Best Two Months Ever/ A New Way Of Life?

September and October has probably the busiest Scouting schedule of the year and this year I think we took full advantage. This post will be annoying as they all probably should have been separate blogs in themselves and therefore I am going to have to skim over some details. Sorry.

Starting with Connected 2010. For me this was the Birth of our new Network for Ormskirk. There was 105 people in attendance on the weekend and 35 of them where from Ormskirk and we started to state our dominance early on the friday night with heavy drinking.

Sticking to our roots of not really getting involved in anything County we quickly established our own area on the campsite and proceeded to tear up the occasion. After having the first drunk person dancing on stage we quickly moved onto murdering every classic song there has ever been on the karaoke and even managed to liaise with The St. Helen Network lot.

On the saturday people got out and did a number of quality activities, personally however I sobered up and went the football. What a game, Everton 3-1 down with 2 minutes of extra time to go and we drew 3-3! I enjoyed my drive back down the 62 with all the united fans. When I got back we started on the mother of all drinking sessions that started with a bottle of vino before 5pm. My moment for the weekend has to be me and matt being the last two people to bed and going through an un holy amount of wine sitting in the rain. It was a fantastic weekend.

Fonzie had a good time at Connected.

A few days later I got a phonecall with an offer of some more television work. This time down in London. I quickly booked myself a first class return ticket and went down. Thankfully Adam and Luke had said I could come and stay with them which was good because I had not seen them in a long time. It was good to catch up. We played alot of fifa and ate too much pizza.

The work was really good. I had stepped up from been a runner in my last job to the role of tech assist in this one. The show is going to be called 'the modelling agency' and it will be on channel 4 in the new year.

The Gathering 10 was without doubt the best Gathering I had ever been on. I am really getting more out of scouting from helping that I ever did as a participant. I did some awful things on the Gathering this year, like drink a bottle of expensive wedding present wine, and eat Ken Spencers fairly expensive cheese(even though I am not too keen on cheese) but neither of these will be my lasting memory from this weekend. This award goes to Fonzie for his epic serving hatch stunt.

Dave Ridouts Final Walk was a big BIG weekend for me. Dave Ridout was a massive influence on my life and someone who I know I am going to miss. Saying that though, what an chance for everyone to come together and remember this great person. We all met in the pub the night before, drank whiskey, told stories and generally reminisced(and offended minorities). The walk the next day was a good one, one I had never done before, culminating in Daves ash's been scattered on top of Pillar Rock(his last unclimbed mountain in England and Wales). Me Matt and Jesus carried Dave up the mountain in Matts rucksack, taking turns. The day was emotional and hard on everyone but there was a real sense of achievement and satisfaction at the end.

The guys a top of Pillar, ready to scatter Dave's ashes.

There have been many more telling events of these last few months but I really feel like I am rambling on now and its getting boring.

The big thing to come out of these events though its a new way of life for me and other certain members of my close friends. This new way of life is faster, drinks harder, sleeps less, abuses more and is becoming compulsive/addictive.