At Yellow Braces one of the activities was Archery, the Hill End site don't let us Arch (is that the correct term?) on their site so we have to trot over to a farm near by. All well and good but the journey does involve crossing a particularly nasty and fast piece of road and walking a few hundred yards along it. Although we had highly qualified archeryists (not the correct term) we didn't have anyone apart from me who was expedition qualified, this being the appropriate training and experience for supervising the walk! Ergo, I walk the Arch-ists to the Archery!
In the team briefing I mentioned that I would be off-site for a while as i was the only one qualified for (what I flippantly described as) "crossing the road"
"Qualified to cross a road!!!!?" was the horrified reaction of the team, "You're not serious?"
Those that know me will have encountered my bad habit of spontaneous and loosely credible stories that sometimes get taken seriously for a few seconds!
"Oh yes!" I replied, "Road Crossing is a really important qualification to have but unfortunately there is only one recognized piece of training and subsequent award, that being the one held by school lollipop ladies. That's the award I hold! It was a nightmare to get though, I had to do a three day residential course in Derbyshire alongside 30 middle aged women!"
There was a brief bubble of incredulous horror at the idea of three days training to cross a road before those who know me best cracked up!
If I'm talking about my faith, theology, philosophy or anything to do with young people, I'm being serious. Anything else though, you can't be sure. (Mind you, you can never tell as sometimes I'm accidentally right ...... just maybe there is a three day course in Lollipopping!)
Brilliant!