Youth Club

It was re-assuring to see that the central requirement for a youth club is still a ping-pong table. The paddles and nets looked just like the ones we had. You got extra points for bouncing the ball off the vicar, I remember.

Our son Dan has been attending a special ed. programme at the Grafham Water Outdoor Pursuits Centre for some weeks now, but this was the first time I had been. Dan just enjoyed being there for the social activity and didn't spend much time at all on any of the sports on offer, but it was a lovely atmosphere and the leaders and providers were great. There are countless opportunities on offer and the young people can chose what they want to do, or not!

They mostly chose not to do table tennis, which is no surprise given that they can do abseiling and climbing, archery (with real, lethal arrows), skittles, hoola-hoops or floor hockey. The most popular indoor activity was the hockey and then the majority of the youngsters (well all of them except Dan, actually) went on walk to the lake to feed the baby duckies.

Dan showed a lot of interest in the climbing wall and almost got strapped into the big harness, but the complexity of doing up all those straps and buckles was too much. I offered to sit in the chair and demonstrate the harness for him and he helped to make sure I was firmly buckled up before he bogged-off to do something else. The staff decided that I should be hauled up to the ceiling for their own amusement, and so I was. It was the most relaxing 5 minutes I had all day, so if you can't think of anything to give me for Father's Day, a very slow descent by parachute from 28,000 feet might be ideal.

After an hour, the real climbing club came in and took over the wall and Dan loved watching them scramble up and down while taking photos of themselves. It's my turn to drive him up the wall next time.