Have you ever seen a penguin come to tea?

Take a look at me; a penguin you will see.

I am currently a penguin for a number of reasons:

1.) Despite my abhorrence of all things cold, I seem to have taken up residence in the Antarctic.

2.) I am wearing a hat with a penguin on it because even the insides of houses in the Antarctic are cold.

3.) I spent all day today pretending to be Spiderman (in Antarctica) and now there are a few body parts which don't quite appreciate me as much as they did 12 hours ago.

Which, to some extent (in my warped mind), prompts the following question: have you ever been an Intrepid Explorer? Which largely seems to involve exploring things in an intre

pid manner. For example, on Tuesday (which coincidentally was supposed to be the coldest day of the week), I was an intrepid explorer. This was not entirely by choice, but as I am a well-behaved ostrich, I did as I was told. I was told to go kayaking and canoeing. In the snow and sub-zero temperatures. Now I don't know about you, but given the choice of say, staying inside in a nice warm office, or paddling around a pond, I would generally choose the pond. When the temperature is -5, occasionally I would prefer not to be an intrepid explorer. I realise that this is an unusual choice of mine, but sadly I am not always man enough for the Great Outdoors, and I have rare moments (i.e. most days between November and February) when I would rather not get frostbite. Fortunately, we weren't asked to do any rescuing in the pond in the freezing cold, and as a result I only lost two fingers to frostbite instead of the lot. I have them in a jar by my bed if anyone is interested in paying them a visit.

Other recent excitements have included tricky trail training and a bike ride with the lovely Jonny and Josh. Tricky trail may be one of the most exciting pieces of kit we own, as it is basically a playground for bikes, and a chance to relive my childhood. It also involved taking out a wooden pole with my face for added excitement. This wasn't especially comfortable,

and as a result I may not do it again. However, it did prove one very important thing: that I was cycling with gusto and a dishwasher tablet. In the afternoon we headed out into the wilderne

ss (the other side of Witney) for a bike ride/reconnoitre which included shouting at golfers and the occasional buffalo.

And, most importantly, today we went CLIMBINGCLIMBINGCLIMBING! At Oxford Brookes climbing centre thingum. I may no longer own hands, and my legs don't seem to do what I ask them to, but it was definitely worth it. The highlight of the day might have involved crash mats and rugby tackling, but the climbing was also splendiferous, if a little frustrating at times!

And of course there have been other exploits which have not been recorded, but that does not make them any less important. I just can't remember what any of them are at present. I

'm pretty sure they involved wolves and teapots, though.

Toodleoo, I must depart to shave my gerbil.

In the back end of beyond!

The back end of beyond here refers to the past, not a place, sadly. By which I mean this post was written on the 29th day of October rather than the 17th November which it happens to be currently.

I’m sure that you will all be glad to know that absolutely no drowning has occurred since my last post. Obviously I am referring here to the last time that I wrote a blog, not any bugle/trumpet playing extravaganzas. This would be largely due to the fact that I am an hour and a half away from my trumpet, and daily mourn its absence in my life (i.e. every now and then I think that it would be nice to make a lot of noise and am unable to).

What has occurred instead, is BOB. BOB is both a person and an exciting adventure of the mountain biking variety. Along with my ragged bunch of compatriots, also known as the DisTIL team, we set forth into the opposite of the unknown (that would be the known), and did a British Offroad Biking course (BOB). The course ran out of our office for two days, and we chased it down the hill. We cycled and we played with bikes and we cycled some more. And some more. And we had very sore bottoms. And then we cycled some more. One could say that it was muchos funamondos, because it was. The only small fly in the ointment was the lack of Jonny, which required me to actually participate in the fixing of bicycles, not just the touching of them. However, I didn’t lose any fingers, and I only fell off once into a patch of stinging nettles. BOB was run by Bob, and his assistant Siggy, who unfortunately was not called Ziggy as we first thought. I am wholly of the opinion that Ziggy is a much better name, and it is a definite possibility that one day I will have a child/fish/turnip by that name.

