Like Leaves In The Wind Floating Free

We finished school yesterday, can you believe it? Let me tell you about it, it's a wonderful story. This tale comes in three parts.

Part One: Half Day

Waking up at 6:15am isn't the time I usually get up my yesterday's early morning excitement was too much. Somehow I managed to get ready, all dolled up, by quarter past seven which meant I had time to go on facebook. Oh yeah, nevermind about leaving school so long as I can check facebook before I leave...how sad.

To be honest, I don't really remember the first part of yesterday. I have random bursts of memories but other then that it's all a bit of a haze. Not because I drank or anything stupid but because I had such a busy day.

I remember walking down to collect my folder and my shoes making such a racket that I couldn't hear what the teacher was saying. Also I remember her saying that I hadn't decided on my A Levels which I had. Oh, and also the year 7's singing "Love Story" to us; that was sweet.

I remember the words "Have Courage".

I remember the tears afterwards that would not stop falling from everyone else's eyes. I remember not crying. I remember being too happy to cry.

I remember hugging my form tutor and the feeling of accomplishment.

I remember my graphics teacher's grin when we took photos of him; he has the most adorable smile for a middle to old aged man.

But it doesn't matter what I do and don't remember, I have the whole day captures in photographs. I think I'm going to print those properly; everyone looked so beautiful.

Part Two: Penne a Pollo Zaffarano

By the second half of the day it was midday; lunch time. Lunch time for us meant a booked table and the very open, fresh and friendly Prezzo. The seven of us entered the restaurant still all dressed to kill with a table booked for all of us.

A couple don't really order their own food, usually their parents to. I thank my mother for forcing me to order my own food since a young age as now I have no problem with it. So, playing father with my partner sat next to me playing mother, we ordered our food plus two jugs of water as the first one wasn't enough for all of us.

With a food demolished and the bill paid it was time to meet with everyone else in town. But there was a problem; it was windy outside. Why oh why must it be winding when I was wearing such a girly skirt? And why hadn't I worn better underwear? Now thanks to the blasted wind and the many many hills in town, the group were allowed a preview of my very embarrassing red pants with ducks patterned on them. Greeaaattt.

Thankfully there was a clothes shop opposite where we were meeting with allowed me to dash in with a friend and buy a pair of denim shorts - and boy were they short. After changing into them in the book shop toilets I resembled someone who is pretty much the complete opposite to me. Someone who wears see-through heels and their best friend is a pole. To rid this image, I whipped of my heels and danced around town with everyone in a vest top and denim short-shorts. I had gone from formal female to beach babe in a matter of minutes. Excellent.

Sadly, I felt a little out of place then as I was the only one not in formal wear in our group. This didn't matter though, I'd rather that then to have my skirt blow up every few seconds and letting everyone in town see my undies. Not a good look.

Once we had all regrouped, we headed down to the beach as we had heard about some sort of party going on even though it didn't start until 7pm and it was only 3pm. After sitting on one beach for a while we decided a change of scene would be good. Altogether we jumped aboard the noddy train and were carried back to the beach most of us usually go to. On the way we screamed and waved wildly at any innocent pedestrian we saw at the beach in the hopes that they would wave back to us; and many did - especially the oldies. We also decided that swearing on the noddy train should be punishable by death as the vehicle was so innocent and "such a mockingbird".

When we reached our destination we found ourselves going to somewhere that we weren't really sure of. As the train stopped, we all clambered off thinking this was the end of the line. This was not the case however and the train drove off just minutes after we got off. This left us stuck in our formal wear (or beach wear in my case) trying to figure out how to get to our homes. In the end we decided to separate and meet up again at the pier at 6:30pm. This was originally a grand idea, the only problem was that we had to walk back. I ended walking with the person who was "mother" at the restaurant and so mother and father walked home, barefoot, in the boiling hot sun.

Now let me explain, since the moment I took my shoes off in town, to the moment I got home, I did not wear any shoes or socks. You may be wondering why. Well the pain that my heel would have caused was nothing compared to the burns I received on the bottoms on my feet - but that's not to say that walking home barefoot didn't hurt.

Walking along the clifftop was fine for a while until we were met with pebbly cement. Why on earth would you make cement pebbly? It's not a good idea for grip, it just hurts. So mother and father hobbled along the pavement at about 1 mph complaining about how painful and cruel the world was but still refusing to put on their shoes as they were too terrified of the pain they would cause too. As mother left to go down her road to her house, father had to solider on to her home. I searched for every little piece of shade I could find on the road as a safe-haven that didn't work. The parts of path that were in the shade were hot enough but the parts in the sun gave 3rd degree burns to the soles of your feet. Walking like some kind of cowboy, I managed to shuffle my way towards home. When my feet touched the cold porch floor it was like heaven on my feet.

