PGL

I cannot physically fathom all my thoughts on PGL because I have so many things to say and not enough patience to organise it properly. I know it's been over a month since I've been to PGL but I started writing this post the day I got back and have been adding small bits to it whenever I can and that's why it took so long, I'M SORRY OK, haha! However, can I just say, PGL was bloody amazing and I loved it a lot! I would recommend anyone to do it. If you do want to get involved with NCS and find out what it's all about, click here. Just to give you a rough idea, I'll write what we did in our time there.

DAY 1: Sunday 27th November

Starbucks swagfag white gals yolo peace

Feet(..)

We all arrived at the train station with our suitcases that were too big because they were packed to the brim with so much junk that they wouldn't even wheel properly, ugh; and piled on to the coach. Ash bought lots of sausage rolls and pasties which kept me and her busy for the whole coach journey (yes, coach journey not train journey ok). On the way, we got a 45-minute break at a service station where we ran to Starbucks and sat there acting like hipster swagfags haha! Also, Marita's Dad works in KFC and she had lots of vouchers where we got free food so we got free snack boxes with popcorn chicken and chips yay!

CXK NCS Team (Kent)

When we arrived at PGL Liddington, we were taken to a big room where we put down our suitcases and waited for the rest of the CXK NCS team to arrive from various parts of Kent. After they all arrived, we all had a small talk about the rules; the do's and don't's and we were left in our teams to sort out rooms and exploring the building we were staying in before meeting back in the hall for evening 'entertainment' which was a quiz.

I shared my room with Ash, Fajita and Mary and the room consisted of an en suite bathroom and two bunk beds. I shared one bunk with Ash with me being at the bottom and Fajita and Mary shared the other. I don't actually have a picture of the room but believe me when I say it was far too small a room for four people.

The face I woke up to every morning (Mer)

The quiz helped us to get to know our team members a little more; understanding each other's strong points and weaknesses etc. I'm pretty crap at films, music, sports etc so I wasn't exactly much help but it was still quite fun. We were by far the loudest group there. We cheered and made noise at every answer we got right or wrong and probably pissed off everyone else, but whatever #YOLO haha! (sarcasm ok). After the quiz, we were named the 'Noisettes' which became our team name. 

That night we spent our time in our room talking a lot about lots of different things. I think it made me understand my friends even more than what I knew about them from knowing them for about 6 years or so.

DAY 2: Monday 28th November

The raft carrying it's creato

Our first activity was raft building, and it was one of my favourite activities! We put on our bikinis and lots of layers over them, and made our way to a room where we sat in groups and planned what our raft would look like, how many barrels and ropes and logs we would use, how we would put it together etc. We finished deciding first so we were taken to a shed where they gave us life jackets and a big ugly red coat and other bits and bobs like helmets and oars etc. After getting kitted up, we dived straight into making our raft and getting it on to water. It was freezing but we loved it! (Ty didn’t though, she got off it early haha). Our team leaders gave us small challenges competing with the other two teams on who gets somewhere first, but mainly, it was just about splashing other teams and trying to make them lose their balance! I FELL IN ONCE, JUST SAYING. It was simultaneously terrifying and fun but my team pulled me back up so it wasn’t too bad as I don’t even know how to swim!

Wet and hyped-up and hungry after raft building; waiting for lunch  (Me, Fajita, Ash and Mer) (from the left)

Jacob's Ladder

Team games (Queen Fajita being carried)

Our second activity was Jacob’s Ladder and the pictures are pretty self-explanatory on what we had to do. 3 people. One ladder. Climb.

For our third activity, we played quite a few team games. Balancing on some wood thing with all 12 of us on it. Standing in a circle, putting your hand out and grabbing someone else’s hand, and then trying to unknot ourselves. You get the jest; basically, it was fun.

