We were scheduled to have 9-7, 10 hour day today, but after leaving at 8:30, and not getting home until around 7:30, it worked out that we had an extra hour.
We started the day off with our standard Tuesday morning Goodwood Park Crèche group. 4 sessions with 4 different classes. 2 older groups (5/6 years old), 2 younger groups (4/5 years old). Safe to say this was a bit of a difficult day at Goodwood. After being told by Joe to make our sessions 20 minutes each, we managed to roll through 3 sessions in an hour and a half. Now we usually have lunch after our 4th session, so the idea of a full on lunch at 10:45 didn't exactly appeal to me too much, so we had to drag out our 4th session for as long as we could. It all worked out though, as the final class we had were our most difficult group, where a very small number understood English and, as a general, the whole class were a lot slower than the other 3. So after a very tiring 4th session, we managed to pack up and get sat down for lunch at around 11:30, which wasn't too bad.
After Goodwood we were then take to Century City, about halfway between where we live and the Learning Centre, where we would meet a group of kids from Reach For A Dream, who were basically like the South African version of the Make A Wish Foundation we have back home, where they run various programmes and provide different activities to terminally ill children, in order for them to take their mind off their illness, and to basically have fun.
It was a good session, we didn't do much as the adults were worried about the kids getting too tired, so we had a quick passing warm up, followed by a penalty shootout, ending in a 5-a-side match.
It was really nice to be involved and to see the smiles on the kids faces, but when we all sat down for lunch and got chatting, it hit home that the kids we were laughing and having a kick about with, are facing something none of us could imagine, and how scary it must be for them, yet they're still strong enough to smile through the day, and not show any sign of what they were truly feeling. So around lunch time I was a lot more quiet than I usually am, and let it all out firing shots at an empty goal after everyone left. Most of the shots were terribly off target though, which was a bit embarrassing. Oh well.
After Reach For A Dream, Martin was thirsty, I was hungry, and we had time to kill before our session at Atlantic Football Club, so we headed to Canal Walk Shopping Centre, which we were told was the best shopping centre in Cape Town, to have a look around and see what it was like.
I thought it was really nice. It was a massive centre, with loads of shops, restaurants, and a decent looking cinema, too. I even tried my first Macaron too. It was chocolate flavoured, no tasted absolutely incredible. Definitely a fan now.
After we got something to eat and drink, we headed over to Atlantic Football Club, to take over the Under 15's session. Barely anyone turned up until about 15 minutes after we thought we were going to start so we had to shorten our session. As there wasn't many under 15's, they combined in the under 14's too, meaning we had about 18 kids to start with. However throughout the session, more and more turned up and we eventually had 26. It was a bit difficult as Atlantic said they'd provide us with balls, but didn't give us nearly enough for the number we had. So Martin took over around 16 kids, and did the session we originally had planned out, while I took the extras, and latecomers to do something similar, but a lot more complex, due to the lack of balls that we had. Our session was an intense, fitness focused exercise, with football involvement in. With my group we did pretty much the same thing, but had a crazy rotational system that really got the players thinking about what they were doing and where they were going. But it worked which I was amazed by. After that we got them into a 7-a-side match, and a 6-a-side match to finish off, which was really good to watch.
Overall it was a really fun session, a lot more fun than we both thought it would be, which put us in good moods. We're scheduled to go back next Tuesday, to coach the Under 17's, but were asked to come back on Thursday too, to take over the Under 15's again, which will be fun.
After getting home and hshowered, it was time to go downstairs and watch the Arsenal game against Leicester. Unbelievably nervy game, where we yet again managed to play poorly defensively. The dodgy refereeing didn't help either. Oh well, a 2-1 win, and we head back 4th until Man Utd play tomorrow. Hopefully Burnley can do us a favour, not getting hopes up though. Spurs lost to Liverpool, which put us in an even better mood, too.
Early start tomorrow, we have Sunflower Crèche in the morning, followed by another life skills lesson at the Drommedaris complex in the afternoon.
Harry
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