- Carol Lynn Pearson.
Today, five of us embarked on an epic tale. An epic tale that ended in soft toys and Golden Arches.
Ok, I'll cut to the chase - I have two more days of school left before we break up for summer (yay, shouts of approval etc. etc.). So this week, our school organises a sort of "activity week". Barely a week in my opinion, I don't recall weeks consisting of three days. Or perhaps ISO 8601 gone horribly wrong?
Anyway, back to this activity week. Today is the first of these so-called activities, and we were proposed with a "treasure hunt." I'm not going to lie, I love a good ol' treasure hunt. It makes me think back to the times when I was younger - My wardrobe was a cave, the arm of the sofa was a horse, my scarf was a lasso. The dining table would always be considered shelter - a safe place... for extremely short people or for those with the capabilities of crouching for a long time. My mum would say "you're not going to stay under there all day, are you?" and I would reply with something like "perhaps only until the cyclops has gone away so I can collect the treasure."
Oh, those were the days. If I was to do anything of the sort now, I would be branded as deluded. So I saw this as a perfect opportunity to have fun.
The day had already started sloppily - I was extremely tired and there was no coffee in the house. Tea doesn't wake me up, you see. As I hiked up to the station, I tried to tell myself "No. This is going to get much better. This will be a good day."
How wrong was I? Very wrong. Although I'm sure people can think of worse things that could happen. I am obviously in the mood to exaggerate. I mean come on, did you see the quote?
Myself, Sophie and a couple of other girls from school got off at Embankment Station and then walked to Jubilee Gardens. Fair enough. We got assigned maps and instructions of which points to go, what information to receive, what photos to take. This extended from Jubilee Gardens and then all the way to Tower Bridge and then back again.
The black line - oh, so very obviously, outlines the journey. Now, I'll tell you this. By foot, it's a bit of a walk. No, it's a hell of a walk. Sure, you'd think "oh, well what's wrong with that? You get to enjoy the views of London whilst you're at it!"
The buzzer says incorrect. Other groups were literally speed-walking, and myself and my group of four comrades were taking this a little less seriously. Deep down inside, I knew the "treasure" would be something like crayons. So, with a little bit of perseverance and less perseverance towards the end, we finished in an hour and 16 or 17 minutes. I'll let you in on a secret though - we took the bus back to base point. I'll tell you why - because there was no rule against it. We came second last or something like that. We never bothered to check after realising that the prize was a soft toy about the size of my palm. I'm glad I didn't take it seriously now. I'd rather have the crayons. It was a waste of £5 spent on transport.
Tired, hungry, annoyed by the choice of treasure, irritated by the humidity yet gloomy sky, we headed in search of the Golden Arches a.k.a good ol' Sir McDonald. Embankment's McDonald's was full, Waterloo's McDonald's hardly had any seating. So we decided to just take the train back home and eat locally.
Home is where the food is.
So what have I learnt from this process? Don't wear Primark shoes during treasure hunts, don't take treasure hunts seriously unless the hunt is proposed by Captain Jack Sparrow or Billy Bones and don't have a strawberry milkshake when you know you have to walk home.
"Heroes take journeys along the Thames, confront tourists, and discover the treasure of food." Much more suited I think!
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