12th October - 1st day of weekend away at Nantwich

I arranged to meet Alan and Ian in Withington at about 5pm today. I didn't realise that the bus from town would end up taking about an hour to get there - the rush hour on Wilmslow Road was worse than I expected. I ended up arriving later than expected, but the others didn't seem to mind. We headed off to Mike's flat where we stopped for a coffee, before setting off for Nantwich. We decided to go down the A roads to avoid the rush hour traffic. When we got to Nantwich we had a little difficulty finding Regent's Park as there turned out to be more than one level crossing near the town centre. We eventually arrived about half-an hour before the evening meal which gave us just enough time to find our rooms before eating. I found I was sharing with Elaine and a girl called Sarah who hadn't arrived yet.
The evening meal turned out to be exactly the same as last year - salad and cheesecake. After the meal we went into the lounge for some fun activities. First we had to tear our animal shapes from paper with our hands behind our backs. Then we had to try and make the longest strip of newspaper out of one sheet. For the last activity each person had to read out three facts about a member of the group and try and guess which fact was false. There was a prize for the people who managed to fool the most people and that turned out to be Jenny in our group and Chris in the other group.
After the games quite a few of us decided to go to one of the local pubs. We chose the Peacock because they had karaoke on the Friday night last year. Richard led the way - it turned out to be quite a long walk. We arrived to find that there was no karaoke, but it was quite a nice pub. Chris shared out the chocolates he won as his prize and we all took the opportunity to catch up on each other's news. We then walked back to the Bible College. By now everyone had finally arrived. I had the opportunity to meet my other room-mate, Sarah. She is from Manchester and she knows a few of the other members of 25+ through church. There were also a few other late arrivals who had travelled up from Birmingham and Bristol. I eventually went to bed just after midnight.