Mr Saxon goes to Poole: Saturday later afternoon" It's just a weekend of firsts"

Of course the downside of using Satnav is it takes a little while for it to boot up and then figure out where it is but at least it beats trying to drive and read a piece of paper.

But whilst I was waiting for my satnav to boot up, after coming back up from the beach two of the ladies attending the convention waved at me as they passed and offered to let me follow them as we headed to the local meeting house for the evening bbq.

When we arrived I was unsurprised to find and I'm sure any church member will be also unsurprised to hear who was helping with preparing the bbq.

Why the missionaries of course ( it doesn't matter where you go in the world, you go to a church do with food, the elders are sure to appear.)

The two ladies, who shall hence forth be referred to as speed up and laugh a lot ( yes I know I'm struggling for nicknames but c'est la vie) were heading into the chapel when they heard a piece of news that horrified them after afternoon at the beach getting covered in sand and salt. There were no showers!! Quite why they though there would be, I have no idea unless they have a exceptionally well equipped home chapel, but as they were staying with a local church member they had no way of getting one before the evening's trip.

" that's no problem, my B and B is just round the corner you could come there and use my shower". Wait, I thought who just suggested that? Oh wait that was me? There was one of those drawn out moments where I realised what I had just said. I had technically asked two women I had only just met to come back to my room! ( i know I had considered this weekend to be getting out of my comfort zone and doing things I wouldn't usually but I mean come on!)

At which point the two women expressed what can be best described as undying gratitude and immediately wanted to go there straight away.

Leaving the chapel we passed fraggle who was somewhat surprised that we seemed to be leaving straight away and wanted to know where we were going to. One of the girls cheerfully announced that I was taking the two of them back to my room.

The look on his face was really rather funny.

So guiding them back  to my B&B I quickly found out that they had come even further then I had. It seems that a lack of mid singles events in the uk is prompting people to travel rather long distances. They also quickly christened me "tom-tom" as I had to hold their sat nav in my hands in order to get directions.

Fortunately the owners of the B&B had no objections to them quickly using my room to get ready and in case anyone was getting too worried, I waited downstairs in the lounge.

By the time we got back to the chapel the bbq was in full swing, but of course being a church event there was more then enough left over and plenty still cooking on the bbq (where the elders were still firmly on duty). I was wondering outside to find a nice seat to eat my food when I noticed one of the girls who had come to use my shower, in the bishops office, sitting in the dark but she had plugged in her hair dryer so she could dry her hair. I'll just say that again, she was sitting in the bishops office in the dark, drying her hair. I couldn't help but ask why she was drying her hair in the dark. Her answer was short and straight to the point,  she was drying her hair in the dark as this was the only place she had found a free plug and she would feel guilty if she was doing in the light as she would be able to see the picture of President Monson clearly. I looked at the picture she was pointed at on the wall and decided not to mention that in the dark she had actually got it wrong. It wasn't President Monson in the picture frame. It was somebody above him, shall we say :-)

Over dinner there was a lot of general chit chat, and surprisingly enough some mention of Fifty shades of grey... but not in the way you were thinking mind you. Nope, it was more about how it was a sign of the times.  However there was a lot of talk about other things too and I was struck about how friendly everybody was in the poole area. Most church members are usually rather friendly but there was something about the guys and girls down there which seemed to be extra friendly. I wasn't hard to figure out that it was the leadership down there that was the cause of such a welcoming spirit.

However I did find out that our stake seems to be one of the only stakes that seem to consider that once you're 30 you're immediately out of YSA. Most other stakes seem to consider it's 31 and even then you would be "phased out". The abrupt "shown to the door" and no handover to the SA program that I had got was a cause of much surprise to many, which left me in two minds about what had happened, but I quickly shrugged and put it out of my mind. I was having too much fun

And besides it was time for the boat.