Cornwall

The Friday after the send-off party dawned far too early, far too bright, and far too drunk for a day at work followed by a 5 hour trip to Cornwall. In order to ease the pain, some lunchtime pints were consumed, which only served to delay me at work, henceforth delaying the car leaving, in turn making people furious at me.

Vics Nicholson had kindly organised a weekend to test out equipment, and do some heavy exercise at the Estate of her friend Claire's parents. None of this really dawned on me until I got actually got there. We were staying inside the grounds of a 10,000 acre estate in Cornwall, a place called Bocconoc House, an amazing 18th-century stately home. The fields have been the scenes of several films (including The Three Musketeers), and included a deer park, a cricket field, a huge lake, a church, a graveyard, and facilities for plenty of guests. It was once the home of William Pitt (the younger). His second stint as Prime Minister was during the Battle of Trafalgar, and can claim Pitt St in Sydney as being named after him. He bequeathed the estate to The Fortescue's , whom have kept in the family ever since.

I'm glad I didn't know any of this information prior to arriving, or else I may have made a nasty pre-judgement. And if this had of happened, anything other than 'lovely, accommodating, and down-to-earth' would've been far form the truth. The Fortescue's blew us all away with their generosity and laid-back attitude to having 12 complete strangers in their 20's stay at their estate free of charge. All weekend we were treated embarrassingly well, and you could see all of us desperately trying to repay the favour by conducting menial tasks such as washing-up or rubbish-removal.

Despite Vic's directions, we actually managed to find the house circa 1am Saturday morning. Mindful of a massive hangover and an early start for a pre-breakfast jog, I was keen to get to bed. And that's exactly what I did, 5 hours later. Swept up in the excitement of it all, we conveniently forgot our exercise commitments and committed to drinking red wine in the massive dining quarters... which was handy as it washed away the odd combination of sausage and mars bar. In my tired state, I lumped a large ladle (Alliteration!) of what appeared to be gravy over my sausage, mash, and peas. Turns out it was the chocolate sauce being prepared to go over the ice-cream dessert.

10am and I thought my luck had changed when I awoke to Vics making demands of me in my bed. Turns out the demands were actually just to get up and go for a run. Thinking everybody was in on this, I dusted myself off and gingerly emerged to the meeting point. But only 5 of us made it out of bed. 45 minutes worth of trotting later and I was virtually on the cusp of ending it all. Luckily a crockpot full of porridge and serving dish full of bacon baps eased the pain. Following this we awoke the living-dead before following Vics, in her new guise as Colleen McRae, on a fraught drive through the backlanes of Cornwall to find the beach.

The Beach. In March. In England. All the hardy soles stepped off for a swim. I followed in slowly, but after going numb from being in only knee deep in the 5 degree water, I refused to go any further. Jules then threatened to throw me in, so taking the dignified option, I jumped in, squealed like a girl, and ran back out again before my body had the time to completely shutdown in hypothermic shock. Later on in the afternoon, Vics finally dropped her pants in front of me. I must say I’ve been surprised it took this long.

After this I needed a sleep, and a good deep one at that. Thankfully, the boys put the Rugby on, and no sooner had I seen 15 grown man jumping on each other for no conceivable reason had I nodded off. Refreshed, we were all served a roast dinner that could only be described as magnificent, with Wes taking the opportunity to thank our hosts... taking the time to point out that yet again this trip is throwing up experiences I would never otherwise have had.... and Mr Fortescue was very kind in his praising of our endeavour.

Again, another relaxing night of casual boozing followed. The sight of 12, mostly privately-educated white kids, stuffed on roast pheasant. wearing tweed caps raided from Mr Fortescue's vastly impressive collection, smoking cigars and drinking Port under the watchful eye of a portrait of one of England’s most revered Prime Ministers, tunefully singing along to 'In The Ghetto', was probably the most inappropriate, yet hilarious, experiences of my life. The jaunt provided an excellent opportunity to get to know our photographer from the telegraph, Will Wintercross. Will was massively entertaining and his remorseless attempts to impress the girls on Friday night, coupled with his 'picking off the natives' comments are memories that will stick with me for a long time. Not to mention my all-round Man of the Match for the weekend, Jules Staveley. Jules, for one reason or another, has been a guy that I haven't managed to get to know too well over the course of the last 12 months, so it was great to get to know him a little better and hear some of his renowned banter and penchant for hats, dogs, and the elderly.

3 consecutive days of heavy boozing (we are just ruddy bloody lads, us lot! Always boozing. Mental!) rendered most of the planned exercise redundant, however a weekend of RnR was very much welcomed from a group of people who have collectively worked their arses off in recent months. It was great to even see Wes let his perfectly-groomed-hair down. Not all was wasted though, as Vics managed to organise some press coverage. How the team shot in front of a stately home will go down with the public whom we are asking for donations from remains to be seen. What also remains to be seen is what names get printed in the paper. Vics, in incredibly neat handwriting, handed a list with our names. This conversation followed:

Photographer: Ok I'll read them. Ben German
Vics: No, Jarman
Photographer: Oh ok, Glen Lewis
Vics: No, Lowis
Photographer: Oh ok, Nicholas Too. tooo
Vics: Toovey
Photographer: Fine. Ted Williams
Vics: No, Joe Williams
Photogrpaher: Oh I see. Very well I'll put that up on the website shortly.

As he didn't take a note of the changes, the names given too us will be massively interesting.