Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Mr Saxon goes to Poole: Saturday Morning " if you go down to the woods today"

The only way to describe the bed in the B&B is "bouncy". Maybe it was just due to me getting used to a memory foam mattress but every time I turned over in it, it felt like I was going to bounce out of the bed. And they must have been some strong springs for me to feel that!

After getting ready and having a rather too long and overly colourful burst of language when I found my missing shaving kit, it was time to go.

Now breakfast was in a place called "georgie porgie's"  a restaurant which I hadn't heard of before but it it sounded interesting and on the plus side I had lucked out and been assigned the "middle" group for breakfast. So not stupidly early but not late enough so I would have to rush.

What I found was what can best be described as the a wonderland of breakfast. Not only was it all you can eat buffet, there was literally every kind of breakfast food you can think of. Ceral's, porridge, juices, plain bread, toast, pastries, bacon, sausages, beans, eggs, boiled, poached and fried..................

Well you get the idea. Basically it was place that left me in two minds. Firstly wishing that we had this place up near geektown and secondly glad that we didn't have a place like this near geektown as if that's how good their breakfast's were their dinners were likely to be as equally good.

So first up for the day was a service project at a local school. Which as it turned out was a primary school with very little in the way of chairs in the main hall but a lot of kids instruments which unsurprisingly with such a grown up group of individuals (no really) lead to a few impromptu renditions.

The service project was to clear a nature trail through the nearby woods for the school, but walking out of the school the heavens opened Badly. I decided discretion ( especially with carrying my camera, yes the case has a water proof case but there's no point tempting fate) was the better part of valor and took shelter with some of the other mid singles under this odd wooden shelter thing.

Other mid singles kept walking and disappeared into the woods. But then the vast majority were still sheltering in the school! Fortunately the rain quickly disappeared and we were able to catch up with the others.

Now the trail was pretty overgrown but we had been issued with lots of tools. Something which once again helped to sum up the difference between guys and gals. Now the different approach can be best summed up basically as

girl: I will carefully clip that plant, that plant and leave that plant as it's not terribly overgrown and isn't a weed or a pest

Guy: I have sharp tool and I can cut things, r'aahhhh!!!

Okay so slightly over emphasised but you get the idea.

They say sometimes if you go down to the woods that you were get a big surprise. Well anyone going into those woods would have been really surprised as most mid singles had switched to using there ponchos which had come in variety of colours such as bright blue, bright yellow and pink! Which did lead to some interesting photos.

Now with so many mid-singles the existing trail was quickly cleared. Which lead us to a problem as it suddenly came to a end, which lead to some confusion as we weren't sure if it was meant to keep going or if it had really ended! With no leaders, and people sent to ask failing to reappear ( cue lots of jokes about Charlie.... don't know what I'm talking about then look it up :-)

But after a little while with so many guys standing around with tools and nothing to do it was almost inevitable that the hacking quickly started again. Which fortunately turned out okay as it really was part of the trail. Although with all of the clearing stuff being chucked back further into the wood we were wondering if this was part of some secret plan to create a self sustaining service project.

Of course the easing of the work meant that we had some chances for impromptu socialising, which was a little bit strange talking to people in a wood wearing multi-coloured pieces of plastic.

Now it was about at this time I happened to check my phone and found that of course with my battery being so low I had actually received a barrage of calls from a friend. Now as to the reason well I won't go into that but suffice to say a damsel in distress was in need of a listening ear. But the start of the conversation proved to be another one of the highly amusing points of the weekend, as it went some like this

Me: I can't talk long as my battery is dying and I'm in a wood

Damsel: In a wood? Are you taking Owen for a walk?

Me: No

Damsel: Where is this wood?

Me: Poole

Damsel:... wait what?

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