Rain, Conkers and Helicopters for the Boarders

What a weekend!

With the tap well and truly turned on we were treated to a proper blustery, autumnal rainy day. In some schools this would have meant a stop in play and a full retreat inside, but not here at Hazlegrove. I was reminded why I fell in love with the school all over again as I watched our junior boarders tog up and sprint out into the weather to find the biggest puddles they could.

We set off out into the grounds to search for some acorns. We are blessed here at Hazlegrove with some truly magnificent trees. One of which is an old oak out on the golf course which is around 800 years old (this means that while Henry VIII was contemplating his 6th wife this tree was already 300 years old!) We scoured the ground to find some acorns from this wonderful tree and took them back to the Hazlegrove farm to plant our acorns. I hope that in the coming year we will have lots of mini oaks that the children will be able to take home and have a small piece of Hazlegrove and a small piece of history all of their own.

Continuing our woodland theme no October weekend at Hazlegrove would be complete without the annual conker championship. With information about the tournament leaked and the prospect of a trophy to be won, conker collection had been rife for weeks and with an abundance of conkers to be had the competition was fierce! After an extremely well run tournament by Mr Bartlett and Mrs Sclater we finally had two well deserved winners, also proving that experience is not everything when it comes to conkers. Francisco topped the tree for the seniors and Charlie H conker-ed all before him and were both crowned conker champions 2020.

If the foot deep puddles were not enough to prove the severity of the inclement weather we had another surprise this weekend when the local air ambulance was forced to land on the playing fields as it couldn’t make the final leg of its journey. This meant that the boarders were treated to some arial show-boating by the pilot when she departed in the early afternoon.

After a day out in the wet and wild we finished off the day by firing up the pizza ovens to roast some marshmallow and chocolate filled bananas for a much-needed heat and sugar boost.

A wonderful weekend made all the better by the way all the children refused to let their spirits be dampened by the weather.

Mr Froggatt

Click here to see all the photographs on Flickr