Talbot's House

We had a great time karting last week in Milton Keynes. The boys raced in groups of 6-8 and in between had the chance to relax, play some Mario kart, cheer on the other racers and indulge in some hot pizza if they wanted. As ever, they all had a great time and it is after events such as these that the boys feel more part of the house and both deepen and grow new friendships.
It was, of course, a competitive event and the most important thing to know is that Mr Gracie came 4th!
He was unfortunately just pipped by George (3rd), Leo (2nd) and Niklas who won in one of the week's fastest times at the venue! The boys were a credit to the house and it was a trip appreciated all round!

There are a few photos below and a video at the bottom. many thanks to Jo in the 4th form who, we think you'll agree, has quite a skill with the camera!

WOW! What a whirlwind. The start of term is always full of life and excitement and this year is no exception. It is very hard to come to terms with the fact our 17 new boys only joined us yesterday morning; it feels a lifetime ago.

The boys were quickly inducted with an amazing lunch from the very talented Mrs Sterling and the normal induction routines. This was followed by a visit to town and then year group socials with cakes and hot chocolate in Mr and Mrs G's house. The sixth form were also able to have a beer with their food later on.

The house meeting on the first night was full of the excitement of the start of term and it was hard to distinguish already who was new and who has been here forever such was the excellent welcome given to the new guys. The normal 'name everyone in the room' game brought much hilarity; someone will get them all right soon! Boys also had a chance to get to know everyone in their tutor group with some questionable feedback from the current sixth form!

Today saw the start of school and a million meetings to get ready; in between that the pool table, playstation and table tennis table have seen plenty of action. The highlight of Wednesday's this year will be the sports hall and the guys had a great evening with lots of people getting stuck in.

There are a few photos below from the first couple of days with plenty more to come in the coming days, especially if you follow the house on twitter or instagram (@talbotshosue for both).

Thursday night is our first fire night of the term and then Friday is our first celebration night so there is plenty more going on!

This week Friday is welcome!!! The lads are really working hard and pushing on through the dark evenings. The strength of their efforts are evidenced by the growing merit totals at school, as you'll see below.

The meeting started with a solemn act of remembrance as we briefly eulogised the loss of two chickens to the fox last night!

We picked the mood up though with an attempt at this week's competition to know a word in every language that is spoken in the house. A number of men tried but none succeeded with Harun, the last man in undone by Nico's command of Swahili after his trip to Tanzania last summer.

This week we already celebrated Dan's success as part of the U14 county winning Hockey side and Harun and Fuga continuing to go well for the Basketball team. The fourth and Remove formers also did a terrific job welcoming visitors from eagle house today.

This week's Top Bloke was awarded to Sam though who made his debut for the Basketball side.

In other teams this week Adrian will be part of the 1st team Badminton squad tomorrow. In Football, Nico, John and Fuga continue for the 1st team but are superceded in excitement levels as Nihat, Alex.C and Hodges all turn out for the 4th XI tomorrow; I think there will be a number of men supporting at 2pm tomorrow!
In Hockey, Danny is in goal for the U14D's whilst Tizian has been promoted to the C team. Dan will continue to run out for the A team. Dom.B will play for the U16B with Charlie in the 3rds and Gabe and Kighty in the 1st team.

In merits this week it was a rollover as  there was no celebration prior to Exeat. The following made this week's table:
1: Hodges, Simon
2: Ken, Luke, Adrian, Sam, Brady
3: George and Ben.W
4: Dunc, Alex.S and Gabe
5: Alex.C, Edwin, Stephen, Lennart, Tizian
6 (and kings of merits): Harun and Alvin

This week's room of the week (for improvement apparently ;-) ) was Jonas and Alex.K

Man of the week goes to Igor who is working really ahrd on his running and finished his 100th km of the month this week, a great effort considering he always runs in his free time and doesn't do it for games.

This week's prize winners.....

Love the pizza on Friday nights!!!

We had a fantastic Christmas dinner on the final night of term.

90 of the Talbot's family; boys, staff and parents, descended on the school's cafe bar for the Talbot's dinner this year. As ever Mr Grieve and the staff had done an amazing job, no wonder they are national award winners. Everyone also looked great in their black tie outfits and enjoyed the food and drink, especially the wine from Tizian's parents' vineyard.

During the dinner, Sam Pudylyk stood first, representing St Peter's and talked about our success in house competitions this year and the continuing tightness between the day and boarding sides of the house. It was great to have him there, along with his deputies Chris and Jayan. He was followed by Charlie who firstly gave some excellent and heartfelt thanks to Linda, Lynda, Julie and Shirley for all of their efforts cleaning and then gave his personal reflections on each of the matrons; one imagines Mrs Trigger may want to find a way to return his words next term! Charlie then added some questionable jokes about the upper sixth and some ridiculous chat about Mr Gracie's appearance. Charlie also created  some unofficial house awards of his own which hopefully won't become a tradition as he hoped, though it was excellent to see Mr Finch come close to lad colours! he and the options also chose a top bloke for the term which quite rightly went to Samuel for his warmth and willingness to get invovled and be a friend to everyone.

