Week 305: Fiberglass

A week of theatre trips, union socials, post-work wine, summer camps, leaky tents, blacksmithing, wholesome activities, and dirty wellies.

Posted on 31 August 2026 by Rowan Manning .
Tagged with Social, Work, Holiday, Walking

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We started this week going to see Abigail’s Party at the Harold Pinter Theatre, it was great! Only realised afterwards that it starred Lauren Patel who was great in Small Prophets. There was some weird nostalgia for me – we watched and ran through scenes for it in GCSE drama and I kept thinking of staging notes from my very eccentric drama teacher.
On Tuesday we ran our first (pilot) Unite social at the FT and had lunch on the roof with members who were in the office. It had a nice level of attendance and we’ll be running more in future!
A few too many wines after work but gotta make the most of the tail end of summer.
On Wednesday I wandered over to Wapping to meet Karol for lunch. We sat by the river and caught up a bunch, nice to have another nearby friend! I haven’t spoken to him in about a decade so has been funny seeing him twice in as many weeks.
The weekend was dominated by Camp Wildfire, a name I’m sure they regret slightly with recent news. Their fire regulations were really strict before the rain began.
Our tent leaked quite a bit initially and several poles broke. I have some fiberglass cuts and splinters to show for it. Despite the adversity I had a nice weekend, but maybe I’m a fairweather camper.
This year I did blacksmithing, air rifle shooting, pyrography, and a botanical walk. Fewer but more expensive activities than last year. The blacksmithing was a lot of fun, I made a little keyring to learn a bunch of techniques and I’d like to do some more.
We ignored most of the patrol stuff this year as I find it a bit intense but the whole thing was good fun. My new wellies look a lot less new.