[Hooly One]

Marching Orders
Day 46, 20:00
Monday 12 July

Just when the housemates thought their three-day boot camp task was over, they learned that there was actually one more challenge to fulfil.

But they needn't have worried, for Sergeants and Privates alike got the hang of their marching drill - designed to test co-ordination and discipline.

Some time after completing the shirt-ironing task, Sergeants Jason and Michelle were called to the Diary Room - and skipped of in the belief that they were going to be told whether they had passed or failed the weekly task.

They soon emerged to inform their subordinates that they had one more assignment.

The group had half an hour to learn the ten stages of a marching drill, using broomsticks instead of rifles.

Dishing out drill


Everyone hurried outside to practice standing to attention and so on. And pretty soon everyone had it in the bag (although initially Ahmed had failed to comprehend the different between Attention and At Ease, and Sergeant Michelle clearly had her favourite when she told Shell her effort was "perfectionate" - a brand new word).

As the trial period came to an end, the two Sergeants took it in turn to test each Private individually, while Big Brigadier looked on with an ever-watchful eye.

Nadia threw a mini wobbly when she was placed at the back of the line, and believed this to be a slight on her grasp of the drill in question, when in fact it was just to keep things in the order they'd been in during practice.

And there was a slight mishap involving Ahmed when he nearly fell off the gangplank in the garden after being dismissed.

Other than that, everything was just perfectionate.