Mans retreat Saturday is the guts of the retreat. The engine room. It has to start off with a lie in. Especially in your cramped caravan bed with your legs hanging over the end. The night must be interrupted by intermittent waking up due to hypothermia in the freezing conditions. Double socks are a must.
A lie in is essential for fathers on Mans retreat. It is a rare treat and one to be savoured. Not having young children climbing all over you at 6.30am is essential to reclaim your masculinity.
Dress Code
1st rule of Mans retreat Saturday is dress code. Eclectic mix of pants, outwear and boots is essential for outside smoking, visits to shower block and on site shop along with hanging in the 'lounge' area of caravan. **Please note lounge area just an area of the van not a separate room **
Training Regime
Exercise is important on Mans Retreat. To keep physically fit helps to balance the undoubted eating of shit throughout the weekend. A run along the Pembrokhire coast is not only good for the guilt but the gut. This is most likely to be indulged by single men on Mans Retreat. Married ones with children opt for lie in over a run 9 times out of 10. Married mens training regime includes downtime and this downtime is spent on men's retreat horizontally and asleep.
Nature & Reconnect with Childhood
Mans Retreat encourages Man to visit places he went in childhood to reconnect with being a youngster and recall positive memories from the past. I did this morning during my run. Reminded me of when I was young and we would walk from Wisemans Bridge into Saundersfoot. Me, my Mum, My brother and the dog, Buffy. The famous 4. It made me appreciate how much she did for us when the alcoholic husband and father had gone berserk and left a trail of destruction. She held it together and gave us holidays like this. My admiration is total the older I get. mans retreat encourages man to see things from woman's and mothers perspective and to add a little gratitude.
Mans retreat also encourages Man to get out on the beach and take in the stunning scenery and nature to get a sense of perspective and space. Pembrokshire has some of the most stunning scenery in the world.
Breakfast
Mans retreat shuns healthy breakfasts like yogurt in favour of full cooked breakfast. Man is encouraged to go out into the wild (well the local Spar) and hunt, gather and forage his own food, or put them on his credit card. Eggs, Bacon, Sausage, beans, mushrooms & bread. Man must cook his own breakfast, reclaiming his Independence in unhealthy fried cooking and then sit in a cramped kitchenette and squeeze himself into the caravan 'social zone' to eat at a table and indulge in Man conversation. Topics such as 'Whats on TV?' and 'Who's playing football today' are covered thoroughly. Endless tea is drunk eschewing all modern advice to hydrate with water. Mans retreat encourages you to get into double figures by midday. Mans retreat rules include getting every Saturday paper to lazily flick through including Tabloids which include headlines such as "I took coke up my bum by Rod Stewart" - Perfect fodder for Man over breakfast.
Itinerary
It is crucial for Mans Retreat not to have any plans or itinerary throughout the day. The day must include essentially nothing. Pressures and responsibilities of every day life mean that Mans Retreat provides a healing balance to this by asking you to do absolutely nothing apart form drift along the day. Mans retreat encourages sitting around in the cramped caravan after breakfast in your pants, reading papers until one or all of you starts getting on each others tits & annoyed. It is THEN time to go out.
Afternoon
Mans retreat encourages a walk along the beach looking at rockpools discussing the new Testament, God and tadpoles. It also encourages scrambling across rocks looking for crabs. Reclaiming childhood memories once again. Mans retreat then encourages all 3 to walk to a small seaside town (Saundersfoot) & visit an amusement arcade. Once you get over the feelings over slight awkwardness, especially in modern Jimmy Saville times, when 3 grown men walking around an amusement arcade full of teenagers could arise suspicion. Mans retreat should consider Official badges, so people are in full knowledge why grown man is there.
It is crucial for grown man to squeeze themselves into various driving games and test each other, pumping endless £1 coins into the machine to drive quickly and sharpen their competitive skills. Esteem is retained through winning and enough money is wasted to give man enough wins to fill up the male pride and esteem so badly reduced during everyday life. This is a crucial part of Mans retreat and also looks hilarious from behind to see a grown man on a tiny driving game.
