Sunday 16th November, 2014

During Thursday afternoons everyone at school does an activity, some people do minor sports such as clay pigeon shooting or rackets and other people do a community service such as working in a charity shop or performing music in a retirement home. I do an activity called, “Take a Break” , it consists of looking after a child with mental disabilities for a couple of hours. Last week was the first time I met ‘my’ kid, Owen . A friend of mine, Ollie, and I went to his house to meet his parents and to find out a bit more about Owen. Previous to that we had been having training sessions which included a crash course on sign language as well as just instructing us what to do in certain situations. This Thursday Ollie and I took a taxi to Owens school and collected him there, we then went back to Rugby where we took him to a charity café that was open. We didn’t spend long there as Owen found it a bit noisy. We went back to Sheriff (my boarding house) and played some games. Owen is really quite able and so it was just like spending time with younger sibling who you are responsible for. We then went to play a bit of football, Owen was great at football, we were just passing the ball between us but he always kicked on target witch is a lot more than I can say for myself! One funny thing was that if anyone kicked the ball into the air he would run underneath it and catch it! finally we got back in the taxi, dropped him off and said goodbye until next Thursday.