A long time ago I met a girl called Rosemary through work. I was very young and although she was only a couple of years older than me, she was so much more worldly wise than me and I credit her with kick-starting my grown-up life. She was incredibly important to me for quite a while. She introduced me to her set of friends who were also just that little bit older than me and I started to hang out with them all at parties and get-togethers and then a particular bar-be-que which saw a flame starting between Iain and me (sorry).

Rosemary is probably the oldest friend I have that I am still in touch with.

She has finally found a man good enough for her and is getting married next Saturday. I am doing the photos for her and Stephen.

It was her Hen Party last weekend. Rosemary never did anything the traditional way so why should the Hen Party be anything other than the. best. fun. ever.

She hired a mini bus and picked 10 of her nearest and dearest up along the way and took us all to a place called Todd's Leap for a full day of activities and then a BBQ and over night stay in a log cabin. As official photographer for the event I got loads of great photos which I will post a link to later - these wont be on Flickr but they aren't uploaded just yet either.

We arrived around 11.15am and were quickly handled by the staff. You know how places advertise their staff as "enthusiastic and committed"? THESE people REALLY were. They have a fantastic job and obviously all love being there. The owner, Benny, took control and injected us with some energy and humour, splitting our group in to two teams and introducing us to a Stag Party who were also there for the day. He announced we would be competing for a bottle of Champagne which perked us up rightly!

Once split in to teams we had to pick a team name and theme tune. Rosemary's bridesmaid (and our team leader) is from Australia so we picked "Skippy" not realising that we would be singing it quite so often throughout the day! Chose your theme tune wisely if you go!

Benny gave us a thorough Health and Safety talk and laid down strict (and rather comforting) rules about obeying the staff's commands.

The first thing our mini team of three did was Off Road Driving in a 4x4 on one of the roughest roads I have ever seen. With just a little drop of mud thrown in for good measure. I had done a fair amount of off-road driving, albeit twenty years ago, and totally loved having a go at this again. I drove first so I could get my turn over so I could photograph the others at it. It is really difficult to trust the instructor when he tells you to turn the wheel all the way in the opposite direction you think it should be going. There is a certain amount of buttock clenching and toe curling to be done when you are the first one over the top of a hill and see, before your passengers do, that there is no ground beneath you as you seem to have reached the very Edge of the World!

There was one part where the left hand side of the road was about 6 feet lower than the right hand side! Now THAT was scary. I never lost faith in the fact that they wouldn't build a track which would break their vehicles and - if the instructor said it was passable - it was passable.

After the others had their drives (during which I provided free sound effects) we met up with the others again and I prepared myself for about 30 minutes of waiting around for the instructors to get themselves sorted. Not to be though! They were spot on with their timings and we never waited more than a couple of minutes between events.

Next up, all the girls went to the clay pigeon shooting area. It has been pointed out to me that I may have previously declared a wish to try this out sometime and I was really excited to see how much fun this would be. There was a possibility it would kick my weak shoulder too much to be fun.

The instructor guy here was different and I was glad to see that he seemed to have been employed for shooting skills. He gave great instructions but made one fatal mistake. He never asked if anyone had ever shot clay pigeon before. Rosemary has done it competitively and I can't remember how far she got with it but I know she was working towards the Olympics at one point met Suzie (her Australian bridesmaid) through shooting too so I knew SHE must have done a little too.

They asked the rest of us not to say anything to the guy - they wanted to see what his patter was like.

We all got two shots each and I hung back for as long as possible to see how the others were doing it. To my very great delight I hit both of my targets! can you imagine my grin? Suzie went next and hit her two - the guy looked at her and said "You've done this before I think." She just nodded and said "A bit."

Rosemary was the same - two hits out of two and by then he was rather suspicious. She turned to him and said "Suzie is the Australian Olympic Gold Medal winner for this sport!"

We then all had a competition with another four shots. I came third after Rosemary, who had an overall score of 6/6 and Suzie who had 5/6. I had 4/6. That means I was only one below an Olympic Gold Medallist!

Not that I am competitive when it comes to things like that. Much. The gun was getting really heavy by the end of it and I'm not sure how much longer I could have kept that up for.

We gathered for coffee and scones and then straight off to Archery. I got some great shots there too and enjoyed having a go at that. I had a flukey start to it but when it came to the competition I failed to hit the balloon that I cockily thought I would bag without any effort at all.

After a bit of a hike we ended up on the top of an exposed hill looking at a JS70 JCB machine. I had never ever ever thought I would be inside the cab of a JCB knocking over tyres and digging and then filling in holes. It was great craic and now I can say I have done it. I can't say I will ever need to do it ever again, however!

Somewhere during the day we landed in to the kitchen area and had lunch - meeting up with the stag party, who seemed to be having as good a time as we were.

Our team found ourselves looking at extremely muddy quad bikes next. The instructor there was very funny and had me laughing at her dry jokes. Her jokes were about the only dry things by this stage as it started to pour while we were riding round the track. The quads were great fun. I am glad I did them, I would like another go on them - but by this time my arm muscles were killing me and when I stopped to take some photos I felt the camera shaking in my hands.

Most of the girls loved the quads.

