This week we have mostly been thinking about school trips, having had a team building trip to The Sticks (that place just past the leafy, outer London suburbs) with our parent charity BioRegional. Among other things we faced fears of heights with a spot of abseiling, got lost in the woods trying to orienteer our way to the pub and identified vegetables that bear vague resemblances to our characters (mines a Salsify- should you be wondering greatly).

 

Anyway… It got us Launderettes reminiscing about trips of yesteryear.. So, me and Helen have drudged our memories for some of the antics we got up to as little uns:

 

 

Well, you always have to try and get away with things you wouldn’t normally be able to under the watch-full eyes of parents and head teachers. Having found out the price of alcohol in the Czech Republic is pretty damn cheap, on a trip to Prague with Singing Club, it became a bit of a challenge for us to acquire some. After several red-faced refusals we struck it lucky and proceeded to embellish our soft drinks with a little vodka (smart see? Odorless beverage and all that). We thought we were so clever, that nobody would notice. 14 year olds are always so subtle when they get inebriated, eh? It was only when Mr. Jones asked for a polite sip of my Coke that we got rumbled and oh my gosh were we in trouble.

 

A little more innocently, as a wee young thing I was taken on a trip to the local windmill. We were about 5- just to set the context for you readers. I had a big big crush on a boy called Darren in my class (where have all the Darrens gone?) and tried to stay in as close proximity to him all day- you know, whilst trying to be as aloof and cool as a 5 year old girly can be. Well that got me into a right spot of bother. (Note slight tendency for vertigo mentioned above). I followed him all the way to the top of windmill and had to sit next to him on a little ledge over looking the huge drop down where all the grain gets poured for milling. Whole cool façade thing wasn’t quite so effective when I was bawling and shaking and having to be rescued by the Windmill man.

Helen says…

 

On a school trip to Normandy we stayed in little cabin type jobbies.  At the tender age of 12 or 13 the teachers felt it best to keep the genders separate and we were forbidden from going into the boys’ cabins.  Of course, raging hormones and disobedient teenagers being what they are this was never going to happen, so smuggling boys in through the window became the order of the day.  All was going smoothly until we heard the ominous noise of a teacher approaching and there was a boy!  Sat in the kitchen!  Using our initiative we shoved him through the nearest door and slammed it behind him and smiled innocently at the teacher, it was only when we let him out we realised the poor lad had been shoved into the very wet shower.

 

It was an eventful trip this one, another highlight being the discovery of a chemist selling coloured hairspray (only blue and red, very patriotic) which became a popular purchase, leading to one of our teachers marching us off the coach in a rage and informing us that we were banned from using this hairspray ever again due to dangers of blinding ourselves etc.  After giving this empassioned and ferocious lecture and standing triumphantly hands on hips, he was somewhat undermined by another teacher wandering innocently off the coach sporting a red stripe in his hair and bright blue eyebrows.

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