The evenings were the best bits. On this day, we had the Have-a-Go-Show and it was the most fab thing ever. The whole batch was split up into two lots (I never found out what the other batch did to be honest) but for us lot, we were piled into a lecture hall and told to take our seats and sit in our groups. Being the noisy, bossy ladies we are, we got hold of the best seats in the house- the front row. One of our PGL leaders started calling up volunteers one by one, with only giving us vague ideas of what the challenge was going to be. For example, for one of the challenges, he asked for “someone with quick reactions and someone who is nice”. Pairs were formed and decided from each of the groups and sent to the front. Then, they were asked for the person with the good reactions to kneel down on a piece of paper and for their partner to stand behind them. He explained the challenge as this:

“The person standing is going to throw a piece of paper from above you and the person kneeling down has to catch it. Blind-folded.”

He made everyone have a practice go without, and then with blindfolds. Then, he said:

“Ok, now to make it more interesting. One random person will get a £10 note thrown down instead of an A4 piece of paper. If you catch it, you keep it.”

This got everyone pumped and the volunteers were blind-folded and ready. Just as we thought it was about to start, our leader swapped the standers around and then swapped the pieces of paper in their hands with buttered toast! The rest of us were in shock and awe. It was a bloody clever amazing idea! You can guess what happened after that. The toast dropped. The people caught it. Bam. Buttery palms. Yum.

Innocent unsuspecting victims thinking they're catching paper

Innocent unsuspecting victims catching buttered toast lol

Prabin the pig stuffing his mouth with a whole orange

That was only one of them. There were quite a few other challenges. One was where one person was given a song and they went back to two people from their group and gargled the song for them to guess, haha! Another was where one person was made to believe they were blind-folded because the challenge was to blow out a lighter flame and it would get further and further away so you’d have to blow harder. And what do they do? Bring out bowls of flour to blow into of course! Oh, and Fajita and Ash took part in one too! A person who likes oranges and a good friend were asked to go up (Fajita being the orange-lover), and then, they had to kneel down and eat an orange without the use of their hands, ha! It didn’t matter if you left the skin out, but it was hard to try and leave it out without using your hands so most people ate it anyway (bleurgh!) and this includes Prabin who ate the whole thing and couldn’t chew it! After Fajita ate half, she went and spat it out and Ash ate the rest and we beat Prabin who had been first to shove the whole orange in his mouth, but the last to actually swallow it, bless him! (Yes, we kind-of unknowingly cheated but w/e :P ). 

Poor old man with the moustache we felt sorry for

In the end, the winning team (Ashford team- Laje, Prabin etc) got to choose one of our team leaders for a 'surprise'. We all had to go and stand outside in the FREEZING cold thinking of the worst scenarios of what this 'surprise' was going to be, e.g. we thought PGL would provide the Ashford team with water balloons or something and they were going to come and drench us, ahah! But thank God that didn't happen. Instead, the chosen team leader was publicly humiliated. He had to kneel down whilst our PGL leaders put shampoo, toothpaste, porridge oats and all kinds of weird stuff on his hair and then made him eat cake. It was funny-ish at first and then we all started feeling horrible because the chosen team leader had a moustache and was old; and who doesn't feel bad for caking and drenching an old man with a moustache with oats and toothpaste and shampoo?! Exactly. 

Later that evening, we went to watch a film (Leonardo DiCaprio's face is the only thing I remember and nothing else, sorry) but I was scared that I might get a migraine because bright lights trigger migraines for me so I slept through a lot of it and then the rest of them got bored too, so we went back to our room. Me and Fajita were really tired so we went to bed whilst Ash and Mary socialised and made friends with this Pakistani/Arabic/Spanish/(WHATEVER OTHER BLOOD HE HAS IN HIM) guy called Ruhul (who we tried to find on Facebook but failed so if RAHUL (:P) ever reads this, then hi.)

DAY 3: Tuesday 29th October

Today's evening was better than the day so can I briefly mention it and skip please? Thanks. 

