So this weekend we headed up to Nethy Bridge for the Wild About the Word conference. It was a very long car ride (though not as long as the 14 hours to Quebec city...); I mean, yes, it was only 5 hours but that's 5 hours in a van with the sun setting and being tired after work and not being able to sleep...anyways...enough complaining about the not that long car ride...
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| My attempt at taking a picture out of the window...bit of a fail, I know.... |
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| Claire lookin' all excited and things :) |
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| Some random people who took over a bus...(jk...just the other gappies) and some rocky road |
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| A very blurry Molly and Callum |
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| Claire successfully getting her hand in the way of my shot... |
We arrived at about 10:20 or
so, and quickly dropped our bags off in our room and went downstairs to
sign up for some activities. Most of the team opted for the King Swing
and Archery, I had fortunately heard Matt explaining the King Swing to
Callum and decided it was just a wee bit on the terrifying side so Molly
and I opted for another option. We went for the Aerial Runway and
Mission Impossible because I figured the Aerial Runway was gonna be a
high ropes course. . . more on that later... then we were all quite
tired so we decided to be unsociable and went to bed.
Saturday started with breakfast (surprise, surprise!)
and a nice hot cup of real coffee which was tasty, and then we went on
to our first session on Haggai. (I say "our" first session because we
missed the actual first session on Friday night...)
(whew...mini panic session there as I randomly pressed the youtube bookmark and thought I was gonna lose all my stuff...)
After
the session we had a wee little coffee break and then went on to
session number 2 (3...). This involved getting into groups and doing
research and things on the passage, so now we actually had to be
sociable outside our little Barcaple group. Met some new friends in that
time, and then lunch time came around to the joy of everyone! We
decided that we were going to split up a bit for lunch..this didn't
really work...I mean...sort of but not really...we did however sit at a
different table from breakfast and there were empty spaces and finally
one of the very fantastically nice speakers who is a minister in Fort
William sat down and introduced himself. His name is KiKi (no idea if
that is the right spelling or what it's short for but ya know...) and he
is, as I said, a minister and a former policeman. He was lovely to meet
and chat to.
After
lunch we had a bit of free time so I went to the office and asked if I
could play their piano (which wasn't a real piano...just a keyboard....)
and they confirmed and so I went and played for a wee while till it was
time to get ready for activities. It turned out that Aerial Runway was
not a high ropes course but actually just a zipwire for kids under 13. .
. so ya know....and the Mission Impossible was just a smaller/easier
version of the challenge course that we have....so yeah.....but we still
had fun and there were some perks..or one... ;) (ya ain't gonna get
anything from me so you might as well just accept this...)
Anyways...moving on....we finished early and Molly, Matt's (one of our new instructors..) mom, his little sister, and I went to the pool for a swim before everyone came at 5. I left the pool at about 5 and then proceeded to go on a nice walk till dinner time.
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| wow...didn't realize how good this photo was...it's quite stunning...well done, Hannah, well done... |
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| Nethy kept reminding me of Pearce Williams |
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| Some lovely Fall colours |
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| Looking at some of the highlands. I don't think they are the Cairngorms but I could be wrong |
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| Some more stunning clouds |
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| Blurry path... |
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| The mini pond where they do their canoeing/kayaking sessions, I think |
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| Slightly blurry...my apologies |
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| For some reasons these canoes remind me of the ones at the Pinery |
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| A lovely stream that is also blurry... |
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| And we get to the better pictures of the stream |
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| A woodland path |
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| A random golf course |
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| Gorgeous clouds |
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| Epic Enid Blyton type mushrooms! |
We had a tasty dinner of Lasagna and then it was time for an evening session, and then on to the campfire for hot chocolate and cake! There was much smoke that was super annoying and kept following me, so Katie and I went on a walk to look at the stars and get away from the eye-stinging smoke.
Then it was bedtime once again!
Sunday also started with breakfast and coffee (obviously...) and then we headed into Nethy Bridge for church! We had a lovely service with a fantastic sermon on Galatians 4 about keeping our joy and about our inheritance in Christ. Then it was time to head back to the centre for a quick session before lunch. We had a delicious soup and bun (okay it was bread but soup and bun just sounds so much more Dutch...). I was well excited about the soup! A lot of the time here we have thick soups which are lovely, but this was proper vegetable soup with noodles! It made me very happy! After lunch we had our last session with KiKi, which was also super fantastic! And at about 3:30 or so, we said good bye to Nethy Bridge till November at Staff conference!
It was fantastic weekend of not having to work, and being away from Barcaple, and being served on by someone else for a change, and drinking far too much proper coffee, and it was not nearly long enough! And I cannot wait till November!
Anyhoo, good-bye for now! I'm sure my next post will be after my fancy dress birthday party or after Ireland! Till next time, cheerio!
