Castle Time: Castlewellan Castle… castle.
It wasn’t too long after we started regular older youth meetings in September that we realized we needed more than just one Saturday a week to really get to know our teens. Part of the solution to this quandary was our Great Day of Fun at Drewstown House, but the second—and more elaborate—scheme involved an entire weekend away at a castle in Northern Ireland. The castle was Castlewellan Castle in the town of Castlewellan. We like to say castle.
The trip, as planned, went through many changes and upheavals before it came true, and cancellations was at one point considered. The youth were concerned that they wouldn’t get enough time to study that weekend (imagine!); they were sick, but then they got better, but then someone else got sick; or, they mightn’t be able to get time off work for 2.5 days. Well, in the end, six leaders went (that’s all of us: Tim, Liz, Eric, Donna, Ash & myself) and six youth. That’s a 1:1 leader-to-youth ratio: any youth worker’s dream. The official date of the older youth (currently in the process of re-branding...?) Super Weekend of Fun was Friday 13 to Sunday 15 October 2006.
And what a super weekend it was. Ash & I traveled with Eric & Donna for the entire 165 minutes (shorter than your average full-length film but, nonetheless, a very long time in Ireland) and enjoyed an absorbing lesson on the history and politics of Northern Ireland, complete with a healthy, rousing debate and two different Irish perspectives (that of the first-generation English immigrant versus the tried-and-true, pure-bred—sorry Eric—southern, Catholic-raised Irishwoman). I do not at all mean to make this sound uninteresting or dry; it was not so.
At any rate, we eventually turned onto the castle grounds as the last rays of the sun disappeared ‘neath the horizon. We were cordially welcomed and shown to our rooms—pleasant enough, indeed—before we headed to our lounge for a light lunch of hot dogs and crisps, at which point the guys were thoroughly educated in the way of manners concerning women. We ate the last hot dogs.
That very night, at 22:45, we began a game of Mission Impossible, which pitted the boys against the girls in a race to deliver tokens to a designated spot whilst remaining undetected by the leaders. This was carried out in a wonderfully dark wood without torches. The boys had a very blitz-like strategy which won them 3 points, but the girls, who were far more cautious and clever, amassed a grande total of 0. Fair play to them! Next, it was the leaders’ turn to take on the youth. We played for 15 minutes before they got bored of patrolling the grounds, but we did manage to deliver 3 tokens in that time. We all gathered in the stone circle and began to think about going to bed—it was Saturday now. Wait a moment—where are Ashleigh and Liz? Alright girls! The gig is up! Time to come out! You don’t have to hide anymore!
Nearly half an hour and several grey hairs later, Ashleigh and Liz realized that, no, the youth were not trying to be tricky by impersonating the leaders and announcing that the game was over so that Ash & Liz would come out of the bushes and get caught—brilliant scheme—but no, that was not it. No, it was actually the leaders who had been looking for them since midnight. We all had a nervous chuckle about it.
The next morning, when we finally got around to inspecting the castle, we realized that it had many interesting and castley features such as rooms on the ground-and-a-halfth floor, many small and large stairways, doors that don’t close and doors that don’t open, a mounted moose head, and probably enough plaster to bridge the Irish sea. However, by far the “coolest” feature was this room:
Saturday was packed with activity and—you guessed it—fun. But I can’t go into detail on everything, though it would be fascinating, I’m sure! The meals were very, very good, especially considering that they were cooked up with 150 people in mind (there was another group staying at the castle as well). Tim led two excellent reflective Bible studies on discipleship and the story of Zacchaeus. While the oldest youth took a study break, the rest of us went for a leisurely stroll around the lake, which proved to be longer in circumference than we initially estimated. Along the way, we learned how to make a real raft.
Tim and I and the guys put together the zodiac and inflatable dingy which we had packed for just such an occasion as that afternoon presented us with, while Eric and the girls went horseback riding, English-style. No one fell off, but Claire had a lot of trouble with her stubborn old steed. They proceeded to the hedge-maze, which took Lynsey no time at all to conquer. However, as it turned out, the first was indeed last, for she had to sit there and wait over an hour before the last girls staggered in to the finish. While she waited, Paul and I were climbing neat-shaped trees on a little island we had chanced upon, but due to a stroke of ill luck, both of the branches Paul was holding on to broke within seconds of each other. It was a tense moment, but all turned out well, with the exception of Paul’s nerves.
What else did we accomplish that weekend? Very little, but we managed to scrounge up a bonfire Saturday evening. Also, at 3:00 in the middle of the night, the fire alarm went off and pretty much caused me to have an involuntary reaction. It was absolutely black as pitch, so Eric deduced there must have been a power-outtage; a fine way to inform us, I thought! But no, the lights worked fine. After some detective work by Eric, it was discovered that it had been a false alarm and, while all 130 of the kids sleeping in the castle were safely outside, ALL THE GIRLS HAD SLEPT RIGHT THROUGH THE ALARM. Paul had, in fact, woken up. But when he observed that no one else was getting up, he went right back to sleep.
On Sunday, we got the camera out and took pictures of people jumping down a grassy slope which was quite slippery. I couldn’t pick out the best one, so I made a collage. We also enjoyed the araboretum.
It was fun. Did I mention that?