A Week away in Scotland!

A Week Up In Scotland...

So you can benefit most from reading about my experience - I have split it up into six days. Two of which were spent travelling - the first and the last, while the middle four were spent on the Isle of Coll participating in my selection course.

Here is a brief outline of what happened, day by day...
Day one: travelling up to Oban and spending the night.
Day two: travelling to the Isle of Coll and beginning selection.
Day three: various group activities to assess how we work as a team.
Day four: information on fundraising and how we could reach our targets of £5100.
Day five: local community service in the morning followed by a Scottish Ceilidh in the evening.
Day six: traveling back to Oban and finally, home.


The night before
Coming home from my usual Sunday routine, all I could think about was Project Trust and the week ahead. "Was it going to be fun? Would I enjoy it? What type of people will be there and who will I be staying with?" were only a few of the questions burning in my mind that sadly wouldn't be answered until I went. Nonetheless, that night I packed my bag, fearing the worst - filling it to the brim with jumpers, sweatshirts, rain jackets and extra coats. I even packed a ski jacket because I was warned it could be so cold, thankfully however the weather held out and it wasn't needed! On top of this we were told to pack essentials such as a towel, notepads and pens, a thermos flask and in my case, I needed to pack essential, 12 hourly medications due to my asthma. Eventually, I was finally packed and I hit the sack a few minutes after twelve and set my alarm for 6:30 to catch a flight the next morning.

Day One
Hoping to wake up to my nice, soothing alarm was only that - a matter of hope. Half an hour early, my mother came in and woke me up; wanting me to double check everything necessary had been packed and to check my flight and connecting trains were scheduled for an on time departure; fearing the breeze outside in London would somehow make getting up to Scotland an impossible fete.
Everything looked normal on the internet and a few minutes before seven, I set off for London City Airport.
After checking in online the night before, I thought everything would be straight forward and simple at the airport. I was wrong! None of the staff knew where I should go if I had checked in online in advance - so I was left with only 45 minutes to clear security, get to my boarding the gate that always seems to be the furthest away and finally get on the plane. All went fairly smoothly here, until the boarding gate personnel accidentally placed over ten of us on the wrong plane, one bound for Jersey! The issue was promptly resolved and only five minutes late, the plane took off and we were on course for Glasgow.
After a nice short flight of only 50 minutes where complimentary hot food and drinks were served, I landed in a cold and wet Glasgow and went to baggage reclaim to fetch my bag. Sadly, it never came. I was left alone waiting for half an hour, hoping it would come through but it didn't. My bag with my jumpers, sweaters, ski jacket and medication had somehow been lost - and as I was to later find out - had been placed on the wrong plane, one to France.
Now I have nothing against the British Airways baggage handler who kept telling me there was "nothing he could do as it wasn't on the system", but I did feel let down and made that very clear in the airport. I was quickly told to leave by airport staff without my bag and medications, and was told it would be sent onto me as soon as they are in possession of it.
Armed with only petty cash and train tickets, I made haste to the city centre to catch my three hour train to Oban Central. Here, to my surprise, I met a friend from London who too was going on the same selection course as me. We boarded the same train and off we went, to a place until the week before, I had never in my life heard of, Oban.
The train journey itself was sweet - the scenery was beautiful. Halfway through the journey we heard voices from a few rows down and quickly deduced these fellow travellers were too on their way to selection and like us, had no idea what to expect. We found out much about each other and all realised that was exactly what the aim of this week away was; to learn more about ourselves and make new friends.
We arrived in Oban delayed by about an hour, and quickly found the hostel we were all coincidently staying in. We made it our mission to get drinks and a big meal, followed by a nice long sleep with the intention of catching the 5am ferry to the Isle of Coll the next morning.
I can safely say none of what I just said happened, bar the drinks of course! We ate a takeaway and never managed to get to sleep until 2:30, - only two hours and a bit before our ferry!

Day Two
We managed to wake up at 5am and in the nick of time caught our ferry. To entertain ourselves on the three hour ferry crossing we played various childish past times such as 20 questions or the more simple eye-spy, however once out at sea, there were only so many things beginning with certain letters, namely 'S' (sea) and 'W' (Water). Shortly before 9am, we arrived on what would be our home for the next few days, the Isle of Coll
Thankfully Project Trust were there waiting for us and drove us all down to the centre where our introduction to a year out began.
We were split into groups and had to complete various tasks within it. The first day was mainly getting to know each other and how we thought about certain things, such as "what would a vegetarian do if he was handed a plate of meat?" or "what would you do if Britain went nuclear?” Thankfully everyone in my group understood my views and I was understanding of theirs, and we soon began to feel like a family, braving this whole new way of life without live Facebook updates every second and 'bbm', together.
We returned home to our hosts that night and were again split into different groups. I and two boys (who I grew to love on my trip) were sharing with a lovely couple Angus and Fiona, who had been resident on the island for over 17years - throughout that time looking after volunteers like myself who had never before been placed in such a different lifestyle.
We soon got to know each other quite well around a dinner of lovely hot pasta, and went to bed around 8pm as we were all shattered tired!

