A Day in the Life of an HCPT Child
Each morning our helpers come to our rooms to get us up, and we greet them with smiles or moans depending on how much sleep we have had! We get washed and dressed and then we all go down to breakfast together. We have a traditional French breakfast of croissants and bread rolls and there is coffee, tea and hot chocolate for those who want it. After breakfast we have a few minutes to get our things from our rooms and get ready for our morning activity.
We do something different every day, maybe a trip to the zoo, or up the mountains; we visit the stations of the cross and the places that St Bernadette grew up in, Every day we also have Mass together, sometimes with other groups as well, and most days we visit a café for a drink or an ice cream! We also like to go down to the prairie and play games or just enjoy spending time together.
On Thursday we have Mass with all the other people who have come to Lourdes with HCPT. Over 5000 of us in the underground basilica, it feels more like a party than church! We all wear our group clothes so that we stand out as a team of friends, and some of us have our faces painted. There is lots of singing and dancing as well as some quiet time and we all come away buzzing with the excitement of it all!"
Most days we go back to the hotel for lunch, unless we have a packed lunch, and we have a full four course meal of traditional French food. There are usually lots of things that we like, as well as a few that we haven’t tried before, but we all taste everything and most of it is very good!
After lunch we usually go out for more trips and activities before coming back to the hotel for some quiet time before dinner. Sometimes we read or draw or play quiet games in our rooms, but some days we are so tired we just sleep in quiet time!
Then it is time for another big dinner! Before every meal we sing grace together. Dinner can take quite a long time because we all have so much to say to each other, even though we’ve spent the whole day together! After dinner we always find time to have a little sing song, and on some nights we have a party, or a talent show, or go down to the grotto for the torchlight procession or to light our group candle.
By the time it is bedtime we are all exhausted and usually go to sleep as soon as we get into bed! But we are already looking forward to our next day in Lourdes!
A Day in the Life of an HCPT Helper
Mornings in Lourdes start a bit earlier than I would choose for a holiday, but I drag myself out of bed and shower and dress quickly! It’s all made worthwhile when I am greeted by the smiling face of my child, ready for another exciting day of their holiday. One year, my child had a habit of waking about 5am and yelling until someone got him out of bed, so we set up a rota of early morning babysitters so that we didn’t have to get up so early every day! That said, he was at his very best in the mornings, cheerful and ready to play, so there was quite a queue of people wanting to get up early!
We get our kids up and dressed, and bathed or showered if we didn’t manage that the night before. The routine is made a bit easier by the delivery of a hot drink by our group leader! Then it’s down to breakfast and plenty to catch up on with the rest of the group, even though we only saw them about ten hours ago! After breakfast it always seems to be a rush to get everyone’s things together before we go out, even though we think we’re well prepared!
We do something different every day, my personal favourite being the Trust Mass for it’s riot of colour and noise! We have an official group photo taken, have group Mass, water liturgy, go to the grotto, visit the zoo, go up the mountain, play on the meadow and the all important café visits (usually with rowdy singing)! We also do an Easter scavenger hunt where we have to get our photo taken with groups of various different colours, in different places, with priests, nuns, group leaders and so on, which is a great opportunity to go and talk to groups we don’t know who always turn out to be friends for the future! Some time is also put aside for souvenir shopping, postcard writing and craft activities such as making animal masks or decorating our group candle.
It’s often a rush to get back for lunch, but afterwards we usually have some time to sort our stuff out ready for the afternoon adventure. When we get back to the hotel our group has a wonderful “quiet time” where the helpers have a meeting to discuss the days events, address any difficulties people are having and look at the risk assessments for the upcoming activities, and the children have some time in their rooms to either sleep, play quietly, or be entertained by some of our fantastic team of youth helpers who visit us daily from youth service groups and save the group helpers’ sanity!!
Dinner follows with more talking and the evening we have a party, sing some songs, or go to the torchlight procession or down to the grotto with our group candle. Once everyone is ready for bed we sit on the landing in our pyjamas, talk about our day, have a bedtime story and group night prayer before bed.
Once the children are in bed the adults can relax a bit, and if it isn’t our turn to stay in and babysit we can go out for a drink or down to the grotto for some peace and quiet. But it’s always worth getting to bed at a reasonable time as you know it’s all going to happen again then next day!
Overall, a week in Lourdes with HCPT is exhausting, but tremendous fun and hugely rewarding. It is amazing to see how much the special children in our care can grow in a week, and to see their faces as they have all these new experiences. It is truly humbling to see how hard their parents must work week in week out to take care of them, because I know I am ready to drop after only a week, and they keep on going for years at a time without a break. I love all the children I have taken to Lourdes and look forward to it as the best week of my year. I wouldn’t change it for anything.
