So, what have I been up to?

Fear not, dear readers! No calamity has befallen me, no sudden tragedy has put an untimely end to my blogging career, I have simply been on holiday, and now I am back.

I won't go on about the rest of my holiday in Spain cause, quite frankly, it was so long ago I can barely remember it. I met some dutch boys, there was an unfortunate vodka and orange night which ended up with me making very good friends with a toilet bowl (an experience I hope never to repeat, alcohol only in moderation for me) and then I came home.

Then it was time for Soul Survivor. In the days before it I was very busy learning how to put up tents and reassuring an anxious Vicky that all would be fine. It wasn't until Vicky phoned me to ask some final questions the evening before we left that I realised I'd forgotten one rather vital thing: food. One quick trip to the Co-op later we were stocked up on pasta and various sauces and ready to go.

(You may note that I've left out several details in the days before Soul Survivor, namely the conversations I had with Richard. In the first one I was terrified by his friends who kept asking if Richard was a good kisser. In the second one I broke up with him, for stupid reasons which sophie immediately told me off about when she heard and she was quite right.)

Anyway, so we set off for Soul Survivor. We arrived a day early and got in by driving up to the bloke on the gate and sort of giving the impression that we were on the staff. The conversation went a little like this:

US: Hello, we're just here to drop some stuff off for tomorrow.

(which was true!! we were planning on just dropping our stuff off at Richard's pitch then finding some bed and breakfast to stay in for the night!)

HIM: Ah, are you on a team?

(by this he meant the stewarding team, or the enabling team, or something similar)

US: um, yes

(it is an automatic reaction of mine to agree to anything, before I even realise what I've been asked. I did not intend to lie.)

HIM: ok then, just go up to that green tent and register, I'll phone ahead to let them know you've arrived.

At this point we drove into the camp, carefully avoiding the green tent and instead making our way to green 5 where Richard was camped.

Helen and I put our tents up then joined Richard and his friends for a nice sing-song before attempting to cook on our tiny gas stove. The pasta stuck to the pan and the sauce was horrible before we smothered it with cheese, but it was not so bad, and we got hot chocolate of Ian and Jane (Richard's parents) afterwards.

Day 1 - monday (yes, I'm stealing Richard's format, but I've stolen most of his other stuff already so I don't expect he'll mind)

It rained. We moved the tents from green 5 to red 4 (in the rain) and were forced to shelter in one when the downpour became torrential. It's amazing how, if the circumstances require it, you can fit 4 people in a 1 man tent. We had to break the rule about no mixed tent sharing though, so if the Soul Survivor organisers ask you, it never happened.
The rest of the day I spent having a really nice shower (for 40 minutes), then dried my hair (another hour). Some people may think that this is a little too long to spend on grooming but, at this point, it was a thing that really needed to be done.


Day 2 - tuesday

I went to my first seminar today. It was called Practical Holiness but I think the trade descriptions act may have a little something to say about that title. I listened for half an hour or so to this bloke telling me to follow the straight road of holiness and not fall into either of the ditches of lawlessness or legality before I lay down to listen to him with my eyes closed and promptly fell asleep. I awoke to here him saying "well, that's all we have time for" and joined in with all the clapping, pretending that obviously I'd been listening to every word and found it fascinating.

In the evening I finally snapped after seeing Richard in his hideous Slazenger top one time too many (and quite frankly, once is one time too many) and decided that he NEEDED some new clothes. I said this to Richard and Andrew (being the selfless person that he is) immediately offered his spare hoodie to Richard to fill the void before Richard could procure himself a hoodie of his own. It was bloomin' hard getting Richard into that hoodie, I tell you. First there was the whining ("but I'll look like a rude boi"), then there was the general unwillingness to co-operate in any way when we put the hoodie on him, and finally there was the sulking once we had the hoodie on (Richard was actually a pretty good sport during all of this considering what Andy and I were putting him through, we'd never have got it on him if he'd really objected).
I was having some slight clothing issues myself at this point. Andy (who I probably should have told you is a member of Richard's youth group) kept throwing me down in the mud which require complicated contortions to prevent my skirt (a fetching cream Ra-ra number) getting thoroughly dirty. There was also a rather strong wind, and it being a Ra-ra skirt... but we won't go in to that.
Anyway, Richard, Andy and I, all hoodied up (we even got baseball caps for Andy and Richard) all traipsed down to the market place to browse the hoodies there. We got Richard to try on loads and eventually I took pity on him and his little sulky face and left it till the next day to actually purchase one for him.

The rest of the evening we spent in Chasers. For those of you who don't know, it's the coolest place ever! It's a disco in a tent! They even have a glitter ball! Chris Greenhouse (who I am so going to marry, I mean, come on! Greenhouse and Browncross, we can combine our surnames and become Sarah and Chris Greenybrownhousecross!!! You know it makes sense) [if Chris ever finds this and reads it, he may protest and insist that his surname is actually Greenhalgh. Do not listen to him! We all know that Greenhouse is a much better surname, don't we!] Nick, Mark (all members of Richard's youth group) and I all went down there to boogie the night away. We were shortly joined by Richard who did not so much boogie as stand around and hold all the layers of clothing that we discarded due to the intense heat. Most of them were mine as at this point I was wearing my original skirt, top and jumper, plus Richard's Slazenger top and Andy's hoodie and baseball cap. As you can imagine, I quickly overheated. The baseball cap, when I eventually took it off, travelled around the circle a couple of times before eventually coming to rest on the head of my future husband. Chris took great delight in wearing it backwards (he said it was to conceal his bad hair, yeah, like we believe that!) and we immediately pounced on him, styling his hair upwards to come out in a little quiff through the back of the baseball cap. He wasn't so keen on this new hair (can't think why) and tried to fix it. We couldn't let this happen, so Richard and I took hold of his arms and marched him back to green 5 to get a picture of this epitome of hair styling. We got to green 5 only to discover that Richard's camera was out of battery so we took hold of Chris again and marched him to red 4 where I got my camera out and got snapping away... [results in the next post]