Tuesday 15^th We went on our industrial visits this morning. I went to Fiddlers Ferry power station with my friends and about 30 lads.

On the bus, we were also with the people going to Marks & Spencer and Asda which meant that Dougie’s mates were on too. Dougie came with us to Fiddlers Ferry. Dougie’s mates are

Jez Greenhalgh
Will Fernley
Owen Kendal
Ralph Christopherson
Graham Baxter
David Ingle
Freddie Bevan
and that’s mostly it.

We also had the Bitch Brigade

Hazel Carter
Megan Quinn
Kayleigh Webber
Daisy Smith
Carly Jennings
Gemma Crowther
Maria Vine
and a few others upstairs on the bus so we had the lads sitting behind us.

We were dropped off at the power station first and we went into the visitors centre. At first we all had to sit down at tables listening to some woman nattering on about electricity and stuff. [I was supposedly one of the swotty ones so God knows what some of the others were thinking.]

They gave us all drinks and biscuits which kept us quiet. I was watching Dougie eating and it was really funny. He sort of nibbles at stuff really delicately and permanently looks really self-conscious. [Is it any wonder with me and probably about 10 other girls constantly monitoring his every move down to the way he nibbled delicately at a biscuit?!] I didn’t have anything coz it was pineapple juice and some biscuits that I probably wouldn’t even give to the dog! [Times have changed. I don’t turn down biscuits nowadays.]

We were shown into a room and stood in front of a TV which had a man explaining stuff about power stations on it. I wasn’t really listening so I don’t know what it was about. We were then allowed to look round the visitors centre for a while and everywhere my friends and I went, Dougie seemed to be pretty close behind! [I can’t imagine the power station visitors centre was too expansive though…]

We then went out and back to the room where they’d fed us. We had to get into groups of nine. I was with

Emma
Cat
Olivia
Lizzie
Sarah
Freda
Aaron Priestley
Andy Shaw

Dougie’s group went first so we didn’t walk round with them or anything. On the way out, we all had to get ear plugs, a hard hat and goggles. We all looked really stupid! This grumpy old woman took us round and showed us the chimneys and stuff. If you stand underneath you have to bend really far back to be able to see the top coz they’re so tall. [Was mildly impressed with something on this trip?]

Every time we passed Dougie’s group, I grinned at him and he grinned at me. I kept glancing over at him and he’d look at me or the other way round.

On the coach on the way back, everybody was teasing everybody else. Emma admitted she fancied Freddie so Ralph kept asking him out for her.

Lizzie and Ralph went out in Bangor (that’s where Abby is this week) so everyone was teasing them.

Ralph came on to who Dougie fancied and he mentioned Emma and Olivia. I’m sure he doesn’t like Emma coz he’s usually so horrid to her and he doesn’t really know Olivia so I think (I hope) Ralph was just messing.

All the time on the coach, I kept catching Dougie’s eye and I saw him looking at me (I think) when someone was teasing as if to see if I laughed or whatever. [The words ‘clutching’ and ‘straws’ are springing to mind.]

We had 15 minutes lunch then lectures from businessmen in the afternoon. The 1^st one I went to was with Paul Miller, an engineer at AEA. He was talking about production but it was so boring. The 2^nd one was on quality and it wasn’t as bad as the first one coz he had a video, sheets and freebies.

I was talking to Barry on the internet again. This time he was with his mate Andrew and I think he got a bit jealous when I said his mate sounded nice. I have also been talking to Mark in Chester.

I was on the phone to my cousin Rhian in Caithness and she said that Alex and his family from across the road had moved out. This is awful coz Alex was about my age and nice-ish!

BYE!