Pancakes

What can I say? Let there be pancakes!

The kids had a whale of a time making the pancakes and eating them. Whilst most originally opted for lemon and sugar, I was able to tempt them into trying my banana caramel sauce. This is a simple recipe which involves heating a knob of butter in a pan until melted, adding plenty of sugar then dribbling milk into it. Then slicing a banana very finely into the sauce and pouring it over said pancakes. It always proves very popular.

Cancelled!

Sometimes our ideas, due to weather or ill health don't go according to plan.

This was one of those occasions. The night was 'Project Godmother' but I can't say much about it, because it's top secret.

What actually happened is I sat in a layby turning parents around and then made my way back to the hall to see things in full swing.

There was time trial relay races, map, compass & map symbol work, silly games and knots.

I was able to catch up on my paperwork!

And then, low and behold we had our last tenderfoot invested. So a successful day.

We've also discovered our new subs system has come up trumps. We churned out personalised mail merged letters from our database and sent them home with little brown envelopes for a cash or cheque return. Within a month, they've all paid up and for once I don't have to hassle everyone at the end of a meeting. Pure bliss!

Ready... Steady... Cook!

Food poisoning? One of the many trials we as scout leaders have to brave. But not this time, this time I passed this honor to our budding young leaders. Days like this I feel fortunate!

The ready steady cook event booked in my diaries six months previously also happened to conincide with the day after a real scout ready steady cook! You can see details on the official scout website here: http://scouts.org.uk/news_view.php?news_id=156

Meantime our own ready steady cook was quite sucessful. This was the culmination of the chef badge for many but with the time constraints of a 45 minute window to get dishes prepared for judging.

The best dish of the day was the Wolves stir fry which was tastiest, Eagles joint second on presentation alone with tigers making the most balanced meal but the pasta could have done with being cooked.

Sauces and deserts were top class, I especially enjoyed seeing how inventive the group could get with bananas and a bar of chocolate (we were hoping for fritters and chocolate soup)

Christmas camp 2009

All over now of course. It's time to surgically remove my long johns (blimey it was cold) but it didn't stop us from having a great time! First night we had fires, got settled in and played cards all evening.

Saturday morning however we were up bright and early (Graham went round with the spoon and pan at 7:30) so we could get out of the door by ten.

We were off to London! Treasure hunting style... The object of the game was to answer all the questions travelling to the different points of the map. The patrol leaders used the maps to plan their journey which had to include at least one bus trip. At 3pm we made our way back to camp.



When we got back we had a ramble in the woods looking for Birch polypore - a parasitic fungus which kills trees but which can be used fresh as plasters. That's not the reason we went looking for it however, because when cut thin and dried it can be used as kindling. We also looked for birch bark which is also a good tinder when dry.

We found a large polypore as well as plenty of birch bark which we took from fallen trees. Back at camp we sliced the fresh polypore and I showed the scouts even damp birch bark can be lit from a sweedish firesteel.

As the night drew in the newest scouts were learning the use of pocket knives and after we practiced our wittling skills on bars of soap.

Christmas dinner was served around 6pm and after dinner a cream fight began.



Campfire at eight took several attempts to light, mainly because of the wet wood (hey I didn't build it, neither did I light it!) and the high winds sweeping the site, but before long I'd piled the fire high with logs and it was becoming much cosier. Graham led the campfire followed by the odd song from Bill.

As campfire burnt low, everyone retired to their bunks totally worn out.

Sunday morning was chilly to say the least. Even the scouts had to be woken again at 8am with the wooden spoon and pot again! Before long the smell of bacon was in the air (and burnt scrambled egg) before clearing out and off by just after 10!