In July this year, we had a barbeque at Rughill Nature Reserve for the team, and we even got to meet our new youngest member, 3 month old Gabriel! Rughill holds a very special place in the heart of Clarkson and Woods, having been set up as a Nature Reserve by Frankie Woods and being the final resting place of Michael and his son, Jonathan. Newer members of the team had the guided tour of the reserve, including going to see the artificial badger sett in the woods, while others played Frisbee and got on with the cooking! The weather was perfect and a wonderful afternoon was had by all.
More adventurously, in August, we took a trip down the river Wye in canoes. The weather was glorious that day, just perfect for messing about on the river. No one fell in but we did nearly lose a canoe as it escaped and started floating down stream while we were getting out of the river, it was however expertly retrieved and we were able to return the same number of canoes we had taken out earlier that day – always good! The river was fairly low which meant a few people got grounded after lunch (much to the amusement of others!) but in general it was a lovely trip down a sometimes peaceful, sometimes not so peaceful river, watching the kites and the swans and the other wildlife. We stopped for a pub lunch at Hay-on-Wye, and were very grateful to the helpful waitress who did her best to accommodate us.
Later that afternoon, we all made it down the river to our destination point tired and happy and glad of a long cool drink. A few hardy souls camped in the area that night whilst the rest of us headed home to the comfort of our beds. The summer canoeing adventure had proved to be a highly successful one with everyone agreeing that it would be great to do it all again next year!
For Christmas, we got competitive (or some of us did) on the go karting track. The dream team (Tom, Joel and Merle) were reunited and came a very diplomatic second. Team 18 (David, Pete and Frankie) won the day this year but Joel still managed the fastest lap (22.479 seconds). There were a few notable crashes, one of which caused silence by stopping all of the go karts at once and another of which saw Tom slip through as three other karts went into the tires. Much fun was had by all and lots of aches for the following day.
Afterwards, we went for a meal at the Swan, where we were joined by those who had not come karting and Frankie Woods. We had tremendous fun with Secret Santa and amateur sleuths set about working out who got what for whom. We particularly enjoyed Nel's Dorset Knobs (some people even had a go at throwing them), Gregor's Pocket Project Manager and Andy's caricature.
Some people went on to the pub and by the following morning had acquired a few extra coats by accident.
