Woolacombe, Devon, 20-22 October 2000

On the second weekend of a new academic year 40+ hardy souls ventured off into the unknown that is North Devon. They carried nothing with them but their excessively large Invaders and plenty of smeggy Kit. The Minibus journey seemed to go in a flash except for those in the Blue bus that spent 20 minutes trying to refit the Petrol cap. But eventually all of the buses arrived safely at the Scout hut in Braughnton. With in seconds of arrival Mikey B was stripped and left in the middle of the floor minus his trousers. That other serial victim of canoe club cruelty was already strung up the Flagpole.

This was no ordinary day as it was Karen’s and Paul’s birthday and so a cake was magiced out of the packet and distributed around the hungry masses. Unfortunately Paul’s housemates had been kind enough to give him in his words “a very large firework” that he and Aiden decided would be good to let of at 1 o’clock in the morning. This didn’t enamour us to either the neighbour who came to complain about the noise or the friendly Policeman who payed us a visit. Eventually, after a large amount of beer had been drunk and several human pyramids formed, people retired to their beds leaving a select band up until the wee small hours. It was odd therefore that this same small band were up first in the morning and trying to work out how exactly you cook for 50. This was managed and the food was suprisingley edible even if it took 3 hours to cook!

So then after the usual phaffing off we went to Woolacombe for some serious surfing. With the committee teaching whilst up to their waists in the surf the freshers and other new members got to try out the surf. As usual there was the odd swim on what were very nice big waves. Most suprising of which was our former president, Ben, who in mitigation was actually almost hit by some random paddler. Luckily for all concerned the large number of invaders in the water didn’t skewer any defenceless surfers, have to try harder next time. So after a few hours of playing in the surf off everyone trekked to the local coffee shop that also happened to serve beer to warm up a bit and then on back to the hut.

The absent trip organiser had been kind enough to suggest that we all might want to go in school boys and school girls uniform to the pub, the committee in drag. The current committee declined this offer but not so some of the older members. Some how Paul still doesn’t look very feminine even with a skirt lipstick and various other make up on. But before we got to go to the pub there was the small matter of food to be dealt with. The thought of cooking Chilli for 50 people is frightening enough but try doing it when the stove will suddenly light from one of he valves! After the chilli came the custard which Joel and Ben had a downing competition with (Ben easily defeated Joel who actually seemed worried that the custard was burning his throat).

So properly filled up and raring to go off we all went to the Pub and what a nice pub it was too having been gracious enough to lend us its rear room for he night complete with skittle alley. The landlord was even kind enough to go and find us a bottle of Tequila to commit suicide with. Though unfortunately one rather large fresher jumped off the table and put his head through the ceiling. A round of drinking games was started though it fell a bit flat as one end of the table was too drunk to think so just drank more. After the final orders had been called and it was time to go home there was a very inebriated member of he committee seen wearing a lab coat trying to work out how to get back into the scout hut, the answer is to pull not push. As the night went on various people drifted off to bed leaving another group of idiots to stay up until the wee small hours, though this time they found Toby’s video camera. Eventually they all departed and were not seen again until the breakfast was cooked on the Sunday. Joel and more culpable Chris failed this feat. They introduced the collected masses to barbecue flavoured baked beans, otherwise known as burnt.

Chris Vian