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For now the most recent post will be shown at the top, with the date, and all others underneath in reverse chronology. I'll later be adding tags in the sidebar and seperate pages for things!
02-08-24
Slaidburn group trip
tags: friends, holiday
This is my first blog post and it's to commemorate the amazing trip I had with my awesome friends. It's the third annual trip that I've been to of with this swag group and the second where we've been in a building - I definitely prefer it to camping! There was 25 of us this year in the tiny village of Slaidburn (there was probably as many buildings as us) which although the YHA was great it was a little to sleepy for us. This is of the first evening:
Jess, Hannah, Connie, Anna, Iz, Abbe, Me (Toby) / the bake off goodies / Me with my DSI and Jono with his 2DS
We got settled in and chose the rooms, which were mostly 4 beds, and I as someone who normally goes to bed at 21:30/22 I may have made a mistake as leaving the light on until 4:30 was not ideal but I'm glad people had a good time. A walk to the church occured before getting on with tea! We had Costco pizza followed by numerous baked goods made by those in the bake off. I could make a whole post on them, it was all so(!) good and so different. Ha leftovers the next morning for breakfast.
The first full day we went for a hike. Those up early enough had breakfast and second breakfast (an almost full english) before leaving at 13~ and doing a 10.5km walk! Henry took many "money shots" of us all and it was nice to take our time on our first full group activity.
Me and Jess / Henry cooking the breakfast sausages / all of us eating our sandwiches / Erin and Jess with their don't be jealous merch
The were all very exhausted but Theo and Jono and Gruff made us a wonderful Curry then Logan hosted a cocktail night! My friends without benefits was superb I'm glad I didn't have any alcohol (or grog) as some had some interesting hangovers the next day. Gruff cured his by vomming after being in the boot of Dave's car... Also played the best card game ever, Mao!!!
I got up in good time as I was determined to wild swim which we did after a slow morning. I spent the trip reading The Year Of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and it was always lovely to sit in the living room and read alongside the other readers - some smut was about - and gamers. It was very healing to be frozen by the Ribble River but the water quality was not good ;_;
The full group Henry POV post swim / Sam and Theo invested in the quiz / three person renissance tower / with our tirimasu post pasta
The weather was finally lovely and so wild swimming wasn't too bad. There was a big dead tree that was climbed and used to get Sam on top of Gruff on top of Max. We wrapped up and got back for showers and pasta. Both the veggie bolognese and pesto was to die for. Connie had made us a pub quiz which was really fun and wide enough that I think most people were happy! (apart from the special rounds which were very divisive lol) Needing to be out by 10 the next day didn't mean an earlier night and I'm glad for it. The trip went by quickly but it was wonderful. I'm looking forward to next year!
