merry

“Rome is but a wilderness of tigers” – Titus Andronicus
…but only one of them is called Tony

After waiting for what seemed like ever, an alarm suddenly sounded telling me I was going to Rome that day. But that couldn’t be right – three o’clock doesn’t exist on a Monday morning! The next part of the day whirled past in a tired blur. There was something about a mad rush to load bags into cars, trying not to wake little sisters up and remembering to pack my toothbrush after breakfast. Then we had to get to college on time and there was something about a plane. That must be right, because several hours later we arrived in Rome and I’m pretty sure I was there.

After going through the formalities of doing The Group Thing; panicking over who we were sharing a room with and realising no one spoke any Italian apart from “I don’t speak Italian”, we were sorted. We had a meal at an Italian restaurant (though of course in Italy, they’re just called restaurants) and went off to explore the area. The Trevi Fountain was the first place we went. It was beautiful. Seeing as it was night time, it was dark. But that just made the setting all the more perfect. Tourists flocked to the water to toss a coin over their shoulder, ensuring a return to Rome one day. We joined the throng, then realised we hadn’t brought anything yet so all our money was paper. Talk about a good excuse to buy ice cream (which was delicious by the way)! I’d been in Rome a matter of hours and I already knew I’d want to come back. After drop-kicking a tourist out of the way, I was in throwing distance of the fountain. The classical mythology that surrounds it is clear straight away from the statue of Neptune, the Roman sea god, and his water nymphs. A trip to the Pantheon was our next stop of the evening. Although we didn’t go inside, just seeing it from outside was amazing. The sheer size of it was astounding and it was hard to believe that regular church services were held inside. We rounded off the evening by going to an Irish osteria. When we were settled, a band started to play and we reflected on what we had seen that evening. However, the early morning and the travelling had made everyone tired and it was decided that we should head back to the hotel before people started falling asleep. Unfortunately, we had brought the English weather with us and the torrential rain started as we left. Luckily, the metro came to our rescue and after a short journey we were securely in the hotel where hairdryers were passed around to dry jeans for the morning.

Day two in the Hotel Noto (famous hotel) started with a mini buffet-style breakfast before it was on to the Keats and Shelly museum (with the Byron shirt-makers next door – I kid you not) next to the Spanish Steps. The view from the top of the Steps was quite literally breath taking. I was even cut off in the middle of a sentence to admire it. It felt like the whole of Rome was laid out before me and it is an image I will never forget. When we went into the museum we split into two groups due to the size; it wasn’t quite as big as Pantheon. Despite this, it was full of relics of the two poets and I found myself fascinated. Artefacts included letters, paintings and even Keats’s death mask. While we were there I finally figured out which of the Romantic poets liked each other and which ones couldn’t stand each other and although Keats and Shelley died in Rome, Keats in the very house we were in, they never actually met each other. However, they did know of each other’s existence and had several mutual acquaintances. From the museum, we went to the non-Catholic cemetery which was really quite pretty, not that the inhabitants would notice. It is here that Keats is buried next to his friend Joseph Severn along with Severn’s son. Keats’s gravestone reads “here lies one whose name was writ in water” at his request and his name does not appear on it. Severn’s gravestone has a painter’s pallet engraved on it. Another inhabitant of the cemetery included Shelley on whose grave was carved a quote from The Tempest:
“Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.”

Making the most of the lovely weather we had, we went to the Colosseum. I still can’t get over the size of the ancient gladiator arena. People dressed as centurions were walking around to have their photos taken with tourists. I personally liked the most authentic looking one with the mobile phone and the cigarette best! We finally found the entrance, but alas – it was closed. Scaling the wall was out of the question as no one had brought any climbing equipment so we decided to take a ramble back to the hotel. On the way, we saw genuine ruins, but we couldn’t decide what they were of. They seemed to be a weird combination of two different time periods. We also saw a tower shrouded in Roman mythology and spent a while trying to figure out the different elements. We spotted the Underworld and several sail boats, but identifying particular stories was much harder. We had a relaxing evening before going to dinner. It shouldn’t really have surprised me that Rome was just as multi-cultural as anywhere in England in terms of places to eat out, but there we were, in Rome, sitting in an African restaurant no less. We ended the day by spending a couple of hours meeting the locals in a little place not far from our hotel with uber long straws.

