Matters of Life and Death

If any of you ever fancy getting a spinal injury whilst in a swimming pool, I can now help you out. But only if I'm on lifeguard duty...

Last Friday, I passed the National Rescue Standard Pool Lifeguard qualification, after a week down in Kent. The centre at Carroty Wood has a pool, and we were in it every day, along with a lot of classroom time rehearsing, CPR, vomiting casualties and other various nightmare scenarios. It was a bit scary! But preparing for the worst is always the most necessary strategy.

Prior to the lifeguarding week, we had four days of Archery Leader training, so if I was feeling malicious, I could first inflict the injury before attempting to save the casualty, although I think that would be pretty poor form. Archery is one of those sports that has a whole system of etiquette wrapped up in its history and continued practice, so aiming for anything but the target would be seriously infra dig, not to mention a sackable offence!

To continue the theme of potentially violent activities carried out within a gentlemanly environment, we began fencing today - another one with a rich history and carried out as an art form almost as much as a sport. There's something invigorating and brilliant about doing dangerous things in safe conditions, which you'll all be glad to know are always adhered to here at Rock UK.

Some of you will know that as a teenager, I played a lot of table tennis, and it turns out that fencing has a lot of similarity in terms of foot movements. It's really intense, too - if archery requires you to get into a completely focused 'bubble' of concentration, with fencing, you have to do the same, only you have to get a sweat on at the same time, as there's someone coming at you with a foil.

More fencing tomorrow. In the meantime, church at Grace in Kempston continues to be excellent, a forum for growing as a Christian and making a lot of friends in the process. There's also the possibility of getting involved with the music groups that play for services there, and I'll be taking my guitar along this Sunday to practise with the others.

Keep safe, everyone, in body and soul - the latter's health is truly a matter of life and death.