10th to 12th Jan 2020.

Frost Camp at Bentley Copse.

No frost so may have to give a discount!

A food delivery lorry got lost on site following a splat nav, and got stuck on the tractor track, had to get a recovery lorry.

Maddies tebby Cabbage, worked with me on the Archery range.

2 nights, so at 260 total. 

Mood:  surprised

Dec 2014. Polar Express Cub Camp, with Shere & Peaslake Scouts. 2N.

Jan 2015. Frost Camp, Bentley Copse.  2N. 

July 2015. Guildford East District Cub Camp, at Bentley Copse. 2N.

July2016.  18 night trip to Iceland.  My third time as part of the IST to the Icelandic Jamboree.  18N.

Jan 2017.  Frost Camp. 2N.

April 2017.  New Forest trip. 2N.

Sep 2017.  District Birthday Camp. 1N. 

Jan 2018.  Frost Camp. 2N.

April 2018. NFT. 2N.

2018 three nights staffing Bentley Copse.

August 2018. Jurrassic Jamboree on Dorest. 10 (maybe 11)N.

2019, Frost and NFT again. 4N.

May 2019. Beavers go Wild, at Bentley Copse. 1N. 

July 2019.  Cub joint camp. 2N. 

So I make the TOTAL 258 nights away. 

2nd to 9th August.

WINGS is a jamboree  held every 5 years in the deer park at Windsor, Imade J-W cycle there with all the camp stuff only two days after coming back from Iceland!  We did about 28 miles going as J-W tried to use the cycle ways and back roads.  The weather was good.  How come you humans think it is a good idea to only put a single sign on a four way roundabout, and that will be on one of the exits so you can only see it as you leave the roundabout, or have no signs on them at all.  J-W was not best pleased.  We took about 2.5 hours to get to Windsor. 

Sarah Jane of the Gojam crowd found us as we were setting up the red tunnel tent.

We were given a bag of goodies, but they were no sweets! So how can that be a goodie bag.  Found some of the archery team on that evening, so was able to arrange when to go over the next day to the site at Bears Rails, and there were no train tracks or other Bears there!  Did meet up with some of the Archery Crew from 5 years ago, Mike and Ducky from the USA and Toady who ran it last time. J-W's socks got full of the arrow type seeds from the long grass in the park.  This was not so much of a problem after the first couple of groups of kids had walked over the route.  Had to go back in the evenings to the main site.  We also meet up with Mary and her guides again, including one from last time.  We went round to her site and got given food.  Also on camp were Cranleigh Scouts, and Robin from S&P was there with the unit from where he is based now. We also found Mary's Mum's unit as well.  Are you confused yet?

They had this large event tent they had given a funny name to, some thing a Squircul of something. (J-W here, it was the front of Square and back or circle).  J-W had fun with the word, so got to calling it the squirrel.  Saw some Explorers from Guildford on the junior work team.

 J-W got me my own beer glass to sit in.  We also had a go at playing and teaching Kubb, the fun game we had been using in Iceland in the Past Zone.  J-W was ok as long as he had more than one stick to throw.

J-W was scanned into the food tent and on and off the main site, but they missed me each time.  The plastic forks and knives liked exploding and going all over the place.

We were meant to have taken down on Saturday, but we did it all in an hour on Friday. So on Saturday morning we went round and round in circles in a truck picking up and dropping off all the camp kit for the units, so they could load the coaches quickly. What is it with guides and welly boots, do the leaders own the factories!

Due to the forcast of some really bad weather on Sunday I let J-W pack up in the afternoon of Saturday and then cycle home about 3pm.  It was a bit windy from the front most of the time and we started with the hills as a warm up for J-W's legs.

8 nights, making 212 nights in total.

14th to 30th July 2014.

We went on one of those plane things again and went to Iceland again.  We were up graded from the seats by the door to comfort class! So we got to sit in a darkened room in the airport and on the plane J-W could have the normal food without having to pay for it!  Also the seat was one of a pair not of a three, do you think the airline knows some of the seats have left.

Landed about 3pm, so got to the camp site about 5pm.  The coach was quite full.  At the camp site it was a bit confusing as where we had camped last time is now under paving and a new building they were still moving into.  Also there was a second new loo block.

Found some Danish Scouts on site.  Also on Wednesday night J-W found 4 French Leaders who were also going to be IST at the Jamboree.

We went to the open air musesum again, the engine and vechile sheds were being altered so they were shut!  There were diffent short term displays in the biuldings.  No Scout display this time.  We walked two different routes to get to the museum. J-W got a bit wet.  J-W forgot to ask for milk with the Tea!  He got given a selection, so tried the green tea.

We allso went around some of the bits or Reykjavik again, and some new bits on the other day.