As Dawn appeared fresh and rosy fingered, as Homer would say, on the morning of our third day in Rome, we prepared to go to Vatican City. This meant that we couldn’t show our shoulders our wear skirts that showed our knees (even the girls). Being all the way on the other side of Rome, it took us a respectable amount of time to get there. Thankfully, the warm weather was holding up so we didn’t have to trek across the city in the cold and wet. Not that it would have rained inside the train. The museum was amazing. Statues of gods, goddesses, playwrights and senators filled the vast halls and it hit me just how small we all are on the grand scale of things. It also finally registered with me that some of the plays I’ve read are over two thousand years old. There were several statues of the same gods and it was interesting to see slightly different versions of them by different people. For example; Artemis, the goddess of hunting, is generally depicted with a bow, a hunting horn and a hunting animal, such as a dog. The different interpretations of her in the museum did not always have all of these elements, but just one or two. The most awe-inspiring moment was when we walked into the Sistine Chapel. I almost fell over trying to take in all the ceiling at once. It was so incredible. How Michelangelo got all the way up there to paint it, I’ll never know. The stories in the Old Testament flowed in picture form from the centre where there was a painting of Adam and Eve. Once we left the museum, we stayed in the actual city a little while longer. While around half of us strayed around the city meeting nuns, monks and the Pope, the other half of us climbed St. Peter’s Basilica. I’ve been told that there was an amazing view from the very top from those who were brave enough to climb all the way up; it even made someone almost cry, although admittedly it was because it was very high. On the way back, we went up the Spanish Steps again just as the sun was setting. And as we got to the top, we turned around. If you ever go to Rome, then that is a sight you must see: sunset at the top of the Spanish Steps, it is truly remarkable. Later that evening, we went to another restaurant, it’s so cheap to eat out in Italy. We went back to the Julius Caesar, from last night afterwards. As it was the last night, we stayed out until closing time and celebrated the success of the trip. The walk back to hotel was…fun shall we say, but perhaps the less said about it, the better! Once we were back inside, I was wondering outside my room (and I’m still not quite sure how it happened) when two cat-like figures suddenly appeared. On closer inspection, it was Mark and Tony. They were walking so casually that I wasn’t sure if they knew they’d suddenly been transformed into cats. I wondered if they’d been inflicted with some terrible disease that only English teachers could get until I saw Wendy looking normal. I would pay someone good money to see them and not keep a straight face and I almost got taken up on that offer when I was informed that Tony the Tiger and Mark who is merely a Meerkat were going to the local open-all-hours shop. For some milk I supposed. For me though, it was time for bed. I was completely shattered and I still had to pack tomorrow morning.

We woke up to our last day in Rome with the feeling that something good is about to end, which it was. There was no time to mope around though, we were going back to the Pantheon and this time, we could go inside. We had an hour or so to ourselves so we could go and get all those last minute gifts so that our parents wouldn’t think we’d forgotten about them while we were away. I’d already got my mum something from the Vatican though so I got to treat myself! I put my geek hat on and got an old fashioned ink and pen set from a shop that seemed oddly fascinating. I’m hoping it’s something to do with the fact that we’re all English literature students so like to write, at least to some extent. Then, we all brought our last Italian ice cream (they really are the best!) and made our way back to the Pantheon. The inside was nothing like I expected it to be. There was a small section cordoned off for holding services, but the rest of it was oddly paganistic. It had elements of Christianity combined with classical references. It was only after I’d been pondering on this for a while that I found out that it was originally built as a temple to the ancient gods. I was slightly disturbed to find out that it was also the tomb of Raphael, two previous kings of Italy and some others. All too soon, it was time to return to the hotel for the last time and collect our belongings. At the airport, I only wanted to do one thing: sleep. Extreme tiredness had suddenly crept on me when I wasn’t looking and now I could barely keep myself standing up. And then I found the red bull! I was soon restlessly bouncing around the airport trying to find when our plane would arrive until I was successfully brought back to a normal level of activity with the painful reminder that my coursework was due in the next day. Just before we boarded the plane, each of us was given a picture of something from Rome. I chose a picture of the Spanish Steps and asked everyone to sign the back, an idea that quickly caught on and soon everyone was handing round pens and photographs. Then the plane arrived and we all trooped on. I slept most of the way back to our starting point; from airport to airport and then finally back to college. Once we arrived, we did The Group Thing one last time and then it was time to go home.