In addition to BOB with Bob, there have been extraordinary fun and larks about the office. After the canoeing and death sessions last week, we had Friday as an admin day in the office to recover. I’m sure Sarah would agree that by far the best part of Friday was The Shelf. In a small corner of the Adventure Plus office is a secret hideout for all of our cleaning supplies. Actually it is neither secret nor a hideout because everyone at A+ knows where it is and it is the opposite of hiding, i.e. not hiding. In fact it can be seen from quite a long way away. Anyhoo, this shelf was about 92 feet high, and impossible for any normal-sized person to see what was on it. Even the extraordinarily tall amongst us (myself included, of course) were having difficulty. The result of this crisis was a Committee for the Relocation of The Shelf (CRTS). The committee consisted of two permanent members (myself and Sarah), and various temporary assistants (James, Ruth, Jonny, Jean-Claude). In one day we double-handedly moved The Shelf several inches closer to the ground, and in the process of replacing its contents, turned it into a haven of organisational bliss. All is now well with the world.

Amongst this week’s adventures are the pitching and fixing of tents (in which my role was minimal), the striking of tents (for the unenlightened, this means taking them down, not beating them), the packing up of tents after having repaired or replaced poles, sorting through and testing all of the camping equipment and arranging it in neat lines in the camping store, tidying and rearranging the bike store, pairing and counting cycling gloves, removing, testing and rearranging the entire contents of the stationery cabinet, moving the stationery cabinet, building a desk without instructions, and sending off paddling dry wear for repairs. This list is largely so that I can point at it and leap around when JL asks what we have been up to all week. The best part is that it doesn’t even include the time spent attempting to remove the light shade in the toilet, getting James to remove the light shade in the toilet, being told not to replace the light bulb after all and attempting to replace the light shade in the toilet. This sounds like a very simple escapade, but in fact it is not the case. The light shade is a very aggressive piece of equipment, and refused to budge even when attacked viciously with a screwdriver, a fork and a set of keys. It was stubborn to the extreme that the light fitting even threatened to fall out of the ceiling. Fortunately it did not, as there is no one living upstairs for me to rant at. I suppose that is largely a good thing as I am not sure that the roof of our office would be the best place for people to live. In fact it might be one of the worst places. Except for the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. Or maybe a volcano.

But alas, I must part before I set your pants on fire and bore the lies out of you.

P.S. Sadly, much drowning has occurred since the writing of this post. More about that soon...

Gosh, Lawks a Mercy, Great Gadzooks etc!

ANOTHER POST? So soon?! I hear the astonished gasps from afar, and respond with little more than a resounding YES!! I am posting again. So soon. It is le fact. I am unsure whether it is because so much has happened that I feel a burning desire to write it all down before I lose it in the abyss of Brian, or whether it is because I can't think of anything better to do avec le free time. Possibly a conglomeration of the two.

But a lot has happened! There have been moments of CLIMBINGCLIMBINGCLIMBING... in Carterton for FREE! At a spectacular indoor wall, with all sorts of exciting routes and overhangs (yay). Also paddling in the extreme. The extreme that I am referring to is a combination of extreme frequency, extreme distances (or at least it felt like

it at times), extreme cold, and extreme fear. And a few other extremes. It is a distinct possibility that there is some extreme exaggeration going on, but I plan to continue as I enjoy the melodrama in the EXTREME. So there. Basically, we are not particularly good at le paddling. This is less (I hope) as a result of our incompetence and more as a result of our lack of experience. I.e. until this point there has been a minimal amount of contact between A+ DisTIL members and canoes/kayaks. So we have been making up for that in the last couple of weeks. Simples. Despite currently feeling as though I no longer possess such things as arms, I have enjoyed the whole escapade, largely. It has been amazing to get out in the big outdoors in boats, and having the opportunities to just soak it all in. But for one thing: DROWNING.

If you thought that the melodrama had reached its limit with EXTREME paddling, then

you were grossly mistaken. I plan to continue to extreme lengths. I am pretty sure that I am not alone in my dislike of drowning, and therefore I don't think that it is particularly unreasonable to object to being asked to do it often. Just to clarify, by drowning I am specifically referring to being upside down in a kayak and staying upside down in the water, still in the boat to be rescued instead of popping out of the boat and sticking your head out of the water to breathe. This is what we mad creatures refer to as an Eskimo rescue. I am unsure of how it relates to Eskimos in any way, unless they have a particular fondness for being pinned into a boat upside down with your head under water. Considering the temperature of the water where they live, I sincerely hope this is not true.

