Episode Sixty Five – the Adventure Group Residential

I have been looking forward to Adventure Group’s residential trip for several months. Finally, this week, twelve of us set off for the Manor House Hotel near Okehampton (www.manorandashburyresorts.co.uk). This hotel, and its nearby sister the Ashbury, boasts of having over sixty sporting and craft activities available and I and my fellow adventurers were determined to try as many of them as possible.

The occupants of the car I was in arrived early, determined to make the most of our first day, and made our way to the ‘signing up boards’ to explore our choices for the day. Soon I had a packed timetable. After a quick cup of coffee, the four of us made our way to a pickleball court. My friends were keen but I had never heard of this sport, which was apparently invented in 1965 and is growing in popularity internationally. It is played similarly to tennis but, as you can see in the photo, it uses a flat paddle-style bat, a plastic ball and an under-arm serve. I am not a fan of ‘bat and ball’ activities but we played several games and swapped partners each time so that everyone had a turn at being on the losing team with me! It was good fun and we worked up an appetite for lunch – our first taste of the wonderful and varied buffet meals that we enjoyed throughout our stay.

Next, I made my way to my first craft workshop where I was to make a Christmas tree bauble. We were shown how to prepare a polystyrene ball and then selected from a variety of festive fabrics to produce our design. I was very pleased with the finished result. As with all the workshops I did, it was well organised with clear instructions and well planned to fill the time allocated. I really cannot fault all the wonderful and hard-working staff we encountered.

The third activity of the day was a hula-hooping class. At the beginning I was almost totally unable to keep the hoop spinning around my waist but I persevered and by the end I could keep it going for quite some time. By this time other members of the class were marching or stepping from side to side and performing arm movements in time to the music and some were spinning a second hoop around their arm. I was never going to achieve that in the time allowed but I am sure I burned off plenty of calories and it was definitely something I would like to do again.

We then all met together as a group because we had booked ten-pin bowling. It was a good opportunity to get to know the people I was with and we continued this into the evening as we met for a drink in the bar and then sat together for dinner. Afterwards we entered two teams in the quiz. Although we didn’t win we certainly didn’t disgrace ourselves in the five rounds of questions – my team even surprised ourselves by doing better in the sports round than the geography!

I was sharing a room with three other ladies, some of whom I had never met before – another new experience! One of those ladies was determined to have an early morning swim and noted that the pool wasn’t far from our room so at 7 am three of us were padding down the corridor in our bathing suits to get some lengths in before breakfast. (It should be noted that on the second morning there was only one swimmer and the rest of us had tea in bed!)

On the second day I began with shooting activities. First I tried air rifles. It took a bit of practice to get used to how to aim but I am proud to report that almost all my shots hit the target. The last ten shots were scored for a competition but my total of fifty seven did not trouble the leaders. I then moved on to the Laserclay range. Here we aimed a laser gun at various lights and a machine measured if we had hit the target and which person was quickest.

My craft activity for the day was Resin Art. First we mixed some resin and some hardener and then split it into five pots; one of them was mixed with sand and the others were mixed with different colour pigments. We were then shown how to spread these onto a board to create a beach scene. The last colour to be added was fine lines of white and then we blew it gently with hot air to blend and mix the colours. The addition of a few sea shells completed the picture. The finished product had to be left to dry and collected the next day. I was really pleased with the result and intend to hang it on the wall at home.

After lunch I headed off to try something called New Kurling. I think there were about twenty people there and we were divided into teams and had great fun playing a round robin competition. I had fun but I was disappointed that the activity did not bear much resemblance to the curling I have seen on the television. We had a flat plastic ‘stone’ which had castors on the bottom and we had a pole to use to propel it along the lane towards a target. Teams made great efforts to push their opponents’ scoring stones off the target in order to win the ‘end’.

Then followed the only activity of the whole trip that I did not enjoy – Tai Chi. We spent three quarters of an hour learning a short sequence of two steps and waving our hands in a mindful manner. I am sorry if you are a fan of Tai Chi but it is not for me. I went from there straight to the Hydro Spa where I enjoyed being massaged by jets of water and sitting in the sauna.

The after dinner activity on the second night was board games with my fellow adventurers. I particularly enjoyed one called ‘5 Second Rule’ where you went round the table being given five seconds to name whatever was on the card such as ‘three towns in Yorkshire’, ‘three items beginning with k’ or ‘three famous people called Tom’. There was much hilarity. In another game the team with the youngest player had to start and it turned out to be me! I don’t ever remember that happening before!

The next morning, after the previously mentioned tea in bed, we enjoyed a hearty breakfast to fortify ourselves for the activities we had planned for our last day. I had signed up Ice Curling and hoped this time I would be better able to emulate Rhona Martin or Eve Muirhead. This time we were on the artificial ice rink and, although there was no sweeping involved, we did have much weightier stones that more closely ressembled the objects I had expected to be sliding towards the target. Again we were organised into teams for a round robin competition. We fought hard but the eventual winners told us they had been coming to this hotel for sixteen years so I guess they had a lot of practice.

For my craft activity on the final day I had chosen lino printing. We chose a design from a book and traced it onto a piece of lino. We then set to work cutting out the shapes and trying hard not to cut our fingers. We were given three cards on which we could print our design and you can see the finished result here. We were able to bring the piece of lino home so I hope that if I can get some ink in a more festive colour, you might all get your own copy of this.

My final activity before the journey home was the one most likely to end in disaster – ice skating. Rest assured that I strapped on knee and elbow protection before venturing onto the artificial ice in my skates. I made several circuits but never really got going, so no success there but no damage done either.

All in all, it was a fabulous few days and I really enjoyed the opportunity to try so many things that I had not done before. We think that our group of twelve tried thirty three different activities between us and we really hope that we will be able to go back some time and try some of the other things on offer. Special thanks are due to the Adventure Group organisers for booking the trip.