Shoving my feet into the bathtub of hot water and bubbles also helped with the pain. Somehow, I had managed to cut little bits of the top of my feet as well as get burn blisters on the bottom of my feet. I had to literally scrub my feet to get through the layer of dirt that covered them, quite disgusting actually.

Part Three: Chips and Rocky Road

It was time for another costume change before I brave walking outside again. This time it was leggings, a long shirt and a new purple cardigan with sensible and very very comfortable shoes - oh, and socks. Putting on my socks was the best feeling in the world. They instantly comforted my poor aching feet and protected them from anymore pain that I could possibly inflict on them. My poor feet.

After failing to meet up with the "mother" of this "mother and father" couple that had been created in the restaurant, I made my way down to the pier on my own arriving 10 minutes late but somehow just on time to see everyone else arrive. Everyone had changed and still all looked wonderful in their usual gear. It was back to normal on the outside but something was definitely different on the inside.

Once everyone had arrived we decided to make our way down to where everyone was supposedly meeting. As we came closer to a group that we thought was our lot, we decided to cook up a plan in case we didn't fancy joining them so we wouldn't have to make that embarrassing journey towards everyone from the promenade down to the beach to find out once your only a couple of metres away that you don't really want to be around the people who are there and then turn slowly and leave whilst everyone laughed. Our plan was that we would walk past and wave if we knew them but didn't really want to stay. This way we wouldn't seem rude by completely ignoring them but also it wouldn't cost us any embarrassment of the shameful walk. Strangely, the group we saw first were no way the people we were thinking of finding seeing as they were 20-odd so we just carried on.

After traipsing up and down for about half an hour, I admittedly began to get very annoyed. All the indecision's and walking was getting to me. All I wanted to do was sit down on the beach somewhere and enjoy the time with the people I actually care about. I certainly did not want to go round trying to find a so-called "party" when there was obviously no-one there and the people who were going to be at the party weren't exactly friends, so what was the point? Eventually we sat and refused to move anymore. People who had also been looking for this "party" came along and sat for a while but soon left thinking that they were close to the "real party". To be honest I was happy to stay were I was without the alcohol, loud music and chavvy people to make our gathering a party. I'm such an old woman. ("SHUT UP")

At around 8:30pm everyone was beginning to get a bit hungry again so mother and father went on a hunt for chips. We went of promising the group we'd be back in roughly half an hour with food and drinks and not to move. Oh, and tell anyone who we did not like to go away seeing as we could say that to them now that we've finished school.

The adventure to get chips began in Somerfield where we bought two 1.5L bottles for a pound (bargain!) and a tub of rocky road cakes. We then moved onto the chip shop to buy 3 portions of chips which we thought would feed the ten or more people who were there with us. Whilst waiting for the chips, we realised that we didn't want anyone who wasn't with our group to eat any of our food. Because of this we phoned the group and told them to move away from anyone and meet us by the loos as "we'd be there soon". After getting the chips, we had to make another dash into Somerfield to buy ketchup and salt. Two more bargains, the ketchup being just 45p for a bottle and the salt something silly like 14p. Brilliant.

Once we reached the beach again, we caught people just about to leave as they had to get home again. Bummer we thought, no way are we going to finish the chips with only 5 of us left. Oh how wrong we were. One of us (she will remain un-named like the rest of the lot) managed to eat a whole portion to herself whereas the other 2 portions were shared between 2 people. What a greedy animal (although "mother" had said in the chip shop that the beast counted as 3 people when food is concerned). Once the hungry one had finished she left explaining that she wanted to get home before it was dark. This left mother, father and their last two children to stay on the beach until it was dark - just so the father could cross it off her list of stuff to do in the summer. Once documenting this with a photograph, they made their way home again.

The two "children" were being picked up which went that the "mother and father" had to walk home in the dark together. This wasn't too bad as they had each other and were streetwise about the dangers of nighttime - this isn't to say they weren't terrified though. As they lived a few streets away from each other, the pair had to separate after the spine-chilling Woodland Walk. Father told mother to get her keys out and scratch anyone in the face who dared approach her and also to phone one another if they got scared.

And father neared her house, she got a phone call from mother as she was scared and wanted someone to talk to. Luckily both were perfectly fine and managed to reach their houses safely before 10pm which left enough time for "father" have another bath to soak her feet. Overall, a ridiculously fantastic day.

One day, three parts, two hundred and sixty-six photos and a life time supply of happy memories. Thank you everyone who made my time at Avonbourne so amazing. I love you all.

Avonbourne Leavers 04-09