In the car, I reflected on everything I’d done, seen and learnt. I had an amazing time that I would happily relive again and knew that I would never forget it. The prediction I’d made when I tossed my coin into the Trevi Fountain had come true: I did want to go back to Rome.

In the May half term, I was lucky enough to go on Pack Holiday with the Brownie Unit I was a member of all those years ago. Whilst we were there, we went to Christmas Tree Farm on a day out. Most of the animals were either goats or sheep with a couple of pigs and a horse of two also living there. Oh yes and of course too many chickens! After we’d walked round the farm, we were allowed to go into some of the enclosures. The goat enclosure had two gates, forming an air lock type entrance. There was the first gate which you had to close before you could go through the second gate. Once you were through the second gate, you were with the animals. After feeding some of the goats, including an enormous one that many of the Brownies were too scared to go near, some of them went back out to see some of the other animals again. Naturally, a lot of the goats wanted to get out and ran through the first gate with the Brownies. While we were able to herd them in back into the enclosure, the baby goats were small enough to wriggle free. None of quite knew what to do, so one of the leader ran and grabbed one of the goats before he had time to run away, but didn’t know quite what to do with him. Still being inside the enclosure, I ran up to the fence and she passed me the goat. After getting a photo, I couldn’t let that opportunity be lost, I placed him gently on he ground. However, it soon became clear to the baby goats that they could escape and they were all trying to get out. One of the goats, bless him, was so scared, we could feel his heart beating when we held him. Of course, we couldn’t fail to notice that the baby goats were immensely soft and looked increddibly soft with their tiny little tails and either diddy horns for the boys and stumps for the girls. I wanted to take one home with me!!
Obviously, some of the goats were too big to get through however, so I sat down with them to stroke them. And of course, one of the teenage goats walked on me - another great photo opportunity. I manged to sit for a while before he got too heavy and shoved him off me. Gently of course, those horns looked scary! Although not as soft as the kidds, he didn’t have rough hair and consented to let me stroke him before realising that some of the Brownies still had some food.
All too soon, it was time to leave and we walked back to the campsite after a terrific day out!