In order to counter balance this and get back to more humble and simple times man needs to hang out by the harbour and take in the simple environment. Eating shellfish in plastic tubs with heavy doses of vinegar is important and a traditional British seaside experience. Luckily Clive's Seafood Bar was open and ready for business.
Cockles, Muscles & Whelks - Guess who's who?
Then to help man reconnect with true life, childhood and simpler times before Wii, X Box, social media, Facebook, man needs to fish. To go fishing in the harbour with lines bought for £1.20 in the £1.20 shop. A competition is set as to which bait will prove most popular. Whelks, Muscles or Cockles. Then man sits on harbour wall in freezing cold, slowly losing the feeling in his hands and feet dangling a line into the harbour in the vain hope of catching a crab. It is a refreshing way for modern man to catch crabs in a way that is somewhat healthier than the more traditional way in the City.
Unfortunately on this retreat none of the 3 men caught anything apart from a cold. The other unfortunate thing is that we ate all our bait.
To warm up, man needed to go to local small pub covered in Halloween decorations and advertising 'Hugh Evans Halloween Disco tonight' to warm up in front of a real log fire and then discuss other man topics such as women, relationships, sex and something that is always risky on a mans retreat, 'feelings'. Fishing always does that and helps man loosen up. Though 3 or 4 pints of Brains Bitter also has this effect.
The afternoon is then brought to a close by the mandatory purchase of a team lottery ticket. After all ye olde South Wales is one of the luckiest places in the world and Man Plan B for success lies solely on an enormous win.
Birthday
One of the men on this Mans retreat celebrated his 39 birthday in the week, though modern man with children gets shunted down the order in terms of fuss or attention. Receiving gifts like a stapler. Modern man's friends also rarely remember their birthday making them feel more isolated, forgotten and miserable. Mans retreat is therefore important in finding a small welsh cake shop with a plump welsh Mum, say it's his birthday and get her to make a little bit of Welsh fuss & attention. The purchase of Welsh Cakes, Rock cakes, Cheese scones & Victoria sandwich with birthday candle is crucial along with a flashing 'party animal' badge and 'Birthday boy' to make Man feel semi human and spoilt again.
Birthday boy and as Mans retreat notes how utterly tired Man with young children looks.
Evening & Diet
By the evening on Mans retreat, a long walk, noshing on seafood, fishing and the energy expelled in the arcade means that Men are knackered. Even man without kids is exhausted and the plans to go out for a curry, ACDC tribute band or Sands Nightclub are rejected in favour of not moving from our respective positions. Burge assumed the laying down on sofa position, Cooper the feet up on stool and I was relegated to laying on the floor. Ironic really seeing as that was the position i remember my father assuming for the last few years before he buggered off. It all comes full circle. Hopefully i won't descend into heavy alcoholism and shit my pants regularly like him.
Diet is crucial on mans retreat. Fruit and vegetables are banned. Therefore the only Saturday evening choice is fish and chips. This is bolstered with Scampi fries, making your fingers smell rather suspicious, bacon fries, Dime Bars, snickers, whelks and cockles. This of course makes staying in a small confined caravan for a number of hours extremely volatile and smelly. Men's Retreat encourages breaking wind as a means of men letting it all out. It is one of the ethos of Mans retreat Not to hold anything back and relax. So much so There is a severe danger of man shitting himself mid gust. Burge suffered a scare during 'The Sweeney' but luckily it was a false alarm.
The evening was spent watching 2 movies. A coming of age comedy and a sports film and then Men fall asleep to 'The Big Match Revisited- A replay of the 1979 League Cup Final Between Notts Forest and Southampton. Perfect men's retreat viewing.
All in all it was a classic Men's Retreat day. Go out, do nothing, come back talk about doing something and end up doing nothing. Big plans, Big talk but little delivery. A classic mans trait and one we promote heavily on Mans Retreat
Evans
xx
Don't you goout,do nothing, come back talk about doing something and end up doing nothing. Big plans, Big talk but little delivery? Everyday anyway ? Lol
ReplyDeleteWot, no circle jerking in the lounge area?
ReplyDelete