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It took me several minutes to attach the trailer and clean the school minibus out. When I’d done that I nipped in to the building to get a couple of black bin liners. Once I had got them, I drove round to the school car park and got my gear from my car. I have a three person Vango tent, an aluminium collapsible table and a canvas folding chair for comfort as well as the stuff I put in my rucksack. I put the tent, table and chair behind the rear seat and the rucksack by the sliding door. Having done that I popped round to where the youngsters were waiting. I gave instructions on how the trailer needed to be filled and demonstrated with a few rucksacks to give them the idea. While the loading was being completed I set up my satnav so as to get us to the start point. The minibus has seventeen seats in total. There were twelve students, ateacher and myself in the bus but we had a lot of kit too.

Once we were loaded we started off for Horbling. It was a beautiful afternoon and the drive there was uneventful. I parked up opposite the church for a couple of reasons. The first was that this is a bunch of young people with little or no map reading experience and they should be able to find exactly where they were on the map and orient it correctly so that they had a good start to their expedition. The second was that the road there is reasonably wide and only gently curved so we would not be a problem for other road users. I took time to set up the satnav for the next leg of our journey while the teacher sorted the groups out and set them on their way. I also took time to have a pastie and drink of apple juice as I was getting hungry, it being after 17:00.

Once the youngsters were safely on their way I drove the teacher to my next check point and she walked off to hers. I turned the vehicle radio on and had a listen to some classical (well motown etc) music while I waited. I also had a sausage roll as I was still a bit peckish. After a while I walked across the road to the stile that was where the groups should come out of the field. As I got to the top of the stile I was able to see a bunch walking along a hedge. They were strating to head the wrong way instead of following the footpath towards me so I waved. They came across to me and I gave them a refill of water. They had a short rest and moved off once I got them to show me our exact locationa and where their next check point was. They were just leaving when the second group arrived. I did the same for them and left to go to our camp site for that night.

More tomorrow.

I found out on Thursday 6 may 2011 that I am to be made redundant from my job. I have decided that I am going to write my experiences of my last six weeks or so on this blog and then collate them into a book to be titled “The Last Cover” as today’s write up is.. Therefore, my musings may be a bit disjointed as I put the here but I will tidy them up. What we’ll see is snippets of information that I intend to make flow into a proper story over the course of time. Today’s effort will be a little short as I have been doing soem otehr stuff and I am a little late getting started. Anyway, here goes.

I work in a grammar school and have had a great time there over the last five years since beginning the job of Cover Supervisor on 24 April 2006. I thoroughly enjoy the job because both pupils and staff are really good to be with. The staff are invariably helpful and the students are fantastic. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are naughty but they are young people growing up and I see it as their job to push the boundaries to see just where they are. I tell them that I’m just a big fat boundary pushing back to let them know where the line is. Our school caters for boys from the ags of eleven to eighteen and girls from sixteen to eighteen who come here for the sixth form. There are about nine hundred and sixty pupils and a little over a hundred staff, over hlf being teachers. Think about it, children eat and so we need catering staff, they make a mess and so we need cleaners and site staff, they play games and we need ground staff outside, the school has a budget and we need a finance office, we get visitors and so we have receptionists, teachers become ill, go on courses, have babies and go to meetings and so we have cover superviors. I think by now you should be getting the picture.

When we were originally told that some support staff were going to be made redundant I put my name forward becuase I have a Police pension and can just about afford to live on it if we cut back a bit. I love gadgets, computers etc and so it is me who will have to do the cutting.

Anyway, I sent the head teacher an e-mail offering my head for the block. A couple of days later, he caught me in the corridor and asked me into his office. The gist of the conversation was “Thank you for your offer Nigel, but I will make the decisions as to who goes and who stays with consideration to what I think will be in the best ineterests of the school. I actually think there are some guidelines about accepting volunteers but we won’t go into that. Since that time there has been quite a bit of speculation as to who will be going and who will be kept on. I was told that I had an interview with the Head at 15:00 on Friday May 6th. That’s a bit of a bummer brecause I wanted to sort the school minibus out and get it ready to go on a Duke of Edinburgh Award Brionze expedition. On Thursday 6 may, the Head saw me in the corridor and we went into his office. He asked if I was still willing to accept voluntary redundancy? Yep, no problem He asked me to put it in writing and he would then action it. That took me about ten minutes and I knoew I was on my way out.

I was supposed to have had a free period at the end of the Friday but due to other people having interviews I ended up covering a biology test instead. This meant that I was not ready with the minibus when the school closed at 15:30. It took a while to get my gear on board and the trailer to filled with the students’ rucksacks etc. I had two groups and another member f staff in the bus with me. We drove off to their start point and sent them on their way.

That’s going to have to do for today.