Day 36

Day 36.

A pretty normal day to be honest, nothing crazy happened. Nothing compared to yesterday anyway!!!

We arrived at Cape Town station, to find that our train was cancelled. This meant we had to wait half an hour for the next one, consequently making us late by 15 minutes for our session with sunflower crèche. We apologised for being late and made sure that we put twice as much as effort in to making the kids buzzing and excited! We walked in and they all turned around and gasped. "Arsenallllll!"screams surrounded the hall accompanied by many waves! We finished off their session with 10 pin bowling.. Soccer style!! One girl managed to get 4 balls off of the cones in one shot! Wizardy. After that miracle she performed I nicknamed her Dumbledore. Some of the boys were smashing it! Jeff and I were both surprised that they could hit it so hard. We gave them a few tips such as take a step back, use the side of their foot and look at where they were aiming! Results saw a huge improvement! I'm glad that the kids are having fun whilst learning. I've seen some coaches out here, punish players for doing a stretch wrong or something minor like that. What kind of motivation does that give them to come back? That was one of the first things us gappers were taught on the gap programme.. Never do laps, press ups or any kind of gruelling punishment. Laps are an easy way of getting out of setting up cones etcetera for a coach. That's lazy! Believe me there's many simple set ups and fun warm ups you can do to get the boys stretched and to get their heart rates going! Anyways.. Enough of lecturing!

We visited bothasig gardens (the complex that I manage on Saturdays!). It was more of a visit rather than a coaching session. We got the boys playing some football and just gave them something different to do with their afternoon! It was a very hot day so Jeff, myself and all the boys were knackered after a while. Thankfully Joe came to our rescue and picked us up.

We arrived back at Berghof and after a cold shower Jeff and I were back to our usual selves! Time to go Long street and get a valentines. (I joke!) It was a Friday night and we had a long week so we felt we deserved a bit of partying and socialising! Jeff and I are a pretty good team to be fair (he won't admit this) but we always get speaking to people! I'm not sure whether it's because their intrigued by our accents or whether we're just outgoing. I won't be asking my parents to send over the massive sack of valentines letters I got, the postage and packaging cost would be gastronomical. Mwahaahaa!

It was nice to speak to my parents on Skype this evening. We've had wifi troubles for the last few days (hence why my blogs are a bit late!).. So we had to go to a bar and use wifi there! They seemed in good sprit and were very generous asking whether I wanted anything sent over at all. They're sending over a new memory card for my camera seeing as I've used all my space already! Oops. The memory card is packed with comedy gold, coaching sessions, scenery and moments that I'll always remember! So there's no pictures I can delete to be honest! I received a letter from my 'nan' in England too! (Grandmother) which was quite funny to read and just shows how people of that generation still use letters rather than skype etc. I need to catch up with my uncles and aunts and my grandad too! I'll try and do that tonight!

All the best.

Luke