After a safe journey, we arrived in beautiful Burley.  We were greeted by Avon Tyrrell staff, who then gave us a little tour and showed us to our rooms.  The children's first challenging task of the day: making their own beds.  Mr May and Mrs House were horrified by one boys' room (no names mentioned!), who had all decided it was far easier to just sleep on the mattresses with no covers.  However, they were soon to discover that they would not be leaving the room until their beds were made!  Mrs House would just like to point out that Mr May was more of a hindrance and was soon asked to vacate the room followed soon after by the boys, as sometimes it is far easier and less stressful to just do the job yourself - I think my mothering skills kicked in at this point!

Once all rooms were sorted out, it was time for lunch.  An array of food (hot and cold) was on offer with most going for chicken nuggets and chips. Once fuelled, we all headed out into the heart of the New Forest for a hike.  The hike is always a great chance for the children to take in the beautiful scenery but also chat with friends.  Whilst the hike was fairly demanding for some, Jelly babies were a great bribe and provided the energy needed to finish!  You may notice from the photos the difference between the initial photo and the final ones.  A few exhausted children … and staff too!

Dinner followed and bangers and mash went down well, as we certainly had built up an appetite.  The highlight of dinner was definitely desert (waffles, ice-cream and chocolate sauce) where for the first time the hall turned to complete silence!  Utter bliss!

The children are now enjoying some down time outside.  The weather has been simply perfect today (fingers crossed for the same tomorrow). Some children are now playing football, some are enjoying a fun game of American football and others hide and seek or chatting with their friends.  Rumour also has it that there is soon to be a football game between 6H and 6M.  We will let you know tomorrow who was victorious!

A short and sweet blog today but we hope you enjoy all the photographs.

Regards

Bree House and Dave May (The best blogging Burley has ever seen!)