"Hello, have you met my friend Lawrence?"

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After Lawrence popped the question to Danielle most of us were only thinking one thing....stag do!! Best man Adam duly came up with the goods, hiring a pair of cottages down in Ashcombe, Devon that were complete with swimming pool, a games barn and no neighbours to complain about the noise and mayhem created by the frivolities that go along with a stag do.

We managed to assemble down in Ashcombe in good time on Friday and after the Tesco delivery man had done us proud by turning up on time with a weekend's worth of food and booze we were soon in a local pub (I say local, but it was a 15 minute drive!), enjoying a cracking pub-lunch to start the weekend.

You would have thought that picking the first week in July would have been a good bet for a weekend of sunshine, so that we could play footy and enjoy BBQs in the grounds of our cottages - but unfortunately the weather gods had other ideas and it absolutely hammered down all weekend long! The first activity Adam had laid on was a spot of clay-pigeon shooting and luckily the firing range was undercover so we were able to escape from the elements. Greg and Andy proved to be the sharpest shooters, but everyone was hitting targets on a pretty regular basis and it was great fun.

Back at the ranch, we managed to fire up a BBQ under cover of the back garden verandah, and the veterans of the Newquay trips decided to instigate a quick 30 minute game of Chundercats to get things moving along. I was in charge of pouring the measures, and it seemed that whenever it got to Lawrence's drink I lost all comprehension of a "reasonable measure" - funny that! It was a shame that we didn't make it a 45 minute game, as true to form Moss was definitely struggling during the latter stages!

As the evening cranked up we headed out to the games barn and I was able to introduce a modified version of the beer-pong game that I had learnt on holiday in the States to the masses. The table-tennis table that we were using proved a bit large, and the china mugs that replaced the usual plastic pint glasses meant that nothing other than a perfect direct hit would stay in the cup. This led to the games lasting an absolute age, and every scoring shot was greeted by raucous cheering and banter usually reserved for vicious football rivalries!! Somehow the early hours had been reached and Team Vibe and Team Science were locked at one game all! Soon enough everyone was in the pool, and being the stag most of Lawrence's possessions were soon ripped off him and deposited on the nearby roof! Moss also decided that an impromptu version of the Dentist's Chair would be needed as he ran around the edge of the pool with a bottle of Captain Morgan's!

Adam had wisely booked a late start for the activity on Saturday, and brilliantly we were going quad biking and so it was to be an activity that was actually enhanced by the rain! After a brief warm-up session where almost everyone got the hang of it - Adam's coming together with a tyre barrier meant that he had to have an instructor riding shotgun to "advise" on the correct techniques, we headed out into the woods on an hour-long hack through the countryside.

It was an absolutely amazing experience. The terrain was pretty savage, with huge ruts, tree roots, big dips, rivers to cross and massive watersplashes, but our quad bikes seemed to be able to take on anything - although the lack of anything resembling a brake meant that if you headed into a downhill section a bit too quickly you would be hanging on for dear life as the bike careered down the slope with no way of slowing down until the terrain flattened out again. Greg found this out to his cost as he took a nasty over the handlebars tumble on a sharp bend on a downhill section.

It had been tipping down with rain all day, but I think this enhanced our experience massively as it meant that every part of the course was filled with streams, rivers and mudsplashes which were great fun to navigate through and across.

After competing the cross-country stage we were to put our newly acquired skills into practice in a time-trial around an obstacle course. Nug didn't seem to have learnt about the fact that no brakes meant downhill sections should be treated with respect, and when he entered the main slope at top pace it became clear that there was no way he would be able to make the sharp turn at the bottom of the hill. Nug was thrown off the speeding quad bike before even getting to the turn, but fortunately was OK despite it being a nasty fall.

The instructor was getting very concerned about our general level of incompetence/disregard for safety and so after Adam, Greg and Nug's accidents we were onto our last strike and would be pulled from the circuit should anyone else crash. Unfortunately Charles decided that the best way to take on the initial chicane would be to try and powerslide the bike around each corner and he duly lost control and powerslid straight off the track and into a fence!!

The marshall followed up on his warning and we were duly pulled from the circuit - perhaps fulfilling the usual stag-do stereotypes into the bargain. This hadn't diminished the day-out though as the quad-biking experience had been absolutely incredible and one that we all massively enjoyed.

That evening we were hitting the streets of Torquay, starting off with a cracking Italian meal (extra garlic bread for Randy), before heading on to some bars and then clubbing. It wouldn't have been a stag-do if we hadn't have massively embarrassed the groom, and it was the drunken parade around the streets of Torquay that meant that the title of this blog will always have a special meaning to the guys who were on the stag-do.

Back at the cottages, Team Vibe and Team Science has scores to settle and so at 3a.m. the deciding game of Beer Pong was commenced. After a long and rowdy match it was fitting that Lawrence should seal victory for Team Science with a pin-point throw - not bad for a man that could barely stand.

As the Sun was rising everyone headed back into the pool with volleyball, piggy-bag wars and Zeppelin blasting on the stereo bringing the evening/morning to a cracking finale. Eventually, as the sun got stronger to reveal a pool that was more beer coloured than water coloured we called time on a superb stag do.

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Photos

Beer Pong
Team Vibe in-shot taking on the slightly more restrained Team Science. Not sure this should be the cover photo but it kinda sums up the weekend!!

Pool in the daytime
An idea of the tranquil surroundings that we were blessed with!

and pool at dawn
Tranquil setting well and truly ruined!!