Got up earily on Thursday to get cleared away before 06:30 and onto the bus to the bus station.  We may have been able to get the free transfer bus, but we were not sure.  The buses are strange as there is one fixed fare and the bus has a display which tells you when you are getting near the next stop and what it is!  So you ring the bell when it changes.  Also you get off in the middle of the bus.  Along with the french 4 we went into the Bus station to find a whole load of others in different Scout Uniforms.  The Bus was one from the noth and it was very late turning up.  BSI is the bus station and BIS is what the Iceland Scouts are known as.  THe rep from BIS got on the phone. THe driver seemed to have gone to the BIS headquarters the other sode of town.

 We went the long way to Akureyri up the middle, via the scout camp site and a few places where we got wet and cold.  Ok at one place we got hit by a Geysir, so hot, wet, and suplhur smelling.  We stopped on the highlands route for photo stops and at some hot springs for tea.  We final got to Hamrar near Akureyri at midnight, and it is lighter at the north end of the island that down south.

J-W was in the Past Zone doing metal work, pioneering, rabbit catching and sword fighting!  During the build he put up lots of different tents, the mordern ones were some of the worst and hardest.  One of th older ones ripped around the pole and eyelets.  We had 6 sets of sides but only 2 sets of tops and poles to make the three main tents everything linked to.  We were incharge of putting up the sacking fence.  Hardy made a neddle out of wood to speed things up.  We got covered in metal dust the day J-W put clean trousers on!  As he was cutting aluminium blanks using an angle crinder.  It di mean we had enough for the rest of camp.  We were mainly open in the afternoons, so we were loaned out in the mornings or evenings.

The scouts were catching rabbits, we started with four and sent 9 back to the zoo.  The Vikings named them, left glove, right glove, hat, and some other names.  The two cows were Beef-burger and T-bone Steak.

On the metal working base J-W made up a demo peice which I ended up wearing, so I was important!

We found a number of the IST from last time, including the one person from Assie.  He had some scouts with him this time.  One crahed on the bikes and broke their arm.  We had a wander around the town a couple of times. J-W had an hour walk each way the time we all went in.  We got followed by some horses at one point.

On the last Sunday we stripped the whole site and got every thing onto pallets or into containers.  So we had Monday off for going to Akureyri.

The sky was funny as it would go all weird colours in the evening, but was ok next morning.

Another funny thing, was that the people who made the flags got it wrong. They took the 100 flags and sewed them to the 100 banners, so the flags were the wrong way round on one side.  The really weird bit is that J-W did not manage to take a single photo of the wrong side of the flags.  He also did not photo the small viking tents I liked!

We did the shorter route back on Tuesday.  It is longer but quicker.  It was really cloudy and wet for most of the trip.  But back at Reykjavik the mountains were finally visable for the first time this trip.  We camped with a whole load of the other IST at the camp site, but just for the one night as we had to go home on the Wednesday.  The pick up coach was a bit late, and a polish girl was a bit worried about we would miss the coach to the air port.  We chatted with her on the trip to the airport about how much more travel we would need to do after landing.  She would not be getting home ot about 3am.

We were meant to have left at 4pm, we were still in the airport then.  We had to get onto a bus to go out to our plane out on the far side of the airport.  We were 50 minutes late, so we missed the 21:15 bus at Heathrow and got the 22:15, so we did not get back to Woking until almost 11 which is after the last bus from Guildford, so J-W had to breakout his phone and get a lift.

16 nights away. 204 nights away in total. Next badge please!

On the May bank holiday we went down to Liphook with S&P Cubs.  We went down on Friday and the Cubs came on Saturday.  We seemed to loss a lot!  By Monday lunch we were down to 7 from 13. Ok three planned early leavers and three form one family for other reasons. 

J-W Trina were on food duty on the saturday, so I was chief cook! Pizza anyone.

3 nights away, so 188 total!

Trip was on the 7th to 9th April 2014.

This is the yearly trip for Scouts (and sometimes Explorers) from Guildford East Scout District. We load them onto a couple of different trains and kick them out at Ashurst Station. They then walk for two half days and a fullday in the middle. As normal we stayed at Fernycroft and Foxlease Camp Sites.

It was wet on the Monday, it drizzled / rained the whole time we were walking.  We were hidden in the woods at Ferny, so J-W had to hunt around a bit to find the right group of tents.

As normal some of the Scouts had no water proof trousers, and then when on site took off the waterproof tops, and were just wearing fluffy tops, when they had no other tops, whilst it was still raining. Even I know this is not good.  I stayed in J-W's bag most of the time, until he got the tent up.  We found a lizard whilst out walking.

Dryer on the Tuesday, J-W took the 6 youngest Scouts, so we only did about 6 or 7 miles. We were still out for about 6 hours. Got rained on at our first water stop. Weather was much better.  One of the Scouts tried to lift J-W's bag and it did not move at all!