For those who don't have a lot of paddling experience, I would like to explain the awesomeness of canoeing; it is a sport which involves big boats which are difficult to tip, and impossible to get trapped in. This appeals to me because it minimises the risk of drowning. The slight down side is that we are required to paddle them solo, i.e. one person per canoe, which is a bit fiddly try

ing to go in a straight line, and it is considerably more challenging if you are not blessed with the biggest muscles in the world. As my hugeness is largely inner hugeness, canoeing can be a little exhausting. However, no drowning. Kayaking, on the other hand, is death on a stick. By which I mean there is a lot of drowning involved. The only sticks involved are the paddles, and the risk of impalement on one of those is minimal. Paddlewhacking on the other hand... Anyhow, in kayaking you are sitting inside a very small hole in a very small boat, and you are attached to the boat by approximately the worst thing in the world. It is called a spraydeck, and it means that unless you kick and flail a lot (or pull the handle at the front in the rare case of not panicking), you are stuck in the boat if it flips over. Which it does. A lot.

So, in summary: canoeing = ten tons of awesome but hard work; kayaking: death on a stick.

I am glad to announce that on our kayaking trip today, only two people ended up going for a swim, and this was as a result of being considerably more courageous than the rest of us and attempting high braces. Which are not connected in any way with orthodontistry or trouser retention. In case you were unsure at this time, I was not one of those brave people. If I could figure out how, I would avoid doing braces always. I am fairly sure this will not be possible. At all.

What I have missed out thus far, is the fact that I may or may not be a qualified first aider. The reason I don't know is that the instructor wouldn't tell us whether we had passed or not. It is le grand surprise. However, I know for a fact that he definitely does not have any stray hobnobs embedded in his arms. I don't know where Thomas is.

Seeing as it is now past my bedtime, I must depart in order for to do that thing what helps me to be the opposite of the state where I am not alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic on the morrow. In real people speak: I'm going to bed.

Cheerio!

P.S. The photos are of the spare bed wedged between two walls, and of my very best impression of a gooseberry bush. Just in case you were wondering.

Jean-Claude, something has bumped our wall...

Hello children, it was nice to meet you, now go away.

Those of you who know things about my life might be aware that I am currently residing in the land of cows. This would be a place otherwise known as the merrie land of Oxfordshire. More specifically, in Witney. As I have discovered since I knew about the move, the only thing that people know about Witne

y is that it is home to monsieur le Prime Minister, i.e. David Cameron. However, as he is currently hanging out in Downing Street, Londinium, we have not yet had the opportunity to rave together. Once he hears that I am waiting, he will be back like a shot I am certain.

However, in the meantime, I have better things to do than to sit upon this bottom of mine and ponder about co

ws. That is, in fact, because I have such a thing as ein JOB!! It is not a job in the conventional sense of the word, as I do not, in fact, get paid, but it is le grand fun. I spend some of my time learning about the great outdoors and the things one could do in it (and also doing them), some of my time teaching kiddies about all of that guff, and some of my time pretending to fix bikes. Which entails standing close to Jonny while he fixes bikes. And occasionally touching things.

An important part of this pretend job-esque thingum what I has, is the part where I'm not working. And instead am hanging out in the house of cool, i.e. The Crawley House. It is named such because it is in the village of Crawley, not because it--or its inhabitants--move

predominantly on their hands and knees. Highlights of my time in The Crawley House thus far largely seem to involve moving furniture, or wedging myself in fridges/doorways etc.

This may be a little confusing for some (or all) of the people not living in the house with me, so I shall explain a little. Since we have moved in, we have moved the bed in my room and broken the wheels off (which we promptly fixed), we have halved the height of the bed in the spare room, which includes getting it wedged between two walls whilst hunting for an appropriate allen key, AND dropping the mattress over the banister, destroying James' beautiful paintwork. In addition, we have entirely rearranged the living room, dismantled the sofa bed and relocated it to my room, moved the other sofa into Sarah's room, moved in two new sofas which were rather too large for the very narrow hallway and door. In the process

of moving in the two new sofas, we managed to wedge Rob into a corner between walls and a sofa. In addition to all of this, there has been various rearranging of drawer units, desks etc. If the career as an outdoor instructor fails, I can always fall back on my extensive furniture removal skills.

The reference to fridges and doorways is one which most certainly needs to be addressed. In The Crawley House, there is a challenge which has been set by previous Adventure P

lus tenants. This challenge is to navigate your way from the toilet in the upstairs bathroom to the one behind the utility room downstairs, without touching the floor. In other words, to climb from one corner of the house to the other. After a couple of attempts, I am proud to announce that this challenge has been completed by myself and Sarah, with Ruth getting to a very respectable half way on her first attempt. We are very proud of ourselves. The most challenging part was navigating between the fridge and the washing machine which required a very interesting manoeuvre into the door frame, and pushing off there until balanced between toes on the washing machine and shoulders on the doorpost. We welcome suggestions for any further challenges as appropriate.

