It’s amazing how quickly the day goes past when you are away. It’s now 10.30pm and the children are all in bed or just having their lights put out! We certainly have had ‘four seasons in one day’ today! We have had bright sunshine, strong wind, rain, hail, snow and everything else in between. In fact you could stand and look up at the sky and on one side the sky was blue and the sun was shining and on the other it was grey, foggy and the rain or snow was falling!
However, that did not dampen the enthusiasm of the children or the staff and we had another busy day.
We went for breakfast at 8.30am after getting the children up at 7.30am. We went down the steps to the boathouse for the first time of the day and half of them had their breakfast while the others ‘created’ their sandwich creations! They had a wide range of choices for breakfast – cereal, fruit, yogurt, toast, bacon, beans, haggis (yes – haggis!!) and fruit juice.
Soon we were ready for our first activity of the day. Two groups were going sailing while Mrs Stephen’s group headed off to the archery range. The sailors got extra waterproofs and jackets from the instructors to make sure they all had plenty of layers on before adding a life jacket on top! They made their way to the jetty and each group was taken out in a powerboat to their sailing boat. The winds were too high to go out in the small boats and so they went out in three larger groups in the bigger boats. They had great fun but it was VERY COLD and they were all glad to make it back on to dry land two hours after setting off.
Mrs Stephen’s group developed their archery skills and they could all see that with some hard work and effort they could make steady improvements with practice. I think it is fair to say that all three groups enjoyed their archery session.
We headed back up the hill for lunch and we decided it was best to have our lunch in our chalets or rooms so that we got a bit of peace and quiet instead of being in the big group.
The afternoon saw Mrs Stephen’s group head off for walk along the loch and into the wooded area beyond the loch. We saw a variety of different wildlife including a rather angry looking bull and a very friendly Shetland pony! Everyone completed the walk but some had to spend some time waiting for the stragglers to catch up!
The other two groups entered the wooded area next to the loch to take part in a variety of problem solving activities and they faced a series of challenges to test their skill, the trust of their friends and how to work as part of a team to complete a task! The blindfolded trail through the woods certainly meant that they had to trust the person in front of them as they were led through a trail all blindfolded and holding on top the person in front!
Tea was a BBQ – one of two during the week. However, due to the continuing snow flurries we were in the boathouse to eat which I think everyone was pleased about. We had soup, burgers or veggie kebabs, baked potatoes and salad rounded off with a choc ice! As if we were not cold enough!!
Our evening activity saw all three groups venture on to the shinty pitch for games! Half the group played rounders while the other half were introduced to shinty before swapping over half way through. The thought of our P7’s running about with shinty sticks was not what I would have chosen as a first choice but away they went anyway!
The rounders was great fun and ended up as a real competitive pair of matches between Miss McFarlane’s and Mr Jenkins’ teams! I am not going to say who won as Miss McFarlane might get upset!
So after 90 minutes of playing games in the fading light and in rain, snow and sunshine we all headed back to base for some juice before taking part in our last activity for the night. The children were split into four groups and they were set the challenge of creating a comic strip of their trip so far. Two groups worked in the TV room while two groups worked in one of the chalets and they worked well together to create their booklet in only 45 minutes!
We finished off the day by going over the plans for tomorrow! Each group will be Canadian Canoeing and Snow Boarding at some point during the day. This will be a physically hard day and we hope we can get a good nights sleep tonight.
Anyway, we can hope for a better day of weather tomorrow but we wont let it spoil our day.
We hope that you enjoy looking at the photo slideshow below.
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