The Arrowgroup

Day One: Saturday

It was four in the morning when we arrived at the place of our residence. As we couldn't gain admittance until 2pm we had a lot of waiting around to do. So it was off to the nearest café for the usual slap-up breakfast and then it was off to Portland Bill. The promise of cream teas, large waves and lighthouses attracted us to this rocky little outpost jutting into the English Channel and we were not disappointed. Off we went to do the shopping in the afternoon before sizing up the accommodation. Very nice. The evening came and it was time to case up Weymouth and it's hostelries.

There was the usual milling about of course but 6 pints later and all was well. A taxi ride back (for some of us) and it was out with the scales for the famous weigh-in. This was a sort of competition whereby each of us were weighed at the start of the trip, and weighed at the end. The person that put on the most weight won the competition. The first weigh results were as follows:

No	Name	Weight
1	Stuart 'i'm 'appy wi' that' Bestwick	77kg
2	Michael 'light as a feather' Johnson	70kg
3	Mark 'getting fatter' Swinson	78kg
4	Nic 'stomach' Wright	82kg
5	John 'William Shatner' Tomkiss	86kg
6	Chris 'going for the record' Clark	82kg

Day Two: Sunday

After previous Arrow Trips we were now an efficient and lean operational machine. As a result a roster had been organised for domestic duties and a delicious English Breakfast was the order of the day. The weather had turned out to be excellent and therefore we descended on Lulworth Cove as our first port of call for the day. Brilliant scenery and an excellent Cream Tea-ery made for an exquisite morning.

Next door to Lulworth cove lay Durdle Door with it's impressive arch which we all learned about in Geography lessons at school and that. A game of 'who could get wet the most' ensued before moving on inland to Hardy's Monument. More milling about and deliberations as to whether to pay the £1 entrance fee (we elected not to, preferring instead to spend the cash on an ice cream each) and it was back to base.

Down into Weymouth for the last time with more eating and drinking in the evening before retiring to bed.

Day Three: Monday

It was up with the lark today and down to the ferry terminal for our trip to the Channel Islands. Out of all of us it is Stuart who looks and acts the most normal but it was he who was stopped by the customs people. How we laughed and laughed as they drove us away.

The crossing was fairly uneventful on the Condor Ferries catamaran. Which went fast. Well, 40mph. Still quite fast. We disembarked about 3 hours later in St Helier, Jersey. It was straight to the nearest café of course, a quick look around the town and then on to Elizabeth Castle in the bay which was-well-interesting. A bit. But only a bit. Another £7 stripped from our pockets and it was back to St Helier for a general mill about in the Arrow tradition before moving on to the pub which was quite cheap-so we stayed there. Well at least until the ferry was boarded at 8.30pm. More drinking followed naturally until we docked at midnight.

We got back soon after and before we hit the deck we had our final weigh-in. Whoever had put on the most weight won. The table below records the final results:

No	Name	Weight
1	Stuart 'i'm 'appy wi' that' Bestwick	107kg
2	John 'William Shatner' Tomkiss	105kg
3	Chris 'going for the record' Clark	97kg
4	Nic 'stomach' Wright	83kg
5	Mark 'getting fatter' Swinson	86kg
6	Michael 'light as a feather' Johnson	73kg

Day Three: Monday

Ah well, it's over all too quickly. With only one ornamental plate smashed between us we did very well with the house.

Mike was dropped off at the railway station and made our way back, stopping off at Silbury Hill and Avebury en-route.

Our last port of call was the Little Chef Restaurant at Again this trip proved to be most joyous and we look forward to our next outing to be in Ilfracombe