Mr Gracie then gave a summary of the term in numbers and handed out the term's awards which are listed below this. This paved the way for this year's guest of honour Dr Nick Hart. Not only was he head of Talbot's in 1974, he is also the father of our current head of house. It was fascinating to hear how some things have changed an awful lot and others very little. Dr Hart talked about the changes in what discipline can be carried out by boys, he was at the end of the caning era, and noted the similarities in jobs done by the boys in the house. He also recalled some of his amusing antics as a boy at the school adding that he was not, as Charlie widely reports, expelled! His taking the time to talk to us was really appreciated and an enlightening experience. His noting of greater parental involvement in the life of the house was also something Mr and Mrs G were pleased about as we are so lucky to have amazing support and involvement from so many of our parents.

The dinner was followed by the customary karaoke party and some more drinks back at the house which was a lot of fun as ever, though there were a lot of tired boys who headed to bed fairly quickly!

Awards for the Xmas term:

Star Bakers: Benno and Harun
King of Merits: Tizian
Man of the term: Harun

Last week saw us go karting in Milton Keynes. as ever the competition was fierce and we were very well looked after by the team at daytona.

The drivers aged under 16 were in a team endurance race for a full 2 hours. Everyone had half an hour on the track with varying degrees of success. The small track made for some hairy overtaking and the tyre walls were well used. The fastest drivers were Nikita, George.S and Lennart. In the end the winning team was Dom, Leon and Lennart. Teepee, Samuel, and the Georges came in second in their heavier car, followed by Sasha, Igor and Alvin.

The senior lads took part in a full grand prix. A 10 minute qualifying session saw everyone take their place on the grid. As the lights went red, Ed (backed from the beginning to win by MRG) went out in front and led to the end. Behind him there were some epic battles though. Tom fluctuated like Chelsea in the premier league before eventually coming second and the rain and Talbot's competitiveness saw a number of disqualifications which allowed Matthew to finish third.

All the lads said it was a hit doing the racing in this format and most importantly, everyone left knowing a bit more about each other and feeling more a part of the house than at the start of the night.

The big trip to Ickwell, on the second Sunday of the first term. Everyone from Talbot’s house enjoyed themselves and had a great time. We played a lot of fun sports, like football, rugby etc and also a lot of games, like four way chess. We also had a fire, made amazing spears, tried trapping crayfish and melting marshmallows, and, you guessed it, lots of them burned. We also had competitions like the steak cooking competition. Tizian, our German friend, won by his awesome ribeye steak, although Harun was very close to victory.
At the end of our trip, we went to collect the traps, but unfortunately we did not catch any crayfish. Obviously, cleaning up after us is what every human being should do, so we made sure that the area is extra clean and green. We also made sure that the fire was completely out and there is no way that it can be relit accidentally. We packed all or things and left Ickwell. On the bus, lots of boys were tired and fell asleep, this was a fun day.

Danny and Igor

This weekend has been a whirlwind of activities and fun. Everyone was tired tonight but that is normally a good sign and we are certainly going into the first full week as a community that is starting to look coherent and is plenty of fun!

On Saturday Edwin and Igor and others prepared 3 incredible crumbles at baking club for our suppers which were very well received! this was followed up by everyone going out for meals in Bedford ranging from Subway to the all you can eat Chinese and Italian.

Sunday has been frenetic. We started off as the duty house for chapel where Matthew and Luke provided the ushers and Ben.W and Jonas read superbly. The fact that there are now 3 men of Talbot's in the choir (Tizian, Ben and Sam) made it a strong morning for us!

The fourth and Remove formers then joined the new fourth form from St Peter's and 3 other houses for an afternoon of paintball. Everyone got stuck in and had a lovely afternoon in the sun (though there may be a few bruises) and there were smiles all around afterwards as we hosted the St Peters for some joint house bonding over pizza, playstation and the normal garden soccer game. Unsurprisingly the St peter's teams also competed heroically against the other houses and one of ours were the winners. You'd expect nothing less from the reigning house champions.

The fifth and sixth formers took it more easy with a sociable Football tournament with Mr Finch back at the house organised by Fuga and Jonny.

It is now an established tradition that the first weekend of the term sees us have a BBQ and American Football game. Today's was a classic with Harun's team quickly taking the lead 3-0 through epic plays from Sam at QB, Alex.S and Fuga. Edwin lead the return charge for George.S's team from QB and some dubious touchdowns from Mrs Gracie, Duncan and Sasha.K meant it may have been a draw but no one is quite sure! As ever there was high levels of enthusiasm and banter and a mixed standard of skill. You can see Duncan's touchdown including a play which involves one of the trees and him spiking the ball over the wall into the Drs Surgery in celebration on Instagram here!

