Yesterday was Tom’s final day as an IT Technician at Dr Challoner’s, and on Monday he starts at Fresh Minds as their new network manager, or to quote his official title, “Executive Operations Manager”.
To send him off we started off the night somewhat curiously at the house of our Deputy Head, who laid on a barbecue and drinks for the entire IT support team, as well as Pete, (Graphics teacher), and Janet (Assistant Head of IT) and her husband. The whole evening became strange not only due to the fact that Chris has a giant trampoline in the back garden, but that he’s not the only one…
 Minutes after arriving at Chris' house, Mat gets the evening off to a flying start |
Chris: “We got ours after Janet got hers…”
Me: “Is this some Senior Management initiation thing? You’re not allowed in the Senior Management Team until you’ve got a trampoline?” |
As the night wore on, the bizarreness only grew. We soon learned that over the summer, Chris’ daughter Kat had been so bored that at the age of 25 she had decided to learn the recorder. We immediately demanded a recital, and eventually got one:
| “When you said she’d learned the recorder over the summer… I thought you were joking!”
- Janet, while laughing hysterically during Kat’s recorder recital |
Later into the night, there’s an unplanned arrival in the form of Patrick, one of the History teachers. After a 2-hour trip home on public transport because his wife had taken the car to Liverpool on a conference, in his football kit because he’d been playing in a match after school, he arrived at his front door to find he’d left his keys at school. He phoned Chris, who has a reputation for late nights and could have still been in his school office (although he wasn’t), and was instructed to make his way to Chris’ house while he fetches Patrick’s keys from the school. Patrick then arrived in the middle of the mayhem known as “late-night trampolining”.
| “This is the most bizarre night of my life.”
- Patrick, approximately 10 minutes after arriving (still dressed in his football kit). |
At about 9.45pm we finally decided to make a move and spent the rest of the evening in a couple of pubs in Amersham, before walking back to JD’s house through the woods in the middle of the night and falling asleep on his giant Budda Bag.
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- Minutes after arriving at Chris’ house, Mat gets the evening off to a flying start
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- Many burgers, sausages, and alcoholic beverages later, trampolining starts to seem like a good idea again
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- Pete suddenly becomes very fearful of what Mat might do next
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- JD and Pete had obviously missed out on trampolining in their childhood
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- Seconds later, Pete loses all sense of grace and falls on his arse
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- Later we adjourned to the pub, where JD and Tom played their classic “Little & Large” roles
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- Pete, Kat, and Mat
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- Mat, Jay, and Kat, oblivous to the abuse Tom suffers behind them at the hands of JD and Pete