Last day, we got to the bit where we go off trail, but there are warning signs up as they have been digging up explosives from the 1st WW. We had to stay on the paths.

Two more Nights Away, making 185.

J-W got muddled about which month this was in so we only did one night.

Very wet under foot.  There was a stream running through the car park and down the lower third of the field.  We did archery shooting and the badge swapping.  J-W got shot, due to one of the pellet cathers  being damaged.  IT got thrown away.  We also helped with running the laser tag base whilst doing the swapping, as it was run out of the nest.  Most of the sites had a stream going through them as there has been that much rain in the last couple of weeks.

One night away.184 nights away in total.

J-W forgot also to put the Christmas Camp on here.  We were with S&P at the Barn at Bentley Copse.  We had about 30 kids.  The Cubs were still   awake at 2:30 and got J-W up at about 06:45 as one of them had been sick in his sleep.  We did a lot of crafts themed around Christmas.

2 nights away. 183 total.

27th July to 3rd August 2013.

 So I was not sure when J-W said we were going Poaching for a week.

Turns out this is the name of a Jamboree held in Lincolnshire every four years.

We travelled up to Lincoln by train, had fun as the underground trains were not all working, so we had to do more changes than planned.  We sat on Peterbourgh rail station for the best part of two hours in full sun shine.

When we got on site after a taxi ride, we got signed in but J-W was not given an I.D. badge as his email with his picture got lost.  He was told to come back two days later to get it.

Jo who had travelled with us from Woking fell over before we put the tents, up and broke a bone in her foot.  J-W had to put her tent up for her whilst she went to hospital to get plastered.  Whilst there she found out that another leader was brought in on Gas and Air for a twisted ankle.  This was Stuwart, who I have known since 2007.

J-W was working on the Archery Base which was being run by an Archery Team from Hampshire.  We were doing Field, Clout, and Poppingjay styles.  J-W had great fun trying all the different bases out.  We were also watching out all the time for some red aircraft which were flying around close together with funny coloured smoke coming out the back.

We had a tree made of pipe insulation, which ended up growing poly' cups and a bread role fruit, by the end of the week.

One of the sub camps was themed on 'The Toy Box'  this was being staffed by a number of the Go Jamboree crowd and some Guides from Buckinghamshire.  Also Nunnable of the Go Jammers was in charge of a unit and was camped against the Sub camp office.  We sent a couple of evenings helping out on the sub camp.

Turns out a lady called Jenny who we had camped with back in 2005 at Eurojam is a Leader with Nunnables unit.

We helped Stuwart run a Camp fire whilst he was still on crutches.

As Jo was on crutches we needed help in getting home again. We found out there were about ten others from Surrey present including three of the County Team.  They were able to take Jo's large bag back for us and drop it off the next week.

It was a lot quicker going home as our longest weight was about 25  minutes at Lincoln station.  We got there in a minibus with a load of guides from the top half of Scotland.  It was fun  trying to get Jo on and off of the moving stair thingies at the Underground stations.

Seven nights, 181 nights total.

May Bank Holiday, one night at Bentley Copse helpin out on site and helping with  S&P's camp.  Took hours to walk to Shere and back with their Cubs.

One night, 174 in total.

3rd to 5th April 2013.

COLD and WINDY.  I stayed in J-W's pocket as much as possible.  Max of about 6 degrees and 0 degrees at night.  Now last time we did this the Scouts were swimming in the rivers, this year one of the Scouts found it hurt when he rinsed his hands off in a river.

This year we only had about 40 scouts and leaders for the trip.

We got trains down to Ashurst as normal, we all went the same way from the station and headed for the normal lunch stop in the woods.  J-W ended up taking the three Shalford  Scouts through the boggy bit he likes going in on the first day.  Only problem is he took the top route and found that in the last two years the gravel covered bridge had disappeared. Luckly the Scouts could jump across.  One of them fell over, but not in the bog.

The Scouts actually got a fire going in the evening and played wide games to keep warm.

Did not think much of the small amount of snow we had over the day.

Next morning it was no warmer, but J-W said the showers were quiet hot.  We left site with 3 scouts, but ended up with the Shalford 3 and the 2 Young Leaders with them for about the last 9/10ths of the distance.  It was windy and cold.  There was more light snow which did not settle. Even with the scouts singing songs we still saw one herd of deer, and found the joined bones of what looked like the back leg of a deer.  J-W got really muddy at the underpass.  The scouts again made a fire to keep warm.

On the last day J-W had all 6 of the scouts from the day before but no Young Leaders.  We did end up picking up a spare scout from another group mid morning, so we ended the day with 7 scouts!  Again the scouts let J-W set the base route, so we ended up getting wet in the last couple of km's.

I spent most of the time in J-W's pockets with the zip done up as it was so cold.

2 nights away making 173 in total.