The start of the term has gone really well and there are lots of impressed house members at how friendly and involved our newer members have been.
On Wednesday night we all met each other and had plenty of rough and tumbling on the football pitch. On Thursday we had a big fire in the firepit and played outdoor games along with roasting marshmallows of course!
No night in Talbot's quite compares to Fridays though and this week's BBQ celebration night had the usual mix of banter and appreciation.
This week it ahs been amazing to hear great comments from teachers about Curtis, Alvin, Edwin, Stephen and Oscar as well as Sam and Ben.W getting stuck into the choir.

The options awarded top bloke to Harun who has made an imemdiate impression with his friendliness, confidence and excellent Basketball skills.

In teams this week we have:
3rd: John as captain and Ed
4th: Nihat and Alex.S
5th: Matthew
U16B: Sasha.P, George.C
U16D: Alex.G, Justin, Frank.L
U15A: Leon
U15 C: Dan and Lennart
U14: Everyone in trial matches!!!

The room of the week this week was McKendrick for a very impressive start, especially from a dorm!

This weeks Man of the week was someone who has had two teachers contact Mr G to say how well he ahst started and was also the only man to get a merit in his first few days. He is: Alvin!

On Monday night we had a great trip to Box End park to do kneeboarding and wakeboard img on their cable tow. It is a great venue with very friendly staff by the way!

On Sunday we had our first house volleyball competition. Five teams competed for the prize (a sweet and delicious one no less) by playing in a round robin in the afternoon sun. It was a glorious day and the choc ices for between game snacks went down well too. In the end it was team Classy, made up of Duncan, Nihat, Simon, Bob and Will.G who cam out as the victors. A video of some live action footage and the teams from the afternoon is below.

Last Sunday all of our fourth and remove form boarders joined the other houses in the annual boarders' theme park trip. This year saw a return to Alton towers much to everyone's pleasure.

Amongst the boys, Sasha, Alex.G and Igor managed to complete all 6 of the big rides apparently, though Mr Gracie is sure they weren't as scary as CBeebies land!

Chappers certainly told  the best stories on the way back and may have a future in theme park guide books!

For some reason, Adrian seems to be in all the pictures below but we promise you everyone was there! There were plenty of other photos taken which we hope to add soon!

Its been two weeks since the last celebration night, so it was great to celebrate all the good things that have happened in the house recently.

Following on from the IB and GCSE lads, who started this week, we wished all the AS and A2 students the very best as they begin study leave today. In particular, we salute the IB and A level students who have come to the end of their time in lessons forever!

In the past two weeks much has happened of course. The orchard is starting to look full of life and Nico, Dom and Frank have planted out a few things to get a vegetable patch started.  We currently have tomatoes, peppers, lettuces, sweetcorn, sweetpea, beans, cucumber and strawberries growing. We'll see how they go; perhaps we might be able to do a house salad at the barbecue!

Last week the monitors were announced and they included Benno so huge congratulations to him,

In sport, Frank.H represented the school excellently in the county multi events championships helping the team come fourth. the previous week, Leon was part of the fourth form side that won at Oakham last week, whilst Frank, Ed, Teepee and Duncan also competed valiantly.

In Cricket, Dom.B wields his new bat in anger for the U15B today and Kevin is playing for the 2nd team in tennis.

Today also sees the Bedford Regatta, one of the few opportunities we get in the year to see our lads who row competing locally. Lennart and James.Z will row for the U14A crew and Ben is bow in the 2nd VIII.

Today Duncan is also competing his first Bedford Park Run, hopefully he won;t beat his housemaster's PB for it his first one...

In the house awards this week:

Merits:
1: Adrian, Duncan, Frank.L, Henry, Kritt, Dan, James, Bobby, Charlie, Darren, Jonny, benno
2:Charles, Frank.H
3 (and Kings of Merits): Jun and Bob

Room of  the Week went to Charlie in room 8 to some surprise.... ;-)

Top Bloke, selected by the options, was Assan who gave a very humorous speech by all accounts at last week's Arts dinner.

Man of the week is Benno, who combined being awarded his monitor's tie with also being made the head of core in the CCF.

Next week sees the AS and GCSE exams really kick off and the IB continuing. we are also visiting Alton Towers tomorrow; a boarder's life is never dull!

On Thursday, the 4th form went out for dinner with the Gracie's to the Sizzling Wok in Bedford. The ability to make your own dish which is cooked in front of you and eat as much as you like mean that this is always a favourite of Talbot's men and an essential part of a Bedford School boarer's education. It was great to catch up after the holidays and show off some chuffing skills. A few errors were made with Dan and Mrs Gravcie in particular adding too much spice to their food a few times!