Possibly worth mentioning before skipping merrily away, is the fact that I am now a qualified fencing and archery instructor, with nationally recognised qualifications (yay!), ap

proved for belaying on climbing sessions, and working towards my canoe and kayak level 1 coaching award. Busy, busy, busy! But it's a fantastic journey and I'm loving every minute (apart from maybe the part where Ruth and Sarah got lost on the way home from Sainsburys and I had no idea where they were for three hours. Fortunately, they were rescued by a very helpful and obliging monsieur le James, who brought them back to me with all of their limbs still attached!)

Those who are familiar with the name of my boss will be very quick to understand why he is now called 'Jean-Claude' in my head. I'm not sure when exactly the change happened in my Brian, but it does seem to be irreversable. Fortunately, so far he has chuckled and has not thrown any large objects when I accidentally call him that instead of his real name. I mention this now, because I have been incredibly blessed in regards to the people with whom I work; I am surrounded by an amazing group of people with a phenomenal energy and passion for serving God, and it's REALLY EXCITING!

Country roads take me home...

...To the place I belong.

This particular monkey of a blog monster is written on the behalf of a certain Monsieur le Lindley, after his comment about my general rubbishness with regards to keeping this updated. I must concede that given the multitude of dastardly adventures upon which I have embarked lately, he might be right. However, I would like to point out that to a certain extent these escapades have prevented me from having the time and sanity to record them.

The next concern is trying to recall all of the spiffingly-marvellous things which have be

fallen me of late.

I will begin on a certain Monday, a few months ago. It was, in fact, just another manic Monday. Several of my

readers will be familiar with the photographs from the day (there are MANY). Upon finishing our degrees, my beloved housemates and myself saw it particularly fitting that we visit a certain childrens' playground of which we were aware but had yet to visit. The outcome was a lot of startled parent

s and small people, and three very satisfied sort-of-e

x-students. If I could figure out how, I would post the video of Jayne making a spectacular entrance down a slide, followed by her headbutting the camera due to her overly-enthusiastic descent. All in all it was an excellent outing, probably in my top three highlights of the summer, up there with a trip to Co-op.

Possibly one of the most daring of my escapades of late involved a forray into the adult world of car hire. Yes, I know it is pretty overwhelming to imagine, but I am no

w starting to pretend to be a real grown up pusson. Avec le Megan and le Jayne, I went on an in-depth expedition of the Northern part of our beautiful nation of Mexico. We went forth into the unknown (in our lovely,

shinyshinyshinyshiny hire car),

and made it in three distinct pieces to the Umbria of the North. There was a suspicious absence of sleeping in a borrowed tent, a little bit of swimming in the North Sea (which nearly ended in death from frostbite on several counts) and the odd bit of poking. We poked high and low, including Bamburgh playground and castle, some public toilets and the Holy Island of Lindisfa

rne. Aidan seemed to be doing OK, so we left him well enough alone, and came home via the land of Go Ape! For anyone who is unfamiliar with Go Ape! it is basically a playground for big people. There are really big ladders, tunnels to crawl through, swings, and zip wires and all sorts.

Sadly, I don't have the dedication to my small collection of readers to write down detailled accounts of all of my adventures, so I have to skip over a few, including the time w

hen Jayne ate an entire two litre tub of ice cream in 45 minutes on live radio which was being broadcast from our house.

But I move ahead to the very beginning of probably the last long summer holiday of my life. It began incredibly well, with a collection of peculiar creatures squashed into a fairly small car, on their way to the Isle of Wight. It just so happens that I was one of those creatures. And I did actually know all of the others, they weren't just strangers that I picked up along the way. To recount all that we did over the course of a week might just take a week, so I will just include the highlights:

1. Trip to Co-op. Nuff said.

2. BEACH! With multitudinous beach toys including buckets, balls, bats, boards and a boat! We did manage to play with all of the toys over the course of the day, and the English Channel was far superior to the hypothermic North Sea.

3. Church at St. Catherine's with Graham the Great who thought we were from Sweden. (We weren't, by the way).

4. A visit to Vicky and Bert at Osbourne House.

5. The Needles Old Battery and Alum Bay. N.B. I am not including the chairlift in the list of highlights as it was almost as terrifying as being savaged by seagulls whilst eating fish and chips on the beach near Bamburgh Castle. I still retain my eyeballs, but it was a close call.

