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A Triumph of Trophies

By Candida Wingate

Part of Extra Time

The children have waded through driving rain, battled biting winds and withstood bitter temperatures to visit the Beech House residents; today, they had to overcome a heatwave and they arrived pink-cheeked, thirsty and just a little flustered by it all.

A cool drink and a ‘warm up’ activity involving sheets of smooth patterned paper quickly restored them, and they were soon engrossed in the main activity of the afternoon, adding twirly handles and other adornments to the trophies.

We all paused at half time to sing happy birthday to Pauline, one the Beech House Bakers, and the children at her table instantly added a note about her hop, skip and jumping prowess to their trophy.

After a magnificent platter of watermelon, raspberries and nectarines, we spent a little while chatting about what everyone’s got out of taking part in Extra Time.

At the beginning of the season, the children wrote down their reasons for wanting to take part; today was an opportunity to find out whether or not their hopes had been realised.

We’ll carry on with that next week, but today we needed to get back to the trophies and the all important podiums.

Three large boxes and numerous smaller ones were quickly constructed and then we had the glorious spectacle of the children all working in (almost) complete silence to build a tower of boxes and then place the trophies.

They were so impressive, as they made their design choices known, without argument, and collaborated to produce a momumental tower – a veritable triumph of trophies.

‘I said I wanted to take part because I liked meeting new people and that I wanted to make new friends - well all that's true, it's happened and I have loved meeting the residents at Beech House.’
Everlyn, on her experience of taking part in Extra Time
‘I think it’s always nice to mix with other people.’
Joyce, Beech House Baker
‘That was such fun, I've really enjoyed myself. Well, I'm not going to get the chance to do something like this anywhere else, am I? So it's lovely that you come here and we can do it altogether.’
Hilary, talking about the session
‘We thought that working with the children might lift the residents' spirits and when I asked Connie just now she agreed that it had lifted her spirits; she said it was all part of the learning.’
Sophia, on what she thought the residents would enjoy
‘They said that they enjoyed it [working with us] very much and that they have loved spending time with us kids.’
Lola, on what the residents told her about taking part

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