The art of speaking too soon....

The view of the Oasis Centre from Waterloo station....




Its a great city to look at.....







This is the new office which will be deocrated

This is me being interiewed at at my team's welcome service by boss Jill Rowe. The balloons are for the birthday party that followed this service

You don't quite get an idea of how busy it was from this view..... but there were a lot of people there!!

So, just as i posted (that's the arty word for writing in your blog) yesterday that nothing funny had happened to me yet i spoke too soon. I've just managed to get a job working four hours a week as an outreach youthworker. This job basically entails me going out into the community of vauxhall and playing football with the young people. However, at this point in time there are little or no established links with any young people and so it will be a very challenging job.... but also very exciting that i have a blank canvas on which to work.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon i spent my first morning in the community with Tim (flat-mate, friend, colleague) whom i'm taking the job over from. His approach to the work has been taking a football down to the local park and either joining in with a game already being played or asking kids if they want to play.... This has had some success and some failure mainly becuase different kids turn up every week. On other occasions when no kids turn up at all, Tim would just spend his time kicking the football around (in the hope that some kids might turn up)..... Yesterday there didn't seem to be any kids around and so we decided to play one on one: "Two players each trying to score into the other person's goal". It's fun, fast paced and when played between an englishman and a scotsman, highly competetive. I quickly took the lead, lobbing the ball over Tim's head into his goal twice to make it 2 - 0. Gaining in confidence i began to kick the ball harder until i kicked it high over a fence and into someone's garden. As a boy of thirteen this wouldn't have phased me (clambering up the wall to collect the ball). Now 22 and local youth worker i was a little more hesitant to scramble up what seemed a very high wall. I tried the gate....locked! i looked for another way in but there wasn't one.... It seemed that the only way to get the ball back was to climb. And so, rolling back the years i pulled myself up this brick wall and over into the garden. I felt so bad! Once over i had a quick look around to check no one was watching and quickly i picked up the ball, throwing it back over the wall. Phew, i thought... i'd mangaed to retrieve the ball with no problems. I then made my way back over the wall where once down i could relax and begin learning from my over zealous shooting. However, once at the top of the fence I heard a loud banging noise. I turned round to see that a girl and her mum were at the window giving me the most evil looks..."what do you think you are doing?".... instead of just jumping straight over the wall and away from the scenario i paused (still sitting on the fence that belonged to these people). Through the years i've learned that most situations of conflict can be aided with a vulnerable looking smile. And so using my well mastered smile i attempted to change their looks of anger into looks of understanding. Actually, i'm pleased to say it worked and the mother began to chuckle the daughter beginning to smile quickly after. Now most people at this point would clamber back down the wall feeling a little better about what had just happened. Not me.... After building some kind of rappor with the two people i thought that it might have been better for me ask if i should not use the over the wall exit but instead come through the house...... Tim looking on realised what i was doing and shouted "just get back over the wall!!!!" and so after a bit more hesitation i clambered down the wall. Man, we laughed so hard as everything i had just done became clear!

After that some kids began to appear and we got a game of football going (i was so scared to shoot though!). So, quickly i've learned some valuable lessons about community behaviour.....