned out then that you had to wait twice, once to hand in your forms to one of the windows, which it turned out was about an hour, which were being called out in sequence, then you had to wait even longer, about another 3 hours, to visit another little window, which was home to my american.

Whilst sat down i discovered that my neighbours either side of me were also Bunac'ers, One again a scottish bloke who had done it last year and was going to California, and the other was another scottish girl who was going to Maine, which may or may not be linked to my camp. What is it with the scot's, there do seem to be alot of them who are bunac'ers, i suppose there were also a lot of them who ran the empire, maybe its a sort of escape complex, not that i know, having never actually made it as far as Scotland.

Well eventually after the four hour marathon i decided that some retail therepy was required so headed up oxford street and, inevitably ended up in HMV, after having a brief spin of some records on the decks, bought a Stone roses remix on Vinyl, cureing the current obsession for both vinyl and the stone roses, then on the way out bought the vaugely useful 'How to Dj- Properly' which i read with some ferverency on the train back in order that i may have a hope in hell of looking like i know what im doing when i get out there!

Anyway as Zebedee would say, Time for bed!

T

Huzzaahh Bloggage!

Well, Hello and welcome to my Blog, im going to be keeping this for the time that im spending in America this summer, both on camp and where i can afterwards as well, hope that everyone enjoys keeping track of me and please leave a comment aftewards, supportive, abusive or otherwise!
If you email me your address i will try to send you a postcard where i can, i will also be putting up my address for people who want to write too!

Anyway, Ill leave this bit on its own for now,

T