Rather than all posts being written by the same person, I’m using exceprts from a posting from the “one-list”, which is the National Plus forum, to give another person’s point of view – this is written by “Biggles” from Fareham group:

“This weekend very nearly got cancelled at the last minute due to a legal wangle between the local village council and the contractor who laid the grass where we would normally erect our tents! Fortunately, some fast thinking and even faster
strimming action by intrepid KL Plus members ensured that we were able to break through into uncharted camping lands in the middle of the local woodlands (even though at night it felt more like the Blair Witch woods….)

By the time the rest of us Plussers turned up, all arrangements had been made and we settled in to setting up our tents in a more scenic setting than normal!

Friday night was fairly relaxed, well, for us anyway….. The poor pub just down the road didn’t quite know what hit it, I think their normal Friday night crowd would have been a couple of regulars and a dog – not the 20 or so Plussers who
all turned up at once wanting meals and a few drinkies! Still, Their bar staff rose to the occasion magnificently and we all got served eventually! After a few hours of that, it was time to go back to the village hall and grove the rest
of the night away to karaoke provided by Excalibur Roadshow (Adam Redshaw) til about midnight and then sat around chatting, drinking and chilling till the sky started to lighten up again.

Saturday morning was a bit delayed, I think the woodland setting made the tents a bit darker for longer – so we were not dragged out this year by the hot sun bearing down directly! About 10am enough of us had surfaced to make going to
the pub for breakfast viable – although once again we overwhelmed the staff who didn’t have enough in stock for 15 or so hungry people – The poor landlord had to make a quick trip to Tesco in a hurry! lol!

Saturday afternoon found members attending National Rounders in King’s Lynn – I am reliable informed that one team won and the other came second…

Saturday evening found the fires being stoked for the traditional BBQ, Having been to Tesco’s ourselves earlier, we were well supplied with meat products and the King’s Lynn group supplied the salad and buns! Such a yummy feast was had by all.

Later that night found some people winning the endless raffle (I swear theremust have been dozens of prizes!!!) although the numbers were only coming up for Chris Porter and Serena Horsewell! How many redraws can one couple have????

The rest of the night passed with a large number of us just sat outside the hall around a fire-pit (BBQ with no food on!) for several hours just chatting, drinking and chilling out.  The fire was very watchable! Those who spent time on the dance floor seemed to enjoy themselves just as much! I understand that some members managed to stay around the fire till about 4am.

Sunday morning found us up around 9am packing our tents away and eventually departing (after everyone helped out cleaning up the hall and its surrounds!) A short detour to the local burger van was made (We gave the pub landlady a
break!) and I can recommend their double cheeseburger!

Thanks again to King’s Lynn group, Hope to see some of you at Scalextric’s in a months time and the rest of you at WASH 2010!”

Thanks to Biggles for the review and it was good to see that the alternative camping arrangements went down so well – some people are even talking about camping in the woods again next year!

Christine T

I arrived about 8.30ish in evening to pitch my tent – luckily a pop-up affair,  so up and “furnished” in time to head to the pub for a pizza with friends, much to Corinna’s (organiser) disgust as she was busily trying to convince everyone to go into the room for karaoke, which just isn’t my sort of thing (s0rry Corinna!).  A mix up at the pub resulted in a larger than ordered pizza which was quickly snapped up when I got back to the site with it.  Dancing to the disco then lots of chatting and catching up with people resulted and the late night was inevitable.

Morning time saw some cooking their own breakfast, some heading to the catering van over the road, then a short drive to the start of the days walk, and a chance to go buy a sandwich in the local shop to take with us for lunch.  The weather was excellent, the route steep in places and surely more than the 5 miles we had been promised by Francis, or maybe I’m just stupidly unfit!  Quote of the weekend was I think from Geoff – who when Francis warned us to be carefuly of the orchids in the field replied with “why – are they dangerous?”!!

Saturday evening saw us fed by Richard’s curry which was very tasty, and entertainment was a duo singing to a backing track – then disco with DJ Gary from Brean – a good chance to work off the stiffness in the legs from the walk – and no aches the next morning either!

Another walk on Sunday, although as it fell on the same day as the World Cup Final, we were under pressure to get back to the pub in time for the match…..the walk once again took us through some stunning countryside including a waterfall that we had to go through a pub to get to, and some more very steep hills.  Once strange part was walking through someone’s back garden, complete with washing on the line (attached to the footpath signpost) as part of the route!  The view was certainly worth the hill climb.  Back to the pub just in time for the football, and the non-footie fans (ok, just a few of us) went for a bite to eat at a tea-room and a wander around the town of Hawes – the home of Wensleydale cheese.

Back to site and after a bite to eat we listened to a very talented guy with an accoustic guitar – a refreshing change and I could have listened to him all night. 

Sunday morning and time to pack up and head home – all in all a great weekend, made brilliant by some excellent weather.  Definitely to be recommended!

Christine T

Also now uploaded – our most recent programme covering July to October 2010.

