14th February

Valentines day, It was hard enough being away from my boyfriend but speaking to him that morning cheered me up!

That morning i was back at School for a 9 o clock start and as usual the same class were 40 minutes late. 30 of them eventually turned up and we started our session. Gave them a series of dynamic stretching to do and some light jogging down the channel, then moved on to cone road! Introducing the 4 turns to this group to let them show us what they can do! Of course it was match time after this, trying to get the bibs sorted and them in teams does take a while!After lunch it was a group of 20 who were only 20minutes late and they got the same session which they impressed me! After school was the boys training who got a bit of Possession and Movement.

That night was back home again for some dinner then to make some skype calls home!

13th February

As always Monday started the same as usual, half past 6 start. Same over and over again, HATE Mondays! Back to Lester Vaughan again for a 9 o clock start and the pupils turn up at 25 past, majority of them with shoes (getting better). Warm up was taken again by one in the class to show how much they remembered, passing on to a few others to finish off. After we took a session of threw the gates until we were interrupted as ‘a few’ had to leave the class to do long jump, leaving us with only 10! We carried on our session for a few more minutes then let them play games.

In the afternoon it was St Leonard’s turn for there session! We now introduced “cone road” with 4 turns for them to experiment with and try get perfect! Me being me and burning my feet on Sunday had to make sure they were out the sun all day as my feet had swollen that much i couldnt get shoes on and had to turn to my good old flipflops!

That night was a quiet one, in for dinner and make a few skype call’s home!

Sunday 12th February

It was that time of the week again, long lie day! Me, Paul and Phil decided to spend the day at the beach.  Paul and Phil decided to have a kick about with one of the balls on the beach, until some bajan man decided to join in with them. Resulted in them playing some one-on-ones while i spent my afternoon sunbathing (burning).

As the afternoon passed by the three of us headed to our homes to get changed and ready for the scrimmage until i realized i had burnt my feet to a crisp and could not take part!  First it was KFC time, 90minutes of football on the way and we had to fill ourselves up at least a bit!

We got to the scrimmage to notice a lot more turned up than last week. Two matches were put in place, girls v boys on both pitches which was fun to watch!

NOTE TO SELF – REMEMBER LOTS OF SUN CREAM!

Saturday 11th

So it was Saturday again and we were back at Alma Parris for our Double club session, also with Paul and Oore. This week we had 24 kids to coach ( 1 of which being a girl).

The classroom session went great, we got threw a few pages making sure everyone was understanding what they had to read/write. At the end of this i got a few thank you’s from the ones i had one to one’s with and noticed a little bit more confidence in them!

After this we were outside to play football! Me and Paul decided to take a warm up, We gave them bibs each to use as ‘Tails’, end of 30seconds person with the most tails wins. In between this we done some dynamic stretching, after this we put them into pairs along a line and done some more reaction games. on the shout of ‘Man u’ or ‘Arsenal’ one team had to chase the other. Me and Paul then took a passing/moving session and Oore and Phil done some passing. Another successful session!

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It was now the afternoon and after going home to get changed/showered, me, Paul and Phil were off to the Horse Racing at the Garrison Savannah. A long day in the sun winning money, having a few drinks and watching the horses finished off with an ‘exciting night’ in playing back gammon!

10th February

Friday morning and my usual routine went a head, up at half 6 and away by half 8. Me and Phil were at 2 different schools today!

Parkinsons was the first and we had two sessions here. As usual what we done this week we done at this school for there sessions aswell. Around the square for a warm up but they took the warm up there selves to show us how much they remembered doing last week! That was a success for both classes and so was the command and pass around the square. This led them plenty of time to play games!

After noon had come and we were futher up the island this time to Alma Parris where we had 10pupils for the afternoon which was a great little group! We done there warm up as stuck in the mud to get them running around and added in dynamic stretching. As our main part of the session we decided to get them to pass threw the gates making it harder by adding some progressions! then of course it was match time!

After this we were joined by Paul and stopped at a local football pitch on our way home. To then be joined by a local who went in goal as we took shots. A good half our, 45minutes later there were around 6 or 7 local boys joining in!

After this was then to Pauls house to have an exciting night in playing monopoly!

8th & 9th February

Well Wednesday and Thursday came and these were a bit different to our normal coaching sessions! As always though i was up at 6.30am to get ready to go do some coaching. The only problem was today it was raining, heavily.