Yesterday, May 23rd, was my seventeenth birthday. Unbelievably, I wasn’t that excited; I knew what I was going to get, I’d tried it on even! And there’s been a lot going on at home and stuff. But when I woke up at quarter past seven, I felt a lot happier about my birthday and went downstairs. Once I was sitting comfortably on the sofa I was handed my presents. From my mum, I was given the Jamboree blue polo-shirt and green hoody and of course my juggling balls! As well as a normal set, with one orange, one blue and one yellow, I was given a set that lit up in the dark, one green, one blue and one red. My brother got me Maroon Five’s new album and then went upstairs to get me something else from Mum which, when opened, turned out to be an entertainment system comprising of a CD player, a cassette player, a radio and a record player! It’s really pretty and smells really nice! Like a new guitar or violin.
Once my brother was off to college, me and Mum went into town. My father treated me to some nice new clothes and he was paying for lunch at Pizza Hut and he was paying for the cinema! Wasn’t that nice of him? Shame he forgot to send a card really. Let me take a moment to explain the on going joke in my family. After my parents got divorced, my father never paid any childcare money. The CSA has finally tracked him down and once in a blue moon we actually get some money from him. Yesterday was one of those days! And no, neither me or my brother has received a birthday or Christmas card for about three years, but I’m beyond caring. But anyway, moving on! After walking round town for a little while, we went to pick my brother up and we went for lunch. Mum, hopeless at directions, was a bit worried about the traffic so we decided to take a different way that she’d never been before. Would it work..? YES! It did, we got to the college before he was even out.
Being in Thurrock anyway, we went to the Pizza Hut in Lakeside where my uncle was waiting for us at a table. After having several helpings of pizza and salad he presented me with a bag and a present. The present was from my mum, but she hadn’t been able to get hold of it, so my uncle had brought it for her, for me. I knew straight away that it was a book, but what? I tried to think of any particular book that I really wanted right now and then it hit me. Could this be a copy of…? I hastily unwrapped it and there, sitting before me on a bed of wrapping paper was Scouting For Boys! My mum said she had wanted to get me How Girls Can Help To Build The Empire as well, but that one just couldn’t be found. I was perfectly happy with just the one though,
I mean there’s always Christmas! Next was my uncle’s present and card. He’d got a pencil tin, just so I’d have something else to open bless him and a Mika record! I couldn’t wait to get home and play it, but that wouldn’t happen for hours yet, not that I minded!
After dropping my brother back at college, it was cinema time! We still had a little while until it was showing so we went to the arcade first. I trundled down to the cinema to check the time it was on, only to find out that Blades of Glory was no longer being shown! So I took a leaflet and went back to the arcade to tell Mum and my uncle. There wasn’t really anything else that we wanted to so, so instead, we went to Southend! We went to Peter Pans and I went on the chair-o-planes all on my own, no one else was on the ride! Then me and my uncle went on the Scorpion; my favourite ride and it was well worth it, just to hear my uncle panic and scream, he doesn’t like spiny things apparently! We then went to get an ice cream and go into one of the many arcades in Southend. We went straight to the old fashioned Track and Field machine in the back and I beat everyone in the 100m sprint, the javelin and the long jump, but not the hurdles, me and my uncle got mixed up so he was controlling my character meaning that I was the only one to get through to the hummer. Which I failed at.
All too soon it was time to go home and my uncle went back to his house. This mean Explorers at Thriftwood though, we were doing rafting! After hastily packing a bag, we jumped into the car and only just got there in time. I’ve never been rafting before and it was so fun! After all the rafts had been built (I haven’t done that amount of square lashing in ages), ours looked the least sturdiest, but it turned out to the second best - one of them actually fell apart when it went into the water! We also won the race and then helped pull the leaders off of their raft. After getting soaked and reminding ourselves that we were Explorers, we jumped/slid/fell off the raft and dragged it ashore from half way across the lake. Of course, I’d already come very close to falling off dozens of times, very scary! I didn’t know I could scream that high or loud unless I was falling from a great height on a ride! Once I was home, it was shower time and I went from feeling all horrible and still slightly soggy to being all clean and spick ‘n span!
So all in all a brilliant day. But now I must ask something of you, if you’re reading this. I haven’t asked you to do anything, not to read this or to leave any comments, nothing. But now I ask that when you read this, you won’t think I’m spoiled or selfish for finding a negative point in my day. Traditionally, my grandmother has always sorted out the cake. When we were little, she made it and when we got older, she was one who paid for it. However, she passed away very recently and I couldn’t help but feel a pang that the tradition could not continue. It’s silly isn’t it? The little things, but that was how I felt. It was a nice cake though - it was a clown! And it was very nice! And it had a big red nose…so I ate it. Of course, we all did the joke “this cake’s got no nose! How does it smell?” “AWFUL!”

