Castlewellan 2008
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008The Day Before
With us having been looking forward to Castlewellan 2008 since at least the end of Castlewellan 2004, me and James couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a tour round a day early, where, after weeks of pretty bad weather, the sun was out and things seemed to be shaping up pretty nicely for the week of Castlewellan…
Roy Keane (tempted to put the caption “Sunday morning, 11am)!
Then it was down towards the campsite to investigate conditions – things were looking good
And the grass was pretty dry too!
I would apologise for all the pictures of me but… 8)
And finally, a seemingly random picture of a road…
Castlewellan 2008
The same road, 24 hours later
Obviously, people were left asking, ‘Water we going to do?’ But before we get to that, here is a special SWS bonus from Sunday evening:
Mark Loughridge – A Call to Passionate, Persistent Prayer (whole service)
So after the first night, which most of the tent dwellers spent in the Castle thanks to the kindness of the Castlewellan people, on the Lord’s Day we had a prayer meeting, morning and evening worship, and in between a psalm sing in the form of a walk through The Pilgrim’s Progress by Nathan Hawthorne, which was the best psalm sing since the last time Nathan did it. In the evening the Owls made a great start to the week as we all had great fun introducing the people in our group to the other groups.
On Monday morning we had the talk followed by discussion groups and then various afternoon activities for anyone who could still be bothered with them. Those who didn’t have any went to Castlewellan or Newcastle to get wellies. In the evening their was a table quiz, with one of the songs you had to guess in the music round being the Termonfeckin song by Cromie Robert. Brilliant! Andrew and Pamela spoke at the Owls, which was immense.
By Tuesday things had finally dried up a bit, and those playing football on the Donard Park astroturf in the afternoon were in danger of getting sunburnt. In the evening there was another quiz type thing, but I wasn’t there, so can’t really comment, but I will take credit for the fact that our discussion group won it 8)
Times are hard when you have to nick pics from DMFWS, but this instance of high-brow humour is just too good not to share
On Wednesday afternoon, with the erection of a second Marquee on Monday for washed out campers ensuring that it wouldn’t rain again for the rest of the week, it was time for It’s a Knockout. The first game being to find where they actually were.
Getting extra points for chanting gets a big thumbs up
He’s back
Strobe on the original slippery slope before they made it twice as long
The big one
Clug and Brenna
Then it was probably time to start preparing for the concert, which rather disorientingly was on the Wednesday night. We had more fun composing the Castlewellan song than actually singing it, with brilliant lines such as: “Pitched our tents in mud and mire, while the rich sat by the fire”. Quality.
The usual Ivan-impersonation
Cromie was content with a backseat role this year
Camp v Castle
And at Owls we finally managed to get it a few minutes of Switch If. On Thursday there was rounders in the afternoon, which finished in a dramatic draw, followed by Nae Goat’s Toe, who contrary to expectations were actually very good. And they said we were the best audience ever, although for all we know they say that every week :-P
On Friday afternoon there was football again (20 a side stuff), this time played on the grass which the council were still trying to claim was waterlogged. In the evening after family worship we had Norman and Nancy trying to sell TermonScotland to us (which seems to have been pretty much a success), pigs on spits, Martin and Mary, and the party.
A pig on a spit
Alan Partridge himself
Following the party there was some mountain boarding down the hill in front of the castle in the pitch dark, with the only way to stop being to fall off, with hilarious results.
The sun sets on Castlewellan for another 4 years (at least)
Our tent – with Joel standing in for Mr Christopher Mr Li
Thanks to Ali G and PMO for most of the photos. What a week!
