The Happy Royal Wedding Campers

It's been quite a while since I added to my blog and a lot has happened over the past week and a half. The first piece, of quite terrible (although not unexpected) news, was that my job - in fact the entire team I work with, has been put at risk. Effectively, this will mean redundancy as it appears we are being replaced by an unqualified and untrained team. As my team give efficient and successful teaching in literacy and numeracy to students on vocational subjects, who in the main do not have basic GCSE qualifications, despite the fact that the vocational equivalent they are studying is (in my case) A'level standard - I don't quite see how the new plan is going to work. Only yesterday I corrected a student's essay with her - to discover that the vocational tutor had corrected it already. The first example I came across was that the students had typed the word 'consists'. Absolutely correct, nothing wrong with it. The vocational tutor, untrained and unqualified in English, had crossed this out and written her correction; 'consite'. The essay proceeded with at least TWENTY FIVE similar examples!!!! The student, who is dyslexic, was in a terrible state, asking me why she had gone so wrong. And diplomatically I had to explain she hadn't - and all her careful work was correct. I am looking at redundancy. I cannot apply to join a team, to do the same work I am doing at present for half the money, over three quarters of the year and to see years of training, qualifications and experience be equated with others who have none of these things.

Despite the shock -and I felt, and still feel it deeply, we, (twenty five of us) embarked on our long awaited 'Royal Wedding Camp'.

We met at our chosen campsite in Cromer, to discover that our excitement was about to be severely dampened. My friend Maureen had been given a brand new Bell Tent for Christmas and was literally jumping for joy at the thought of its first outing. Can you imagine her distress when the tent was hauled from its bag, to discover that despite the assurances of the company, there were no poles, no tent pegs and no guy ropes. I thought the whole trip was going to fall apart. But no, M and her husband G were made of sterner stuff. They raced all the way back to Norwich, managed to make Go Outdoors by 7.45, grabbed the first tent that could squeeze 6 of them in, paid over £250 and returned to the camp site as darkness was settling in to put up the replacement.

 

The next calamity was when a 2nd group of friends, comprising the owner of the fab 1821 Art Gallery and her family, discovered they'd arrived without any bedding. Undeterred, they accepted gratefully my partner's dust sheets and plastering blankets that he'd left in the car. And a third group of friends, also arrived with a tent without tent poles. Luckily (as I'd sold them the tent!) they returned to Norwich to discover they'd left them behind in the under stairs cupboard. As for myself - I'd managed to forget toothbrush and mugs. But my Bell Tent looked wonderful, despite the additional pain it must have given poor Maureen, to see what she was so close to having had.

On Friday morning, we leapt from our various tents, cooked breakfast 

(isn't funny how when you're camping you feel so healthy and yet you put away more cooked breakfasts than you ever would at home?) and then raced down to The Welliington in the centre of Cromer where we had been promised they would be showing the Royal Wedding. What a fab morning! The pub was packed - they'd supplied loads of cakes for us to eat and the entire place was decorated with bunting! And what could be a better excuse than a pub venue to watch the wedding of the decade, than to drink double G&Ts all morning??!!

We meandered back to our camp site after the balcony appearance to set out our wedding tea. Friends arrived from Norwich for our alternative street party - and although the wind picked up quite sharply, we all enjoyed the food which covered every inch of our tables!

It was lovely to see all our teenagers, (14 in total), enjoying themselves in the fresh air.

Now, I've rambled on far too long - but the weekend was fab and I (and the two others of our party affected by losing jobs) were able to forget, for a while, the horrors of losing our jobs.