Day Three
After an eleven and a half hour sleep we were woken by Fiona (our host) and told to prepare for what could be a long and cold day! Without even a change of clothes her husband kindly leant me his and at a half past eight, a minibus arrived to pick us up and take us to the centre for a debriefing.
We were to climb to spend a few hours digging 'lazy beds' to help make the soil fertile then climb to the highest point on the island, Ben Hogh.
All of the above went really well and I thoroughly enjoyed it! While the climb up the hill was certainly a challenge, being without any medication and all, I made it to the top to witness some fantastic views.
As the other group still hadn't finished their tasks quite as quick as ours, we went down to the local beach and on the count of three, decided to run into the sea- not realising it was really quite so cold!
Shortly after we returned to the centre to in turn, be returned to our hosts. Our hosts were thrilled we had so much fun and were surprised with what we managed to do and treated us to some lovely onion and leek soup!

Day Four
At 8:30 we were again picked up by the minibus and taken down to the centre. We were told about the days tasks that would involve a lesson teaching. We were given ten minutes to prepare and then told to teach what we had come up with to our small groups. I chose computers. I've always understood how they worked from such a young age and hoped that I could pass my understanding onto my group. This I managed to do quite well and was told I was very informative. After listening to other peoples lessons we were all put into a workshop on fundraising. We were given ideas on how we could raise £5,100, and made to come up with some of our own. This took us the rest of the day, and in doing so I came up with many ideas, such as east to west coast cycle and a sponsored parachute jump! We returned back to our homes at a little after six, and was presented with my long lost bag! All my clothes were in it, I finally felt complete! After showering and changing – I felt shattered tired, promptly ate my meal and went to sleep.

 

Day Five

This being our final day, we all woke up fairly emotional. Knowing we would be together for only 24 hours, we decided to make the most of it. We all met in the town’s village and were divided into groups to complete community service tasks. My group were tasked with beach cleaning. We went to the local beach, and armed with rubbish bags and rubber gloves, began collection of rubbish. We found very interesting items – from bottles of beer unopened, to a fully loaded pistol! It was quite interesting, how could so much rubbish be left on one beach? We found in total close to 95kgs of rubbish which was collect and sent to a local refuse centre, on another island!

We then returned to the centre and were debriefed with regards as to what would happen next. We returned to our hosts houses rather early – giving us enough time to prepare ourselves for what would be our final night together dancing a ceilidh.

Our minibus picked us up on time and within minutes we were on the dance floor dancing! It was by far the best part of the experience, we all had a fantastic time and ended, arm in arm, singing Auld Land Sign.

We then said our tearful farewells and returned to our hosts who very nicely gave us a beer or five, and went to bed knowing tomorrow we would be leaving.

 

Day Six

Our final few hours together and the weather was utterly atrocious. The minibus collected us rather late and after quite the eventful drive down to the ferry terminal, was left wondering, where is our ferry? I looked out to sea and quite frankly, was horrified! I had never seen a sea so rough – the waves were easily ten to twenty foot tall at times, but still, there was no sign of our boat. Eventually, our boat turned up and we boarded. The crossing was hell, I hated every second of it. The boat kept listing from side to the other and was left thinking to myself; “would we make it over the next wave?”. Thankfully we did and only an hour late, arrived in a wet and windy Oban.

We quickly familiarised ourselves with the local pub and made sure we all spent our last hour together, in comfort. To my surprise, it turned out many of us were getting on the train to Glasgow with me, and in fact ten of us were on board!

I finally reached Glasgow Airport, just in time for my flight and was rather upset. I had just spent a week away with people I hadn’t met before, bar one, and perhaps had the best week of my life. I wondered how this could be – everyone was so friendly and full of energy – I wished I would be going to the same country with all the people I had just met. I knew this wouldn’t be the case and biting the bullet, boarded my plane and left Scotland slightly early on a bumpy flight.

I arrived back in London Heathrow as expected and thankfully, my bag too was waiting. I returned home less than an hour later and quickly filled my mum in with all the events that had happened.

 

Afterwards

I was filled with some sort of nostalgia, I wanted to go back and spend another week up there with the people I had just met, but knew I had friends back here in London who had missed me just as much.

We quickly found each other on Facebook and nervously sat by our letterboxes whenever we could, waiting for our acceptance letters. Mine arrived two weeks later, confirming I had been selected and would be going to Thailand in little under 10 months. Filled with joy I have begun fundraising and plan to raise every penny – if not more!

 

Thank you very much for the opportunity you have given me, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!