PGL 2022 - Day 1

What a cracking day! So many excited faces in the morning, even the ones who wanted to meet a bit later at the New Delight came into school. The children were very excited to see the coach pull up. With suitcases loaded, the children made their way to the seats, one would have thought they were planning a seating plan for a wedding with so many logistics to think about. Our journey was smooth with a lot, and I mean a lot, of talking.

The classic questions did not feature on our journey like, “Are we there yet?”. Instead, Emilia asked excitedly, “Mr Chan, how do you turn the fan on?” The fan is on now. Two minutes later, “Mr Chan, how do you turn the fan off?” That seemed to set the precedent for the types of questions we would be receiving on this trip, “Mr Chan, please could you shut that window?”, “Mr Chan, why do you have a computer when we couldn’t bring electronics?”,  “Mr Chan, I feel sick.” After a long and windy journey, we were greeted by our PGL instructor – Cat.

We quickly unpacked our bags into our dorms and headed out for lunch. The beautiful weather followed us all the way from Colden. After lunch, we broke into small group games.

In one corner, we had Mia, Liam, Arthur, Pippa, Bo, Grace and Ms McGibney playing ‘Ultimate Frisbee’. There were some exceptional throwers, no matter where Mr Chan was standing, Mia was able to locate him, trying to entice him to play, with pinpoint accuracy, always just missing his face – if that’s not skill, I don’t know what is!

In another, there was an intense volleyball game a foot: Valentina, Toby, Ella and Mrs Hall vs Stefan, Mylo, Sofia and Mr Chan.

Edith and Rowan played a game of sheltering under the bench. I think they called this, ‘It’s too hot so let’s find some shade.’ They played for hours!

With the sun on our face for most of the afternoon, we were beat. We headed back into our dorms to chill out before looking at the indoor games room.

The moment had finally come. Dinner. It took almost no time for the food to be consumed, some had to be reminded that we should chew our food before swallowing. Mr Chan and Jess had a chit chat about how delicious the chicken fillet was and if he goes away again, he would definitely choose it again. How food makes a difference: he was feeling a little homesick in the morning, but now there was not even a mention about home. He was very excited to take a juice with him to his last activity.

The evening activity was ‘Passport to the World’. You would have thought the children would have run out of energy by now. They had not. Showing fantastic team skills and group effort, the children split up into small groups to find flags spread out around the PGL centre and answer questions based on that country.  After an hour of running, shouting, laughing and doing silly dances to earn points, it was time to get ready for bedtime.

It won’t be a surprise to you all. The children were asleep pretty quickly…and the adults too. Bring on day 2!