Obviously there were a lot of other magnificent moments, including the wonderful food, the rather peculiar company, and mine and Jayne's ability to wake up Megan with our collective snoring. Also, there were a lot of public toilets, which is a definite bonus.

Upon returning from the Isle of Wight, my life was thrown into disarray as my friends were from their mother's wombs untimely rip'd. Or something along those lines. I did that silly graduation thingumy, and visited the Brontes. Then there was an Ellen, and there was Brighton, and there was London, and there was the M25.

My most recent adventure, however, has been to the North, i.e. Carterton, near Oxford. I went on an expedition on a train, and was collected from the station by my soon-to-be-boss, to take me to Carterton Community College. I was not, in fact, going to college, but was going to play with lots of kiddies and to pretend to be one for a week. It seems that there are few things better than a week of kayaking, football, basketball, dressing up as a thug, and doing arts and crafts. Not necessarily all at once. We also had some fantastic conversations about God with the kiddiewinks, including all sorts about suffering, free will and the Holy Spirit. The food was incredible, the people were almost as crazy as me, and I got to sleep in a tent. Our theme/verse of the week was John 8:32: 'Then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.' Life (or lice) just keeps getting better and better, seeing as I get to spend the whole of next year hanging out with the same crowd, doing much the same things. Feel free to quote this back to me when I am complaining about life-saving in a lake in January. I got back late last night, and am slowly returning to humanity, and may reappear in the real world sometime next week.

I appreciate that this is the first reference to the title of this blog post, but thought that it was a good note to end upon. After a very busy year I am home once again, both physically and spiritually, and very excited about it! In writing this I was reminded of a shopping bag from FatFace that I kept from a while ago. It turns out that I am not actually completely insane, as it did have writing on it, which fairly aptly sums up my view on life: 'Just living is not enough, I must have fresh air and freedom.'

The Life and Times of a Freebasin*

I am not, in actual fact, a basin of any variety, as that would be absurd. In fact, I am WOMAN, hear me roar. It is a distinct possibility that the roar is somewhat more akin to a high-pitched squeak, and that it is more of an in-my-head kind of a roar than an out loud one. But the combination of indoor plumbing and internal squeaking makes nothing less than a Free Woman. And that is what I am: a Free Woman of the first waters, to be precise. There is also a distinct possibility that I have been a Free Woman of the first waters for a substantial period of time, but the jury is still out on that one (and/or I am ashamed of my lack of dedication to the blogosphere and am not prepared to admit it).

There has been one significant (or less so) product of my Free Womanly wiles, and that is the creation of a diary of my summer. However, being in possession of a great deal of laziness has not helped this to develop in any substantial way, so that diary is still only a few days long. However, I will quote a choice excerpt:

Thursday 3rd June 2010:
It was barely 8 of the clock this morning, when the death monster also known as H.R.H. Princess Megan Carrot dragged two suffering weasels into the great outdoors. And then there was praying, with an all-too-pyjamad David for this weasel's liking. The prayer was international-flavoured and delicious. However, by far the most important and thoroughly top banana moment of the day was the going-outy part, carrying in our midst a picnic of kingly magnitude, i.e. a lot of food, not a large king, as those are not quite as edible, and they tend to appreciate the eating less...Buses and a library, followed by Mr Ponce Extraordinaire in the Treasurer's House, accompanied by an Emily (or Eeeeemily) , and Ambassador Ellen on behalf of the Hamburgese. Despite being poncy, Mr Ponce Extraordinaire had done marvellous things to the grand housey thing and there was merriment and cheer all around...A roaring success all around except for the fact that the Eeeeemily monster was most uncouth and badly-behaved and was googling me left, right and centre in a decidedly outrageous manner. It was wholly insubordinate and despicable, and she won't be invited next time unless she promises to behave herself. The Poncemeister did himself proud, and picnic part deux was consumed in his fab and marv garden before the return home.

This post was written on 20th June 2010 and then vanished into a thick ear, but alas, alack, alanky! It has been resurrected from the fiery depths and here it is! More to follow soon!

*Please understand that no discourtesy towards the Freemasons is intentional; after 21 years on this planet I am still without any understanding of who they are or what they do, the saucy minxes.

And this is what I would look like if I had green udders.