How to lose a bed

I've been away on camp helping to 'supervise' twenty-eight teenagers, although they probably should have been supervising the staff if we're honest.

Despite arriving several days late due to a wedding (and may I say what a splendid wedding it was too; congratulations to Diana and Adam!) I still managed to witness bowling, swimming, visits to various sections of an RAF station, tackling a high ropes course and a football match in which I scored a goal. Okay, so the goal-keeper may have let the ball past everso slightly on purpose, but we won't mention that bit. Thanks to National Rail's flawless logic, I also had the chance to visit five different train stations to travel what would have been a straight trip up the M40, had I driven.

One particularly tiring day, having just returned from the high ropes course at 10pm, I was quite looking forward to going to bed. It happened to be the night I was on overnight duty, sleeping in the office, and I'd just about made sure that everybody was in the correct accomodation and had ten minutes until 'lights out'. I returned to the office to flump down onto the less-than-comfy-but-perfectly-adequate-bed, to find that my bed had completely vanished!

The bed frame was stood on one end without any sign of a mattress, or for that matter the desk, chair or bedside cabinet that had been in the room quarter of an hour previously. Slightly puzzled, and cursing certain other pesky staff members, I went on a mission to recover the stolen goods. The majority of the furniture was retrieved from a utility room and the mattress eventually sprang out of a cupboard at the unsuspecting reverend!

The moral of the story? Constant vigilance! (And that means you too Bed-Stealers!)

07 JUN 09

It's been a crazy few days in Kota Kinabalu. We left the jungle to go to Farina's wedding which took place today. It was a lovely day and really nice to see Farina in the beautiful wedding outfit, with her new husband in military uniform. We spent a couple of hours there, where we witnessed the couple's arrival and followed them into a house where friends and family were able to take photographs and congratulate them in the traditional way. This involved sprinkling things over the bride and grooms' hands, although I'm yet to research what or why!

Yesterday was the boss' birthday and so we went bowling with him and some mutual friends before going for a meal in town. Again, it was a busy day with some musical activity in the morning and running around trying to do highly exciting things like finding the office for Royal Brunei Airlines and stopping to chat to the driver of a 1927 Austin 7 which took me by surprise by pulling up next to me at the bank!

From here we go to Sukau for a couple of days to work with Mislin and show her what little knowledge we have of using Microsoft Office. Hopefully we'll be of some use...! Then it's back to the jungle for the final leg of jungley goodness before heading home to the U.K..