School Matters 36

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IPS SINGERS AT ST DAVIDS 51 pupils, 50 sets of School uniform, and 48 booklets of music made their way down the M4 towards St Davids for this (pandemic) year’s “international” IPS Singers’ Tour to Wales. Tour leader Mr Bartlett, keeping track of the logistics with his inimitable good humour, reports.

Change. After some careful strategy and manoeuvring which saw everybody retain their modesty, we beat a hasty retreat to our accommodation. Here, following supper of the finest, fluffiest and most welcome baked potatoes in Christendom, and a second round of warm showers, we assembled for a rehearsal. Unfortunately, this activity proved not to be exciting enough to keep 100% of the choir awake for the duration: it was time to admit defeat and allow the choir to trundle to bed. It was with great joy and relish that singers were roused at 6.30am to be ready for yoga at dawn. Conditions for an al fresco, shore-side experience were not favourable, so we opted for the indoor version. Once suitably stretched, it was time to walk to St Davids Cathedral. The IPS Singers were thrilled at this, as it at last gave them the opportunity to show off their slow-walking skills. Despite their best efforts, they arrived in Tyddewi within the same geological epoch during which they’d departed, and the group was appropriately blown away by the emergence of the cathedral into

Seven hours after departing SW15, we arrived at St Davids Bunk Barns: and what a view there was! We had approximately four minutes to deposit our bags before hopping back onto the buses, swimming costumes in hands, to hot foot it to TYF Adventures. What followed was a traumatic occasion for some, and a hilarious one for most others: wetsuits. These neoprene nemeses were handed to us inside-out, speckled with sand, and somewhat sub-dry. One nameless participant approached the exercise of putting on their wetsuit with an attitude that fell some distance short of ‘stoic’, and whose experience might favourably be compared with the birthing of a particularly quarrelsome lamb, with a matching soundtrack to boot. Somewhat creakily, we made our way back onto the buses towards Broad Haven beach, where we were issued with surfboards and divvied up into teams. Half of us would be in the water being beaten up by the surf, whilst

the other half would be chasing balls and frisbees like overexcited labradors. Two hours later, sopping wet, sandy and shivering, we cleared the beach and returned to the buses, where we received the unwelcome news that we would have to get changed en plein air. And so began the Great Car Park