Evening everyone! So I’m sure you have all been eagerly awaiting news of your child’s first day, so with no further delay here’s an update on what’s happened so far.

Following a journey of just under 4 hours we arrived at Kingswood, Overstrand Hall. An old stately looking building, steeped in history from the looks of it. The children went straight into lunch (more on the food later) then went off for a tour of the site, followed by news of their room allocations. Once in their rooms the children were given the arduous and almost impossible task of putting their bedsheets and pillow cases on. It’s a real eye opener seeing children who are normally very confident and bullish beaten by a pillow and duvet cover. The sights I saw resembled someone wrestling an alligator as they twisted and turned the duvet to get it finally into their sheets.

Once the first challenge of the week was completed, the children were split into groups and off for their first activity. Some took part in Archery, whilst another group took on Jacobs Ladder. A ladder made of logs which increase in distance from each other, and children attempt to climb whilst attached to a harness. They all gave it a go with varying rates of success. We then had another activity, with Shelter Building and Frisbee Golf on the menu. Talking of menus it was then dinner time.

The food on offer as with lunch went down very well, some of the comments were as follows. “This is better than school dinners”, “I love the tomatoes”, and “I’ve eaten at The Ritz and this is just as good”. For those interested on what was offer, we had vegetable or beef lasagne, buttermilk chicken, potato wedges and chocolate brownies.

The evening activity was ‘Night Walk’ basically meaning a walk in the night! The route took us into the woods and bits of nature, including some rams or female sheep as one of the children remarked.

Once back to the centre, some hot chocolate was served and now as I write I’m hoping the corridors are silent and the children are fast asleep!

Please comment below, and if possible add in brackets you child’s name. Due to the nature of the days and also lack of WiFi signal the updates will be probably around this time in the evening. The children will all read your comments in their own privacy.

They have had a good start to the week and looked absolutely exhausted so it’s time for me to also get some sleep and I’ll be back tomorrow for snippets of Day 2!