Social Dance is to the week what Christmas is to the year. Perhaps I should have said "July 4th" instead of "Christmas", since that landed on Monday passed... I will come to that. Anyway, social dance is the weekly dance for the kids. They dress up, choose partners for each song and jig around in variably endearing ways (who am I kidding? those that do dance are all incredibly cute). Lasting about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, it was inevitable that the spear-in-the-side Justin Bieber would appear but I danced to it anyway. Some of the kids really know how to dance, and every once in a while a circle would appear around one break-dancing or a couple doing twirls. Decked in their best outfits, the evening was a good blow-out for everyone.
Following social dance, most of the counsellors headed off to church. At church we drink holy water, sup on Lays (Walkers in the UK) since communion crackers are invariably out of stock, and feel the spirits in us (yes, most definitely the spirits). The plan for that evening, since I and others had the next day off was to sleep out at the camp site across the road from camp, a tree-sheltered clearing with a number of wooden lead-tos for housing tents and a stone-rimmed fireplace. Getting back at as close to curfew as makes no difference, I settled for my own bunk since no-one else was interested in sleeping out apart from G-bear, who came into the cabin about 15 minutes later to see if my sleepy body wanted to be dragged out to set up a tent in the dead of night with naught but he... I gracefully declined. Maybe next week.
The excitement that filled Saturday seemed limited to the indefatigable campers and those counsellors that had the day off. Thirteen of us had opted to go to Promised Land for the day, a beach/park some 20-45 minutes away from camp (depending on who you ask to drive). After a full week of dutiful care and attention to my charges, a bit of light football, poorly-played volley ball and ample sunbathing was perfect... We stopped off at Subway on the way, and for the first time since arriving here it was presented clear to my eyes and stomach the reason Americans are known for their girth. A 12" sub in the UK is an adequate meal if you get something with meat; in the US, it's a bit of a belly-buster. A normal coke bottle is bigger, the crisp (sorry, 'chips') packets are bigger and at the supermarket afterwards I was quizzical of the large bags of what looked like small crisp multipacks... No, they were single bags of crisps.
One thing I have noticed is how much 'softer' everything is here. Twizlers are soft, cookies are soft, chocolate is softer... and it's not because of the recipes, it's because of the heat! At promised land, under a sun that Brits dream of, pray for and get once every sunspot cycle, the cookies felt like dough - back as camp after cooling in Petunia's closet they snapped like a cookie should. After eating out for dinner the group headed back to camp for Counsellors Entertainment and to join the party heading to Mel's... for karaoke.
Counsellors Entertainment is arranged in advance (in principle) by a few counsellors each week. Despite that, I was roped into singing 'Drunken Sailor' with Blush on the violin having been given the sheet music 10 minutes before the start... it was ok. With Stalk as compère, a British reality TV host homage, the show moved onto my song (L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole)... I'd planned on having the Nat King Cole version but I was given the Michael Buble version about 20 minutes beforehand. After a couple of listens I had the key change ok, but gave up on the tangential vocal mood-swings, the kids sort of liked it?
The following acts were nothing short of brilliant. Uber-Dutch and Sparkly did Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ – Uber-Dutch bewigged and fluorescent and Sparkly looking very Beyoncésque in a shiny dress from the drama prop room – and a couple of groups did ‘Party in the USA’ and ‘Spice Up Your Life’. The high-light of the evening was the Backstreet boys… done every year apparently, the choreography was what Tekno could remember from two years ago and started with a walk down to the stage and a line-up. The ripping off of shirts was a pretty good crowd-pleaser and one of my kids is still singing and copying the choreography when ‘Larger than Life’ comes on in the cabin. Oh, and Beano's beat-boxing was very impressive.
After CE, a decent group headed to Mel’s for what will be the most oft-repeated anecdote for me at camp. Dear Stevie… if you’re reading this, I want you to know that I will never forget what you did to me. Once at Mel’s, settling down as more of the company were taking turns walking up to the microphone I was suddenly grabbed by Ozzie and taken up… I had about 10 seconds to check the song before I had to pick up the microphone. The car of my evening hit the curb of embarrassment as I belted out all the words I could remember to ‘Barbie Girl’, which consisted of the chorus and bits with ‘Oh’ and ‘Ah’.
Trying to save face, Barry and I did 'Cecelia' by Simon and Garfunkel later, and I joined in ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ at some point. Overall, it was a fun evening but I will bear the scars in my laughing plastic for some time.
Even though it’s Day 22 I’m going to leave it there and post about the past week separately.
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