Saturday
The morning started pretty standard. Got up for breakfast, which was lovely, then headed off to the pool. No Bomba today as it was the Animation team’s day off! Phew!
We spent most of the day relaxing around the pool. In the afternoon a few of the group headed off to go see some dolphins while the rest of us stayed by the pool. R was no where to be seen as he’d made a few friends and was off with them.
The Conga just wasn't working. Something about water and lilos that caused a problem!
"HELP! My shorts are on fire!"
We headed off to lunch, which again was great and then back to the pool. A while later, leaving R in the charge of Dena and Jon, we headed back to the room for an hour or two to sit on the balcony and slowly get ready for our evening meal.
We heard the others arrive back from the dolphins and had a quick chat about what a good day they’d had and then we made our way to the square to sit and wait for everyone before all of us headed off to the restaurant for our evening meal.
It was during this walk that we found out what had been going on. It turned out R had been drinking. Now we’re not ogre foster carers (well I am!) so we had said R could have a drink but there were rules. These were simple rules that were easy to follow. Firstly there was to be no drinking in the daytime. Easy enough. Secondly he was only to have alcohol when he was with us. Us meaning me or Brad. Again, easy to follow, easy to understand. He’s 16 and not stupid, just a little ignorant sometimes.
So we heard from S that during the afternoon R had drunk two vodkas and a lager. This is all while he’s on STRONG painkillers for his back injury. Brad and I weren’t all that angry that he’d broke the rules but it was what else we’d heard that annoyed us. He’d told Dena and Jon that we’d said it was okay for him to drink as long as he was with an adult. R knew damn well that we’d said only in front of us but he once again decided to change the rules to suit him. We headed off to find him and it wasn’t long before we found him. He’d got two or three drinks lined up on the table and saw us coming so downed one as quick as he could.
“Enough vodka in that for you R?” shouted Brad.
“What?” he replied?
“I said is there enough vodka in there for you?” he repeated.
“There isn’t any. Try it,” said R offering Brad the glass.
“Maybe there isn’t in that one but there was in the others you’ve had to day!”
“No! I haven’t been drinking!”
“R we know you have. We know you’ve had a lager and two vodkas!”
At this point Brad started to get VERY angry. It’s rare that Brad shouts at the kids. I shout at them all the time but Brad is one of those people that acts very calmly and gets his point across. I get frustrated and start shouting. It’s very much like good cop bad cop. At this point though I was quite calm but only because there was no need for me to get angry as Brad had already started and was doing enough shouting for the both of us. Actually I say shouting, it wasn’t really shouting it more just raising his voice but it certainly got the point across and put the fear of god in R.
“So how much have you had to drink?” asked Brad.
“Just one vodka!” replied R.
That was it. That was the one line that made everything go from bad to worse. Brad is fine when it comes to rule breakers. He tells them off, sometimes calmly, sometimes loudly, but he deals with and ends the situation and once the child understands what they’ve done wrong he goes back to normal. Lying though is a different matter. Brad cannot abide lying. It makes him angry. Very angry. With the current mood he was in a lie was the last thing Brad needed to hear.
“I can’t talk to you anymore. Get up to that restaurant and get something to eat. You’re not leaving our side until we say so. Now move!” he shouted.
R sighed and huffed, as he usually does, and followed behind us. He sat at the table and mumbled something about not being hungry. A conversation started between R and Brad’s mom which lead to her saying “sixteen year olds should drink coke!”
“I was drinking coke,” he said, “with a vodka in it!” he added.
Making jokes at this point was not the right thing to do. Ann got up to leave muttering that she couldn’t sit with him when R said that he’d leave instead and he did. He went and sat outside. I came back with my meal, heard what had happened and went out to see him.
“What going on?” I said.
“Oh I’m just retarded aren’t I!” he said.
“Well yes, but what’s the problem now. Do you not think you’ve done anything wrong?”
“Well it’s hardly my fault is it?”
“How is it not your fault?”
“It’s the way I’ve been brought up. I never got a hug from my mom!”
“So never getting hugged means you can break our rules and drink?”
“No but it means I find it hard to make friends!”
“And?”
“And when I drink I make friends!”
“R Peter became friends with you when S met his sister and the four of you played in the pool. You became friends then not when you began drinking!”
“Oh you don’t know what it’s like being me!” He burst into tears at this point. “I’ve had such a hard life!”
“Oh R shut up. There are millions of kids out there who have had it harder than you and a million more who haven’t but go on as though they have. Compare to a lot of children you’ve had a great life.”
“My life is shit!”
“R stop blaming your upbringing on what has happened tonight!”
“I’m not!”
“Yes you are!”
“But it’s the reason I drink!”
“R you don’t drink. You had a couple that night after work that you think we don’t know about but we do. We’re not stupid R. And you’ve had a couple today. And I do know how much you’ve had.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to tell you?”
“If you want to.”
“I’ve had a lager and two vodkas.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes”
“Sure?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“So you didn’t put vodka into a lager?”
“No.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“I heard you did.”
“Yes I did.”
“Right R you’re lying to me again and it’s got to stop. You’re upbringing didn’t cause this! It didn’t cause you to drink tonight. Stop trying to grab for self pity because you’ve been told off because you’re not going to get it. You’ve broken our rules and you’ve lied. I appreciate your life has been difficult but you’re not going to get any sympathy tonight. Now get in there, go to the toilet and wash your face, then get something eat you need something to soak that alcohol and don’t think you’re getting any pain killers tonight! You’ll just have to put up with the pain!”
My rant went on for a little longer with him butting in and still trying to blame his upbringing but in the end he knew there was little he could do to get out of it. By the time we got back into the restaurant everyone else had finished and mine had gone cold. The others left and I went and got some more then R came and joined me. He tried to talk as though nothing was wrong and everything was fine but I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. After we’d finished we headed off back to the square.
“I think I should apologise to Brad and Ann,” he said.
“I think you should apologise to everyone!” I said.
“No one will talk to me.”
“Not at the moment but to be honest R that’s your problem that I’m not going to deal with. You made your bed, you lie in!”
“Oh thanks!”
“Don’t start with the attitude, you’re in enough trouble! I’ll talk to Brad but don’t expect him to want to talk to you. You’ll be lucky if he does.”
We got back to the square and he sat at a table on his own and had a cigarette. I sat with the others but kept my eye on him and eventually he came over.
“Brad, I’m sorry!” he said.
“Okay,” said Brad.
R put his arms out for a hug which Brad gave him and suddenly he burst into tears. He’d done this to me earlier and he’d got a hug but still no sympathy. The only sympathetic thing Brad gave him was the opportunity to move away from the crowds while he was so upset.
At the end of their conversation Brad told him to go to bed but that for the next few days he’d been spending most of the time with us. No one was happy about this but when needs must.
Brad came back and joined us and the evening carried on with much drinking and merriment!
Elliot and his new best friend
After too much to drink his head became a packet of crisps!
"I swear it was this big!"
The view from our balcony at night
A little too much vino!
Still to come…
- Brad makes an announcement
- I win a smile
- Liam loses a tooth
- Winston Turtle meets Ward End
- “Choo wanna umbrella? Ownchlee fibe leba!”
