London Office Summer Outing 2018 (+ some honorary European penguins)

Last week the London office (+ Bamshad, Esther and Nina) exchanged the hustle and bustle of the city for some fresh sea air.  After a 2.5-hour drive (where we learnt of Carmen’s secret whiskey stash) through beautiful, verdant English countryside, we arrived on the Isle of Portland in Dorset.  

We stayed in a huge converted church, stable block and school, connected by small passages and confusing staircases. As it was located just a stone’s throw from the sea, a group led by G.I. Bethan went straight for a run along the famous Chesil Beach followed by a refreshing swim while the rest enjoyed the good weather by relaxing on the roof terrace with an aperitif to watch the sunset. We prepared a healthy pescatarian supper and ate in the enormous church hall – it felt more like the last supper than a Thursday night in rural England!

As we had an early start, we made the sensible decision of getting an early night… Well that’s what we should have done, but after some rounds of trivia, plenty more wine and of course DIY karaoke (Kickstarter to get Bamshad on the X-factor!), the last ones standing finally crawled into before just before the sun rose!

Clearly not everyone was ready for an early wake up after only a couple of hours sleep, but we managed to struggle into wetsuits for the morning’s coasteering activity.  We found that jumping in the chilly sea is the best hangover cure yet and the penguins being in their natural habitat were quickly back on fighting form. The coasteering involved scrabbling along rocks, swimming to sea stacks and jumping from 12m into the sea – not for the faint-hearted!

Once back on dry land we relaxed by the lighthouse and tried some local crab sandwiches. We headed back to the Airbnb for a BBQ and an afternoon cliff walk before catching the train back to London.

Thank you to everyone for such a memorable and fun weekend!! If you want to look at more pictures click here 🙂