Another trip south-west down to Brean Sands in Somerset for a weekend of entertainment and activities with friends from across the country. After settling in on Friday we were entertained in the evening by both Lady Gaga and Pink – otherwise known as Vicky Jackson, an extremely good tribute artist. This was an evening to catch up with people we hadn’t seen for a while, and generally relax and get into the party mood for the weekend. As is usual for the party weekends, the party mood continued well into the early hours of the morning in one of the caravans, despite the usual host being missing – stuck in Spain due to the Iclandic volcanic ash cloud (and on his birthday too!) – that didn’t stop the party happening in his caravan anyway!!
Saturday was pretty much free to do as we wished, the sun was out, the fair was open, there was a market on site and ten pin bowling had been arranged at the neighbouring site – so what did we do? sit in the caravan reading books and chatting for a lot of it! A wander round site now and then resulted in several helpings of some rather special ice-cream – and a weather check showed not a breath of wind to fly the kites that I took! We took a walk down to the beach where the tide was so far out that a member of another group tried to go for a swim but gave up looking for the water! The sun was so bright and hot we were wondering if we should have put on sun cream, but none of us were actually that organised!
Saturday evening was 80’s night – the band were the ZX80’s, a young band who on the most part hadn’t actually experienced the 80’s first-hand but that didn’t stop them belting out not just the usual cheesy pop that 80’s tribute bands tend to do, but some great long-forgotten songs that got us all up and dancing – possibly the best 80’s group that I have seen so far. Despite a slight power problem part-way through their second set they kept going long into the night – definite value for money!
Sunday morning, with only a few hours sleep after returning from the caravan party once again, some of us tried to stay awake long enough to watch the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix. Not certain if any of us actually saw the whole race, certainly I missed a few laps here and there!
With some time to recoup our energy in the morning (back to sleep after the motor racing!), Adam, the organiser, had found a way of making us use it all up again in putting on some silly games in the venue after the usual quiz – think giant Twister, giant Kerplunk, inflatable indoor footbal penalty shoot, limbo and adult space-hoppers. Phew! Also some Wii games going on which were slightly more sedate.
Sunday evening was rock night with a band called “Angel Up Front” – a great band who not only did the usual rock covers, but some more hard-core rock such as Metallica and AC/DC – this was followed by another trip down to the beach, once the girls had changed their footwear (well some of them!) and torches had been collected. With us we took some chinese lanterns which proved to be a bit of a challenge to light, but quite spectacular once they got up in the air. A few got caught on the dunes but the National Chairman had been enroled in “stamping out” duties. What a way to end an excellent weekend, although of course not technically the end as the third caravan party of the weekend took place with our very own “toast-maker” to keep us fed!
All feeling slightly worse for wear through lack of sleep and probably excess of alcohol in a lot of cases, all we had to do on Monday morning was drag ourselves out of bed (easier said than done…), pack up our stuff, tidy the van and head back home, another great weekend over far too quickly.
Photos have been uploaded and will be available on this site as soon as the page is working again….
Christine T