Latin Camp Vincit Omnia

LATIN CAMP!

When I was at university, I did a lot of Latin. It was cheaper than drugs, and I've never been very interested in drugs anyway. People would hear we had a Latin club and say "Oh, so you dance?

... No. That is quite a lot cooler than the Latin we did.

And now some of my best friends are my Latin friends. And we really are just about as nerdy as our shared hobby suggests.

Team Latin at Victor and Arlene's wedding, 2010.

The last time we went on Latin Camp was nearly three years ago, when Anne-Marie was adventuring in Japan and before Andrew and I moved to England. This was also back when we could all still remember our Latin well enough to illustrate Latin prepositions.

In aquam.

In aqua.

Picnicking prope rivum.

And then we got scrambled to the corners of the earth: Justin to Cape Town and me to York and Andrew to Oxford and Robyn to... Honeydew. And we forgot our Latin and things changed and life went on. But with four of our gang of five at last back in the same city, we decided it was time for Latin Camp: The Sequel.

Conveniently,  this year my family is renting a house on the Vaal, close enough to Jo'burg to be accessible, but far away enough to feel like the middle of nowhere.

Just us and these cows.

And this cosmos.

And this rainbow!

I can't even tell you how much I missed space and scenery like this. England is... nice. But it's not this.

So that's the beautiful South African scenery, but here's a photo which sums up our weekend rather more accurately:

There's actually a person behind there.

We played a lot of board games.

Serious Dominion.

Fight-to-the-death Articulate.

Hellishly confusing Guards! Guards!

We managed to get through all but two of our games, braving even Silent Movie, which involved attempting to mime the names of movies and actors we'd never heard of, and Guards! Guards!, which took upwards of three hours, and had DRAGONS and LUGGAGE and MAGIC and TERROR.

But we also went down to the river, since we felt like that was sort of the point. We set up a gazebo and everything. (You can't wound it. It's a gazebo.)

We are good at this.

And then we played games and read books in the shade.

We are especially good at this.

And we ate good food and drank cheap wine (in vino still winning at 30 Seconds!) and had awesome late-night conversations. In short, everything a weekend away should be.

Eugepae!

I mention a lot on this blog that I have awesome friends. But I have to mention it at least once more. I'm so lucky to have this many fantastic people in my life. I would love to tell my teenage self that things get better and easier (and so much more fun). Because there are like-minded people and Latin prepositions and board games and rainbows and freedom and joy.

Also wine and chocolate biscuits.