Monday 21st August - T Minus 6 days.

Today was a strange day. I awoke and had breakfast as usual, had my period off and facetimed as usual. I then went back go the bunk to wait with 2 girls whom were going home that day. They were meant to be getting picked up at 11am.

We sat there waiting until 1pm until my camper realised her mum wasn't setting off from the city until 4pm - oh Mikaela Haha.

I nicely sat down to my slices of canteloup melon at lunch (1.15pm) and my temporary head counselor for the day (my head counselor had a day off) came to me and asked if I was able to take a girl to the hospital. My first and last trip to the ER I suspect.

By 1.30pm I was on the road, all set with my aux cable and spotify playlist. We got to the hospital in Binghamton safe and sound, we even managed to miss the total eclipse? I am not too sure how that happened!

Taking campers to the hospital is a big responsibility. You have to keep the parents up to date and also the camp director very often. I even got given this flashy little flip phone - but hey it did the job haha.

8 long hours passed and we were finally discharged and on our way back to camp. The campers father even came from fhe city and was such a lovely man. He bought Tom (the designated driver) and I a twix bar and some water and offered to take us for dinner when were in the city.

In the 8 hours that passed I managed to apply for the AmeriCamp Campus Manager job!

When we got back I made sure the camper got some clothes ready to sleep in the wellnes centre, and made sure she was settled nicely before literally crawling into my bed.

Tuesday 22nd August - T Minus 5 Days

A normal day in the woods today. I checked my emails in the break and I had the golden email from Chris at AmeriCamp saying I had the job! I literally was soo happy!

Later on in the day I learned that Robbie also had the job, and so did Cei whom I have been to Manchester and York with. I could have cried with pure happiness.

In the evening we attended the rock concert, we certainly heard Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" a fair few times haha. To say some kids learn an instrument in 2ish weeks is astonishing.

I didn't feel like going to wifi so I stayed in the bunk with the kids and we played a card game. Steph airdropped me the 2017 Beauty and The Beast Movie. I made it through approximately 3 minutes when I fell asleep haha.

Wednesday 23rd August - T Minus 4 Days

Today was a normal day. In the evening we watched Thoroughly Modern Millie, which Alice (my co counselor) was assistant directing. It was about a girl whom moves to New York and stays at a hotel which has a creepy manager whom kidnaps the girls for human trafficking. Surprisingly, it was quite a humorous musical!

It was then meeting night, but the last meeting night of the summer woo!

We got to bed around 12am.

Thursday 24th August - T Minus 3 Days

Today was the first day of matinee shows. I worked in art for the first part of the day, then we went to watch our camper in Zombie Prom!

After dinner, we watched Cabaret. Back in 2014 at sixth form we had a musical theatre evening where we performed songs from different musicals - cabaret was one of them. We performed the opening number "Welcome", and wow, seeing the whole show now and knowing the story running through the show, my perception of the song changed. Cabaret is a musical surrounding World War 2 and is set in Berlin during Nazi Germany. However, the theme runs through very subtly! I wish I knew the back story prior to watching the show, so I could understand some parts more. Nevertheless, the show was incredible.

Friday 25th August - T Minus 2 Days

Today I spent my morning cleaning my areas in the art department, and counting the stock we had.

We then saw Rent in the afternoon. I kept drifting in and out of consciousness, i'm not going to lie haha. But the parts I saw were really good.

After dinner, we were meant to see Jungle Book and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, however, I stayed in the bunk to help one girl pack and to stay with another as her mum was due to come.

At around 10.15pm we wrapped up warm and headed down to the circus pavillion to watch the Firefly Show.

It was amazing, the guts they have to dance around with fire like that is crazy.

It was then time for bed, finally!

Saturday 26th August - T Minus 1 Day

This was possibly going to be the longest, and saddest day at Frenchwoods.

We awoke at 7.30am and ate breakfast. Then, I headed over to art to do any last minute things before the dance concert. I also had to say goodbye to 3 of my music campers, which was really sad.

After the dance concert, it was time for lunch and then for the other girls to watch a show whilst Steph and I packed and cleaned. It was a nightmare, I reckon we sat there for a good 20 minutes surrounded by clothes and rubbish.

We finally sorted everything out and stored our belongings for next year, on the way we managed go to wifi and I facetimed the family party at Aunty Karens. Unusually, I was the only one not there!

After dinner, we saw the FWF 2017 sign ready for burn out at the side of our cabin which was sad.

I then headed to the circus show. Which again, was truly insane. These children work so hard to create these performances, and to say some of them will have never touched a trapeze bar or ridden a unicycle before these 3 weeks is honestly incredible.

Straight after circus, was the Hairspray show! The entire camp went to see the final show of Frenchwoods 2017. It was a great show!

After the show at around 10.45, parents were asked to leave and Isaac, Ron and all the Directors started reading out their wishes for the next year, and each bunk's wish. Meanwhile, there were tea lights being lit all over the stage which was so sweet. When all the wishes were over, we watched the FWF 2017 video. I advise you watch it on youtube, it sums up summer in a nut shell, if you don't quite get what I have been up to.

I don't even know what time we headed over to the canteen for milk, cookies and the burn out - I know it was late, thats so sure!

It was strange at the burn out, it was overly quiet. Maybe it was the tiredness? I think everyone was reflecting on the last 13 weeks. They were the toughest, but most rewarding weeks i've ever had to face!

We waited until the sign fizzled out, and started saying our goodbyes. Ironically, the final song was "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" which was my Grandma's funeral song - so it was always going to set me off crying!

I crawled into my bed sometime during an ungodly hour of the night and it was absolutely FREEZING! Like orientation week freezing. I couldnt feel my hands or toes!

Sunday 27th August - The end of camp!

Steph awoke me at 5.45am, I had a lovely 3 hour nap...

I got up, got dressed, had breakfast at 6.45 and waved 3 campers goodbye at 7.45. We then had to clean, take spare bedding to the magic building and get signed off by a camp director.

It was horrible saying bye and getting on the coach. Some of these people, you never know if you're going to see them again! I'm quite stern and dont often cry, I also think the sleep deprivation meant I was physically too tired to cry.

Then we were off back to the city! For some reason, New York feels like home. I think it's because it is always the place we come back to. Fran, Robbie and I were so excited to be sleeping in a nice hotel, with a TV and real beds! We struggled lugging our cases through the busy streets of New York. We were quite disorientated and probably in a state of shock that there were so many people, and we were in civilisation without being in charge of children!

We made it to the Hotel Pennsylvania in almost 1 piece and waited forever to check in.

I won't even embarrass the hotel by uploading the shocking pictures of the state of our room. We were expecting luxury after living in a wooden shed of 13 weeks, and i'd have preferred to stay in the wooden shed than that room! How they thought it was acceptable to give us a manky room like that, I don't know. However, once we complained, they were so friendly and polite and offered to show us other rooms.

Our new room was better, it was half a mile long and had 2 HUGE queen sized beds in it! It still had the TV from the 1930's, but that would do.

Macy's was just over the road, so we had a McDonalds in there on the 7th Floor. We were in heaven. I know it's not metal cutlery and china plates, but we weren't bothered!

We then chilled out in the hotel room all night. I had a shower, put on a face mask, and packed a backpack Fran lent me for Boston. Yes... Jade Outram legit packed a backpack and not a suitcase? Camp has changed me, haha.

We then fell asleep in our nice and cosy queen sized bed, finally.
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Well, thats the final camp blog post done and dusted!

Get ready for Boston!

Jade xxx