Not so bonded after all.

How many of you have been on those team bonding days that involve maps, games and ‘building trust in each other’. Hell, aren’t they? I’ve never liked them and have usually been the one that has been desperately trying to find a way out of it all. However, there was one that was fantastic. I can’t say that it bonded the team, but I had a brilliant time.

This was back when Best Friend and I used to work together and our boss was Mr Playmate. The bigger boss, The Wee Bald Man, had decided that we should have a staff day out to ‘regroup’. There was much debate between the active (Mr Playmate was all for something to do with boats – I heard exercise and stopped listening) and the cultural (The Posh Chav was after the theatre or an art gallery – they have their place and I do enjoy them, but this wasn’t a school trip). All Best Friend and I wanted to do was to go to Cadbury World (for those that don’t know look here, all I can say is you won’t believe the amount of free chocolate involved!). Somehow, and I’m still not sure how, we got The Wee Bald Man on our side and it was decided; we were off to Cadbury World!

A great day was not had by all. Whilst Best Friend, The Wee Bald Man and I ran around, completely hyped up on a sugar overdose, Mr Playmate traipsed around permanently attached to his mobile and The Posh Chav alternated between trying to control our manic attacks on the chocolate samples and engage our interest in the ‘very educational’ side of the history of chocolate. Near the end is a small train that takes you through a story land of chocolate heaven, there are even dancing cocoa beans. Halfway round a picture is taken automatically. We had to laugh when we saw it; in the front carriage was The Wee Bald Man, Best Friend and I, looking like we’d taken a serious amount of speed. In the carriage behind us were Mr Playmate and The Posh Chav, looking like they’d entered a new circle of Dante’s Hell (all of this was just before the train broke down and us sugar-hyped people started getting freaked out as the cocoa beans seemed to turn from happy, friendly things to something out of a horror film, but that’s another story).

The journey home was interesting, The Posh Chav was sulking as those of us full from chocolate had not been able to eat our lunch and were now crashed out from a sugar-rush comedown. The Wee Bald Man was driving, whilst fighting his and so was not in the best of moods. When we finally got back, there only seemed to be one solution – we hit the pub! Chocolate and alcohol, what a great day…