Zip wire tower

Yours truly being swaggy

We did zip wire. Get your harnesses on. Wait at a shed. When it's your turn, get a black rope (which is attached to the zip wire above you) given to you and run/awkward walk it to the zip wire tower nearby. Hit the rope on to the tower and when you hear "Thank you!" from above, let go and go inside the tower. Climb some steps. Wait. Get called. Go up. Awkward un-funny talk with the PGL staff whilst they clip you to stuff. Jump. YOU'RE ON A ZIP WIRE. The end.

Hannah and Ash (from the left)

Mary and her boottaaayyy omg ahah

Low ropes itself was boring but me and Mer being the hilarious people we are, made it brilliant. I'm not sure if a specific challenge was even set but the equipment was all this stuff you'd find on a normal park and you had to go around the course.

Crate Challenge

Crate challenge. 3 tasks. One to provide crates for the climbers. Two to be the actual climbers who stand on crates. Three- the harness people. It was okay. Not my fave, but that might have been because it was cold? Idk. 

THE EVENING WAS ONE OF THE BEST EVENINGS I'VE HAD SINCE FOREVER. EVERYTHING WENT VERY WELL AND VERY SUPRISINGLY LOVELY FOR US AND IT WAS LOVELY AND DANDY LIKE CANDY. lol wut am i saying. idk. 

Bonfire (Dipa and Chungla toasting marshmallows)

The evening started after dinner where we were told that we were going to have a bonfire and we all had to meet outside our rooms and then we'd be taken to the PGL field where the bonfire was. So, after buying two packets of marshmallows from the PGL shop, we got dressed as warm as we could and went. It was very dark and the idea of bringing our torches had completely gone over our heads so we had to make do with Ash's S3 torch so we didn't step on a huge muddy puddle or something. When we got there, we thought it'd be a little more cute and lovely with everyone sitting around the fire but nope, the grass was way too wet for that so someone brought some logs and we sat on those but there was so many of us and we didn't fit so some stood around, some sat on the grass, etc. Then, everything got under way and we went up to the fire to toast our marshmallows (first timer, here!). It was very sweet and sickly but nice. Then, someone put on music and we all started dancing! Prabin was proper going for it with his dougie, haha and we all danced and sung for ages and before we knew it, it came to the very last song and we were leaving. It was such a nice night and we were all too hyped up to go to sleep so we decided to walk around the building before getting tired of it, and sitting down in the PGL's Common Room.

While sitting there and fangirling and talking about stuff, the Asian guys that we had seen around for the past few days came and talked to us. Prabin, Laje and Sachin, specifically (Galbu didn't). They were so friendly and we all had a really nice chat (a lot of banterrrrrr); and then they left. Then, Ruhul came to us and chilled with us before we all decided to play cards with loads of Ruhul's friends (Kacey, Aaron, Maqeeb and some others but I've forgotten their names, woops!). Then, Kacey showed us some of his crap card tricks and it was just so fun talking to completely new people and making friends so quickly, as bloody cheesy as that sounds. The other people who had come to PGL through CXK (the Kent team) made friends within the group, whilst we talked to people who were there from different parts of the country. After Kacey, Ruhul etc had left because they had their group bedtime at 11 (aww), we walked around and talked to a group of much younger kids aged from about 5-11 and it was so funny because they were from London and they all talked, well.. what's the word, "ratchet" ahahahaha and it was so unfamiliar to us but they were cute and kindly invited us to their mini party with popcorn and marshmallows but we politely refused before wandering again.

Slow kids playing Snap!

We were met by Prabin and Laje who were actually looking for us(!!) They asked us if we were free to play cards, and indeed we were, so we played cards for the rest of the night infront of their room with some other people in their Ashford group (Galbu still didn't come to meet us because he was so shy, bless his heart!). We started playing Uno but more than half of us including me, didn't know how to play so it got boring, and then we decided to introduce Snap to them and it was so fun- as gay as that sounds. We'd been playing Snap for the whole trip between me, Ash, Mary and Fajita but playing with the guys was so fun too, because Laje was awful and so was Mary, haha bless them two!

