Tim and I went shopping this weekend in preparation for our 6 days camping on the Essentially Men father/son retreat. We bought polyprop tops, camping lights, a new pocket knife (as instructed) for Tim and torches.

My good friend Nigel phoned from Christchurch this afternoon to suggest that one of the most valuable pieces of equipment we could bring was a head lamp: “when it’s dark on camp it’s dark, so you can do whatever you want with a torch strapped to your head”.

This retreat has been a long-time coming and Tim has been very brave in agreeing to go into the unknown with me and a group of other guys.

I’m excited and apprehensive. My hope this week is that Tim sees the way forward from boy to young man. It’ll be big for me too I’m sure.

We’ve got those head lamps ready.

See you in a week.

Stephen