Georgina! (Guest Post)

Hello all, if you don’t know me, I’m Gina, one of Judith’s twenty (?) grandchildren, and consequently Michael’s cousin. Michael has coerced me into writing a guest blog about my travels so far. I suggested that I only write about the weekend I spent with him, but he seemed to think that people would want to know what I had been up to all year. However, if you only want to hear about Michael (and I won’t blame you, he’s much more interesting than me) skip down to the last paragraph.

My year began arriving in London on the 2nd of January to sub zero temperatures, wind and snow! The weather was so atrocious, that both the trains and most of the schools in Southern England were cancelled for a week (my childhood dream). The unexpected extra 5 days in London were exciting, but finally arriving at Dunhurst and being able to unpack my international sized suitcase was a welcome relief.

I suppose that Dunhurst is best known, as related by me, for having the children of the rich and famous. I have told anyone that will listen that Jude Law’s son goes to Dunhurst, and consequently I have had a few relatively long conversations with Jude himself. To say that this was the climax of the year would be very sad, but it was definitely a highlight. Other students of note include the nephew of Helena Bonham-Carter and Noel Gallagher of Oasis’ daughter. When I tell people I’m a GAP student at Dunhurst they often nod their head and say “oh a gappy, that’s great”. However, from further research I honestly don’t think anyone knows what Gap students do, and fair enough, I’m still working it out and I guess it changes from school to school. From my 9 months of experience, I can say we do something in just about every area in the school. We act as an extra pair of eyes for supervision, of legs, for helping with P.E. and games, of ears for answering reception phones and of hands, for stapling and photo copying calendars, address books, reports, newsletters......the list goes on.  The work is pretty easy and although stapling and photocopying can be psychologically damaging when things don’t work (I’m not even joking, it should be addressed in OH&S), my brain has remained pretty dormant for the year. The absolute best part of the job is the holidays. The English school year includes a lot more holidays than the Australian one (It feels like it anyway). They have 3 weeks between terms, and 9 weeks for the summer, As well half term breaks, where they decide they’ve had enough about half way through the term, and take a week off! This arrangement works nicely for me, and come the holidays I have been jet setting off to nearby Europe!

The 9 weeks of the summer holidays went by very quickly, starting with a smaller than usual family holiday with my mum, Nat, Fran and Jacq in our epic wicked van adventure! The week and a half of road tripping up to the Lakes district was fantastic with highlights including; a Camelot theme park, visiting Pemberly, Beatrix Potter enthusiasm, fabulous singing and navigating in the back seat of the Wicked van, and a freezing cold swim and photo shoot in the lake! After a few days of mother daughter bonding in Yorkshire, including singing “Wuthering heights” by Kate Bush in the moors, I piled onto a Topdeck bus, along with 39 other girls and 6 boys, for a trashy, 18 year old Gap student tour of Europe. The trip was superb with a mixture of fun filled days of sightseeing in the sun (a welcome relief from the cloudiness of England) and tipsy nights of ridiculous drinking games and extremely cheap and nasty vodka. My favourite part of Topdeck was probably sailing for 3 days in the Greek Islands. During the days there was nothing to do except lie in the sun, drinking in the Vitamin C and beautiful sea breeze, as well as stopping in the middle of the Mediterranean for a swim!

At the beginning of our 5 hour hike through the Swiss Alps, going the opposite direction to every other hiker

The third and last instalment of the summer holidays was solo travelling with my friend Claire. We braved the summer crowds and heat in Pompeii, where the tourists were everywhere and the heat and dust almost overwhelming. However, we were prepared with our homemade sandwiches, giant water bottles and €4 wide-brimmed hats purchased in Naples and explored the day away, avoiding the big groups. We caught an extremely uncomfortable overnight train to Sicily, and our first day there was not a fun one, full of sleazy Sicilian men. However, once off the streets (and with the most unflattering and unrevealing clothes we could find) Palermo was actually quite nice. The cathedral and Norman palace there were stunning with spectacular mosaics. The beach was similarly beautiful, except that there were a trillion people there! The best part of the third instalment was going to La Tomatina in Valencia, Spain. One hour of getting Tomatoes hurled at you, and being drenched by the industrial strength fire hoses was definitely an experience. My favourite part of the day, was after the tomatoes had all been thrown and the locals came out of their houses, equipped with hoses and buckets, and began hosing down the festival goers. We finished the summer with a week in Barcelona, which I plan to move to in my future life where I am a millionaire!

Claire and I at Pompeii just before my camera ran out of battery

I want to end by giving a brief account of my weekend-and-a-bit with Michael because, after all, this is his blog. Apparently, Michael’s original plans were to surprise me by arriving in London, travelling down to Petersfield station, making his way to the school and arriving at reception demanding to see me. Thankfully Gab ratted him in out, so I had time to prepare and plan things out. When he arrived on Thursday I had to look twice before I was sure it was him, he’s grown some bizarre facial hair that makes him look like a skinnier brown haired, Chopper Reid cross Major General from Pirates of Penzance. Friday night was wet and cold, and after abandoning a trip to London, we saw a movie in Portsmouth with the French assistant Marrine. The unexpected highlight was the pub we went to whilst waiting for the next train to Petersfield, where everyone was in fancy dress, the majority were cross dressed and we danced the night away with male nuns and men in leather stripper outfits. Saturday brought a trip to Winchester and a crazy night out in Petersfield  where we were on the verge of being kicked out of the karaoke bar for singing the likes of YMCA, Barbie Girl and Down Under!

The three Dunhurst Gaps, avoiding the inevitable mud of Petersfield

My Special thanks goes to Mum, Jacq, Fran, Nat, Michael, Gab and Nick for visiting me over in the rainy country that is England, and making my long stay a little more homely.

Georgina McKenzie
Petersfield, UK
3 October, 2010