YSA Conference Day 2 Evening, emergency, code red, This is a matter of life or death! (apparently)

Well the next classes up were some dancing classes. But as neither were ceroc neither Engineseer or I were that interested, so we decided that was a good a point as any to slip off site and go to the shops to get some goodies. Despite having got some supplies for the way up there’s only so many starbursts you can eat without feeling ill ( asides from Fraggle who seems able to eat them till the cows come home!). We met up in the carpark to discover that one of the girls from Leicester and her friend were heading out to the shops so engineseer had bagged a lift with them. We were planning to go to Tesco, then that was scrubbed and we decided to go to Asda, then that was changed and we ended up in Sainsburys! So as you can imagine we kept turning around quite a bit, partly due to their satnav which was nowhere near as good as Engineseers. Anyway apparently their trip to the shops was of a more urgent nature then us simply going to get something to eat. Apparently they needed stand alone mirrors as the ones in the bathrooms weren't good enough and the light in their meant they came out with far too much make up on(which didn't make much sense to us). I made a joke that Engineseer and I had the same problem which went down like a lead balloon. Which made me realise that there are some things guys shouldn't joke about and just take girls words for.

So after trying sainsburys, a lloyds pharmacy, and several other shops we ended up at Asda which we were aiming for to begin with! They did have mirrors ( fortunately for them as the girls seemed to be ready to hurt someone! that would have been an interesting report for the conference organisers to make, he, he). We made it back to the campus in what we thought was plenty of time for dinner. However the girls said they would probably have to skip dinner so they could get ready for the ball. The ball started at 8pm and dinner was 7pm. I was confused at how it would take them two hours to get ready but again there are some things that are destined to remain a mystery to guys until your married. However the dance classes had finished at the same time we arrived back so by the time we arrived in the courtyard ( next to the tower) we were at the back of the queue . ( this year they only had one queue instead of two!) Engineseer and I, waited and waited, after 5 minutes of not really moving at all, Engineseer asked if I really wanted a BBQ and there was a mcdonalds down the road. After a further 10 minutes I agreed I wasn't really that desperate to have BBQ food so off we went to McD's which was a 10 minute walk.

We discovered a problem in McD's. The checkout girl asked Engineseer something about our wristbands and his reply was " No, nooo, that's certainly not us" After we sat down I asked him what she had asked. Apparently she had asked if we were from the 'pride parade' in town as all the participants were wearing the same style of wristbands. Oops. Lets hope the leaders didn't see any of the people from the parade and get very, very worried! I guess that would have made a even more interesting report.

After we had eaten and walked back we discovered that the girls who had been in the queue behind us for the BBQ had still not been served and were at lest 10 minutes away from being served. The look on their face was priceless. They couldn't believe it.

We returned to our rooms and got ready for the ball. Which to be honest probably only took about a tenth of the time it took the girls to get ready. I was having problems with my bowtie again but fortunately fraggle was on hand to help me out. I had it totally screwed up! Engineseer appeared and we waited for the girls and waited and waited. We finally decided it would probably be a better idea to go to the ball and meet them there as it was 9.30pm at this point and we had a sneaking suspicision that they would be shutting the ball at 11pm.



Anyway here's the three of us all dressed up;
See I can look good occasionally :-)

and Engineseer and Fraggle again. Anyway, no YSA ball would be complete without a choclate fountain and there was one. Literally one. Here it is!

We did wonder if one choclate fountain between 600 YSA was going to be enough. There was a proper swing band this year, so it was a very different atmosphere to last years ball. The guy on the mike really knew how to work the crowd though. I'm not sure if the lights were any brighter though. He, he, he.

As we had suspected the dance did finish early. The lights came up at around 11.15ish. What we didn't expect was to be asked to take a seat on the floor as someone got up and read a spirtual thought/ gave a talk ( it was short so it's hard to say what it was). The organiser of the conference then stood up and gave a brief talk and used scripture, thats right actually quoted scripture to make a point that as soon as it was midnight it would be the sabbath then called upon us using " religious terms" say we say to make sure we went straight to bed. There was a brief moment of stunned silence in our little group at least as we were a mite surprised that he had done that! Asking us to go to bed by quoting scripture! He also came out with his buzz phrase of the weekend " To some obdience is still an irritant, but I'll get to that later!

So out we headed, some YSA I suspect were being deliberately awkward and staying out on the paths talking for as long as possible. But a large percentage did disappear almost straight away. But anyhow I gave it another hour or so before shortly heading for my room a little while after midnight.