That evening was the most eventful evening I've ever had in my life. There are some absolutely hilarious and embarrassing moments that happened outside what I've typed up here but I guess, there's no fun saying everything. Some memories have to kept between us four because they were those 'you had to be there' moments.

DAY 4: Wednesday 30th October

Me and Mer on the giant swing 

Giant Swing (which had no seat)

The next day we did two activities. One was immediately added to one of my top 3- the giant swing; whilst orinteering was awfully boring. The Giant Swing is.. a giant swing, ha. I was paired with Mary and we screamed through our chance but Fajita and Ash definitely screamed the most. It was hilarious.

Cosy place we found while hiding from orienteering

Orienteering is when you're given a map, and some paper with different points on it and you find those points and there's like this hole-puncher thing attached to each point and you punch holes on each box on your paper (the holes are in different patterns) to show you went to each one. We're a girls group so do you really think we took part properly in running around and finding stuff in the cold? No, obviously not. We took the piece of paper and wandered around the woods and went back right at the very end of the session after finding about two points. Not the best end to our time at PGL, but still, lunch time was fun enough so who cares.

We initially planned to sit with our newly found Asian friends (lol) but their table was full so we sat down at another table but Galbu (one of the Asian guys) was late so he didn't get a seat so he went over to their table to realise there were no seats, but the rest of them were just about to shuffle along and make some room when Fajita invited him to sit with us. Okay, Galbu is incredibly shy, but so adorable. He didn't know what to do after being put on the spotlight. We all joined in and said he could sit with us, and when we looked over at their table, all the guys were like,

"Oh my god, are you dumb?"
"Oi! What are you waiting for?"
"Go sit with them!"

So eventually, Galbu did. He was so cute and shy and adorable and couldn't really start conversations so we left him to talk to Arun (one of our friends) sitting next to him, and Galbu was more comfortable with that. Well, until the point of Arun asking him his name and if he has Facebook (which I admit, was a little creepy for a boy to ask a boy :P). We finished lunch and headed outside, when Prabin asked us our numbers (lol) and we partly said our good-byes and waited to be called to get our bags and pile on to the coach. That's when everyone started taking pictures, and Prabin and Laje came over to us, and we all took pictures too (which later got the most likes out of any of the PGL pictures on my Facebook, idkw :S).

(from the left) Sachin, Prabin, Mer, Fajita, Ash, Me, Laje and Theo

Coaches : ( (Arun at the front)

THEN WE ALL SAID BYE PROPERLY AND PILED ON TO THE COACH AND EVERYONE TOOK MY PHONE TO REPEATEDLY LOOK AT ALL THE PICTURES I'D TOOK BECAUSE WE WERE ALL INSTANTLY MISSING PGL SO BLOODY MUCH. Then, we got off at a service station and saw the Asian guys again, and said our byes for the third time, haha!

THEN IT WAS PROPERLY OVER.

PGL is probably the most fun experience of my life. I had so much fun and really enjoyed every single bit of it. It's definitely one of those things that I can see myself talking about even when I'm an old grandma (especially to Mary. I can imagine us meeting up at Starbucks (ahah) and talking about PGL even in our 70s!). I loved it and I would recommend it to any living soul. I am so happy that I went in the Autumn and I went with Fajita and Ash and Mary and not in the summer and not with anyone else; because I wouldn't have wanted to share those exact memories with anyone else on the planet apart from them. I believe I understood them even more in those 3 days than I have in knowing them for about 6 years. I learnt if I had Marita as a room mate in the future, then I would get very fat because she literally does not eat anything. If Ash lived with me, then we would probably split up in about two weeks because she's so clean and tidy and I'm, well, basically a whale (I don't know why I said whale. I mean, I'm very untidy and Ash isn't so she'd never be able to cope with me :P). And I learnt I'd be able to live with Mary pretty easily because she's just as untidy and retarded as I am, but I'd probably have to have extra money on me at all times because you never know when you'd need it with Mary (she knows what I'm on about :P).

I loved PGL. I thank Jesus for such an amazing opportunity. I am so blessed.