Coming up – more blogs, SADY and summer party amongst them, with accompanying photos for SADY – also photos for  ice-skating, Brean, and our annual visit to Nene Valley Railway….don’t go away…!!

Christine T

On a sunny day when sensible people were out enjoying the fresh air, we were going round in circles on the ice indoors wearing hats and gloves – ok so you can’t choose the weather but whats the betting that when we want to spend a day outside it won’t be half as nice!

Some of us had skated before, some hadn’t, although I peronally think Colin was having us on as he seemed to be a natural on the ice.  Dawn C was sceptical at first, but by the end of the session gained some confidence….just as we had to leave!  I am sure we will go again though as it was loads of fun, and I don’t think too many of us ended up too bruised…..despite some impressive falls!

Photos to follow, when the photos page is working again…!!  No pictures of people falling over as it always seemed to happen while I was skating myself – and I didn’t quite manage to master the art of taking a camera out of my pocket, switching it on and taking a photo whilst skating!  Also nobody was considerate enough to fall over just in front of me while I was standing at the side, camera in hand!

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

Thanks.

A new programme is now available on the programmes page, taking us up to June, with some great stuff there – including big events like Brean – the party weekend down near Weston-Super-Mare,  SADY –  a camping weekend with entertainment in Yorkshire in June and our own Midsummer Party at Tottenhill in July.  Planning is also well underway (with a few initial hiccups) for WASH in November.  Locally, we will be going ice-skating in May, also camping in some beautiful North Norfolk countryside at Kelling Heath, and a day out on the Nene Valley Railway once again (back by popular demand!).

Recently on a National level, we had the National AGM where the National Committee for the next year were elected, events promoted and views aired – a very postive and constructive day followed by some great evening entertainment from Craig Harper, a semi-finalist in Britain’s Got Talent 2008.  A great event all told. 

Last Monday’s club night was spent playing games on the Wii at Paul & Dawn’s house – just proving that we are all a bunch of children!  Mario Kart got very competitive!  Good Friday saw a party at Dawn P & Colin’s place.

More fun to come!

If you want to be kept up to date with whats happening with WASH planning, then there’s a new blog site now set up – see the link on this page (under the caption competition).

Christine T

Food and drink was in abundance as normal, some good bombay potatoes, salad and dips to go with the burgers etc.,  the two Dawns kindly offered samples of some drinks that they bought on their visit to the Lincoln Christmas market and gave us the chance to all try something different, Sherrie added her sloe gin, and some home-made cranberry vodka – very interesting!

Midnight, and the chimes, arrived and were celebrated, and then the snow arrived.  I don’t know who started the snowball fights, whether it was us or the kids, but a few of us wrapped up warm (silly hats!) and braved the weather to go hurl snowballs at each other.  Unfortunately the big kids (well, me at least!) ran out of energy before snow, which was plentiful, and abandoned that idea to go warm up in front of the log burner in the living room and discuss such interesting subjects as accounts, housework, DIY – we certainly know how to party!!!

An impromptu haircutting session happened sometime during the evening after one of the kids taunted one of the adults on his lack of hair and got threatened with the hair clippers, we couldn’t catch him, but Stephen did say he needed a haircut so Sherrie obliged!

As usual, a rather random evening, and a very late night before we all crashed either on the floor/sofas in the house (too hot because of the log burner) or in the “shed” (apparently very cold!).  Some of us looked healthier than others in the morning, possibly depending on how many shots they had partaken of the night before, Dawn P?  After cups of tea, coffee and a helping of the trifle which didn’t make it to the table the night before for breakfast we all went our separate ways – and so 2010 starts…..

 My Highlights:

Winning the quiz!!!!!!!

Half boarding (a dammed good excuse to have a bit of banter at breakfast)

Lara's and Chris's Saturday party

Friday night Fuzzy Ducking

Tight Fit doing Kareoke in our kitchen until about 5 a.m.

 At this year’s WASH the main entertainment of Sunday evening was Tight Fit, they went down well with most Plussers on the dance floor and a couple on stage, but the real highlight was that the band turned up at our chalet Karaoke party afterwards. Everyone thought it was really cool and the real fun part was in the kitchen where Denise Waterman started a singing game.

Back to the more traditional dates next year so at the end of WASH 2009, the next WASH was less than 52 weeks away….and counting!!

Photos to follow

Paul C

The themes for the evenings were, on Friday Halloween as it was Friday 13th and even the band dressed up, Saturday was 50′s night with the shown C’mon Everybody, and Tight Fit headed up the 80s themed night on the Sunday.  Daytime activities included aqua aerobics, karaoke, the WASH quiz, some jive lessons from Xavier Navarre in preparation for the 50′s night, and a showing of the film The Boat That Rocked which went down very well - certainly the best film I’ve personally seen for a long time.

Of course the usual caravan parties followed the party nights at the venue, and even the Sunday band joined in – so friendly and happy to pose endlessly for photos with admirers!

With the worry of low bookings this year it seemed to make the weekend even more special than usual and we were all sad that it was over so soon.  Roll on next year

Christine T