Being selected to go to the Jamboree as a Guide from Essex South East, meant I was faced with the daunting task of raising £1000. Little did I know the amount would soon increase to £1300. My first thought was to treat it like a homework assignment; panic, then leave it until the last moment. However, unlike me, my leaders have some sense and helped me get it done.
I started off with the first thing I could think of: going to my school. Unfortunately, we’d just been given a new Head teacher, who wasn’t as nice as the old one, making me do a presentation to the whole school about what the money was for before relenting and giving me £100 from an own clothes day. It was a start. I paid it into the bank, all excited at making a first payment. When the first statement came through, I saw that I’d been allocated a grant, arranged by the Guide Leader taking us. Although this meant I didn’t have to raise as much, it also meant I got careless and momentarily put my fundraising on hold. I told myself I had exams to pass and that was the most important thing in the immediate future, but after they were done, I kept trying to find other things to do and started to panic that I’d never get any more done.
However, other people had faith in me! I was given a notebook, pen and instructions to list as many fundraising ideas as possible. We must have written everything on the first couple of pages. From car boot sales to bag-packing (bane of my life), you name it, it was in that book. Then we went through and sorted out which ones we could get to work on immediately. The first thing we got sorted was the begging letters to shops. After the first few, I felt like a robot, with a pre-programmed message to give to the person at the counter and I even got quite confident! Over the next few weeks, I got letters and parcels containing vouchers, prizes and requests to pick up potential prizes (I never thought I’d get that basket home on my pushbike). It was quite exciting really, I never get mail!
The next task was sorting out prizes from selling material. We now had a load of stuff waiting to be sold and won. All we needed now was somewhere to sell it. The answer came with a garage-sale. Luckily, we had a garage we could use. So after getting up early, I trundled down to Sam’s house and we sat waiting for customers. And then they came…
After a tiring, but successful, day of sitting around, we planned a quiz night, a disco, and got our name on the charity car park list. With tickets selling at a painfully slow rate, it looked as though the desired amount would never be raised. So we added the traditional way to get money in fast – added a raffle! It also solved the predicament of what to do with the prizes waiting to be won.
The hall was booked. The questions were found. The teams were organised. And we came fourth by two points. Two points away from getting a prize! After all the trouble we took getting them, I didn’t even win one! But it was a great night and I got to use a microphone, not that I need help with volume. It was in the middle of all of this that my District Commissioner, who I get on fabulously with, came up to me and told me that if I put a request in writing for a grant from the Division people, it was likely I’d get something as some other girls who are going to New Zealand had done a similar thing.
With preparations for the disco commencing, I received a cheque for £130 from the Division people, so there were smiles all round! It was when I’d just had a happy moment that I decided to check my diary to see what date we were doing the car park and that wiped the smile off my face I can tell you. It was the day after the disco. So it was going to be a late night followed by an early start, made even worse by the fact that I’d be getting myself there on my bike. I sighed, resigned to the fact I’d just have to get some extra sleep in afterwards.
The disco approached and we found the cause of the tickets selling so slowly – it was Red Nose Day! Having got the hall for free and having sold a significant enough amount of tickets to make it worth while, we kept the date and still had a great time. The best part for me was seeing some of my favourite people who none of us get to see very often and showing my mum who they were so she could finally put names to faces. I was also given a donation collected by some members of gojamboree and I was really happy!

When it was all over and I was back at home, I decided to count up all the money I had collected personally so I could get a cheque off of the Rangers for the amount I needed to make up still. The first thing I checked was the most recent e-mail from the person in charge of the financial side of things for our unit. After opening a new one that I must have received very recently, I saw that I’d been allocated more of the original grant so instead of the £600 I thought I was going to have to find it was more like £300. I couldn’t believe it. My work load had just been halved. I quickly counted up the money I had in my room. £285. All the disco and quiz money was being kept in the Ranger’s bank account, so none of it was from that. All I had to do was ask them for £15. And I still had to get up early to help at the car park. I couldn’t complain, not really, after all, the money that had been raised would go to the Rangers and I had the satisfaction of knowing I had helped. So in the morning, after being awoken, rather rudely I thought, by my alarm clock at a time of day I didn’t know existed at the weekend, I dragged myself to the town centre. After having woken up a bit more and being briefed on what we had to do, we were joined by more people and we decided to re-enact all we could remember from Gang Show to keep us amused. We all had to remember to tell the drivers that they had to come up the ramp of the car-park instead of the stairs and one guy was adamant that he shouldn’t have to pay as it was him who’d given the car-park to be used for charities. By the end of the day, I was feeling quite tired: running around car parks counting all the spaces takes it out of you! So despite having a fun day, I was glad to be riding back through my estate and getting home where I had a nice cup of hot chocolate.
And that was it. The money is raised, waiting to be put in the bank. And I can relax wishing the days would go by faster! Well, maybe not too fast, there’s a still lot needing to be sorted out before the Jamboree!