We headed back to the team building to find they had blown up a bouncy-castle based Rodeo Bull. One of the other girls and I decided to sit this one out - I just knew I wouldn't enjoy it and the other girl was getting past her sell by date by this time too.

The first one up on to the bull was the funniest thing I have ever seen. She simply couldn't get her leg over it. She jumped at it. She tried to clamber up. She accepted help - and - then - as - she - got - on - totally - slipped - off - the other - side!

At one point during this I had to consciously disconnect myself from the scene in front of me as I knew that if I laughed for one second more I was going to vomit. I made eye contact with Rosemary who said "All this for 2.5 seconds!?"

Helen stayed on for exactly 2.7 seconds!!

Rosemary put her boots on and walked out the door at this point. I later found out that she had laughed so much she needed to go to the loo!

The bull was the only thing all day which gave us any injuries - about three of the girls hurt their hands holding on to the rope and one finger was badly bruised and cut.

All day there had been talk about the ultimate prize not being the Champagne but a ride in the "V8". It took me a while to work out that this was another open backed 4x4 with 6 bucket seats in the rear with rally style straps. It turned out that Benny gave us all a go on this - not just the "winners".

Those of you who know me well, will know I don't like roller coasters - I don't really like amusement park type rides with sudden jerks and stomach wrenching momentum. I make an exception to all this for the V8. I want to do that again. And again. And again! I want to DRIVE THAT TOO!

Imagine the off road track we had driven earlier - at 0.0005 miles per hour - and then think about it whooshing past you at 60-80 miles an hour. It was absolutely the most fantastic drive I have ever had.

When we got back to base one of the guys pointed out the dents in the roll cage. Seemingly they rolled the V8 last week. EEEEEK.

Rosemary got a ride of her dreams when Benny got out his Lotus Elise and gave her doughnuts and spins and speed and hand-brake turns up and down the yard for quite a few inches of rubber. She was having a ball.

That was more or less the day of adventure over. Now for the FUN!

We retired to the log cabins to compare bruises, the one on my upper arm was the best! Oh, who am I kidding? We retired to start into the drink. And we did. And I did. And I was. And two days later I am still suffering.

Seemingly I became very lovey and declared that this was the best fun I had had for 15 years. I am not sure what the last best day was but this was obviously the best since then. I hit it off with quite a few of Rosemary's other friends. I only knew one other girl there, having known her for as long as Rosemary - we all worked in the same place. For some reason this other girl (also called Rosemary) and I never hit it off and when we bumped in to each other at 'Rosemary get-togethers" I always found her to be a tad aloof. Not this time! We had a great time chatting away.

Rosemary's best friend from school, Dorothy, was there and she is now on my list of "Funniest People I Ever Did Meet". Some of Stephen's sisters were there too. Who else? Oh yes, Rosemary's accountant was there and I really liked her. I talked to her quite a lot, she lives in the town I was born in which gave her instant status. There is a whole story to be told there and I may finish that for you some day - not this time though. it will be about how everyone in Northern Ireland is connected to everyone else. It is, by far, the scariest story I have ever heard, lived through or had to tell.

All in all, we were a great bunch. Rosemary wasn't quite as drunk as me but she still managed to tear up a little when she started to thank us all for coming. Suzie got us all to do a toast to Rosemary and most of the girls managed this admirably but it was all too emotional for me and I ended up having to just start the words that were in my head, gulp and then say "you know" and allow it to pass on to the next not-so-emotional person.

Oh - somewhere during all that Dorothy managed to organise a BBQ for us all. It was pretty damn fantastic. The last lights were finally put out around 2am. For some reason i dreamed of tattoos (Suzie has Olympic Rings tattooed on her ankle which I think are pretty damn cool and some of Rosie's friends shocked her by showing their tattoos that she knew nothing about!). I suddenly had six on my right arm which were being blurred by my bruises!

At 6.00am I woke in a real panic thinking that someone had come in to the cabin and stolen my phone (I was lying on it all night - so *A*dele is lucky I wasn't phoning her the whole night!) and that lead to a panic that they may have stolen my camera too. It took me ages to get back to sleep again. By 8feckingo'clock every fecking person decided it was time to get up. Feckers.

By 9.30am we headed down to the kitchen again for our Ulster Fry and by 11.00am we had paid our bill. Rosemary left everyone home again except for me. I went home with her and Suzie.

The rest of the day was spent with Rosemary, Suzie and Stephen, going round their big-day venues and sussing out where they would like photos taken.

Not the normal, run of the mill Hen Party huh? As my first ever, the next one I go on has a lot to live up to! Mind you, the way things are going, this may be the only Hen Party I ever go to!

So, here's what I would have said to Rosemary had I been able to. I wish I could have said it out loud to her. I know she will read this.

Rosemary, you were a unique friend to me. There is no other person quite like you. You came into my life at a crucial point and made me realise that life could be fun and, more than that, SHOULD be fun. I always tell people that you "woke me up". In recent days we have joked about cheese: not only did you show me there were different types of cheese but you showed me that the cheese existed. You know?

And. No. I am NOT going to photoshop 600 photos for you. I. Do. Not. Love. You. That. Much.

Tags: Fun, Weekend Break, Laugh, Todd's Leap, Rosemary