As me and Phil left the house, we set up and the rain had just gone off which was a great sign then the Ministry of Education was in school and as we just finished off setting up we got told there would be no session this morning as there assembly would last the length of our session time, so we packed up and left back home to return in the afternoon!

After noon came and we were back at school, the pupils were 25minutes late but we soon then realised we only had 5 pupils in our session ? As about 10 turned up but 5 of them did not have shoes so we stuck to our word from last week, no shoes = no session.

So we done some stretching with them and done a little session of possession/ movement with the ball. after this we were right into a match which did go well as they took into consideration what we had just coached them. Our after school session was cancelled due to the boys having a school match!

Thursday we went to school and set up our session to wait 45 minutes then collect everything and put it back in the jeep. We then sat about until when our session was meant to finish to see that none of the class turned up at all!

That afternoon we were back at Eden Lodge Primary, where we had 24 pupils.  But this session was a little bit different, in the classroom session they were loud, did not listen and took a while to get them quiet each time but we eventually got threw the work we aimed to get threw!

As we took them outside they did not listen again, we finally got them into some races but that is all we managed as they took far to long to sit down and listen to our instructions.  Not as we planned!

7th February

Tuesday had come and we were at only the one school all day, 3 different sessions. One in the morning, Afternoon and After school!

So the morning and afternoon sessions, we kept the sessions the same as yesterday and as always, different class same session all week! Morning session we had a group 36 and in the afternoon was 21! great numbers to get them into matches!

The after school session was a bit different, we set up and then it rained and rained and rained. We started off with a load of pupils and then went down to about 10. So we put them into a match and told them we would just cut down the training time for that night as the rain was still on. As the rain died down more and more joined back in, resulting in us having about 30kids. Near the end we took a few who did not want to carry on playing a match and practiced there kick-up’s  or even if they couldn’t do any just to help them out a bit!

6th February

So it was Monday again our first coaching day of the week, i was up at half past 6 in the morning as usual to get a shower, breakfast and ready for leaving to go to school!

As me and Phil got there the kids were 45minutes late, but they did have a teacher this time which was the only class we seem to get with one at this school!

So 15 of them turned up and we got them to do ‘Around the square’ as a warm up BUT the pupils took the warm up themselves to show us how much they remembered from last week. This was a success which was amazing, after this we got them into a traffic lights session and finished off with some games.

That After noon we were at a different school, this time also with Paul and Oore. Paul took the warm up as stuck in the mud also adding in the dynamic stretches. Me and Oore then took a passing session followed on by Phils game of traitor which went down well!

At 4 o clock as that session finished we headed down to Brandons beach (our local one) to watch the Liverpool V Spurs match. If i say so myself being a Liverpool fan, the game was awful!

Sunday 5th February

My first chance of a Long lie as it is my day off and i managed to sleep till about 8 in the morning. I was up showered, changed and had my breakfast way before we were to go ahead with any of our plans so i made a few phonecalls home on skype.

Once Phil was ready we left and picked up Paul and set for Holetown to look for a bar showing the Chelsea v Man United match. Once we found one we looked in to see it was really busy to nipped across the road for some lunch. After this we got back had a drink and watched the rest of the match! As the bar was on the beach we decided to talk a walk along.

After leaving we headed back down the road to be told to go to Lester Vaughan School where me and Phil had been based all week for a scrimmage match against Adrian’s (phil’s host) Football team. A huge pitch for about 90minutes straight the 3 of us had lasted, surprisingly!

After this it was home for quick showers then straight to the bar to watch the Superbowl, being 4hours behind we were able to watch this at a reasonable time then home afterwards for a long day of coaching ahead tomorrow!

Saturday 4th February

So Saturday also came quicker than i though and we were back at Alma Paris but this time for our double club session. We got there to find we were only going to have 25 kids (Axel wanted a 100) something that will have to be worked on within the next few weeks!

Our double club session started with a classroom session, firstly to find out none of them brought pencils so waiting a long 10-15minutes until we managed to get some. This session went great as we got threw our first 5 or 6 pages! After this we were then outside for our football side of the session,  we done a great domes and dishes session then straight into matches!

As we had the afternoon off me, Paul and Phil took a walk down to the beach while we waited on Oore nipping home (which was only along the road). After this we headed straight down to the rum factory where we got a free tour as the tour guide is my hosts god-daughter! This included learning about some of the Bajan rum history and also some rum tasting. Which im sure we all agree, Paul enjoyed the most!

This was then followed by yet another visit to the beach!