AAW is the All Adult Weekend, which is where all the oldy's like J-W who are going to the Jamboree got togoether to be told things and to have a party.  Lots of my Go-jam friends were there, including Rainbow Dave whos legs keep getting really long and then shrink again.  Had fun on the trains with missing stations and then the signals having a holiday.  We were camping with the White Lion and the Unit Leaders who he looks after.  Got J-W to get me more badges and a knecker.  Which he says is his, but I talked to Mary and she will do me a new one.  Got a hug from Becky, who is still cute!  Saw Jo from Woking with her purple camo tent.

There was a massive big top tent, as the humans need something big enough to hold about 700 bodies and be able to see a screen for the video's.  Saw some leaders from the Channel Isle, who know the Explorers we camped with at the Essex Jambo.  They had not heard that they arrived on site in a police car!  J-W had to explain that one to them.  They had flagged the cops down for directions, and got given a lift instead.

We had a go on different bits of the underground on the way home, and had a go on a slow train from a funny staion up on a load of arches.  J-W's been puting the badges in a plastic book thing to stop me drooling all over the badges.

Two more nights away. So 128 in total.

J-W decided to be healthy and cycle to this years Family Camp for 1st Shalford Scout Group.  We got about half a mile across the village, when the rear wheel rim split open.  So J-W had to push the bike home, and get a lift off of his mum.  we were a bit later than planned.

We were at Garner's Field near Tilford Surrey.  We were in the large Jamboree tent.

The Families did not turn up until the Saturday morning.  J-W and Emma were runing the prone shooting, this seems to be perfect for scouts as they get to lay down and shoot.  It also helped when I was instructing as the shooters were now down where I could see them eye to eye.  There was a very long winded Cuckoo around the site.  It started calling about 04:30 and was still calling when it got dark.

2 more nights away, 126 in total.  New Badge time.

18th to 20th April.

The yearly backing trip to the New Forest was a bit late this year, I thought J-W had forgotten, but it was just that Easter is running late this year.  We had three changes of train this year on the way down.  It was hot about 20 to 22 degrees and dry.  J-W had shorts on and no gaters.  We saw deer, lizards, tadpoles and lots and lots of wood ants.  We had to give directions to some lost cyclists and also saw the same group of girls from Richmond two days running.   Jeffcame with J-W on the second day and walked J-W's legs off with a 15 km walk to a pond to find there was no Icecream van there.

J-W took his new jamboree water bottle and had dented it by the time we got to Ashurst!

2 more nights away, making 124.

Hello all, on Saturday 16th April J-W cycled up to Bentley with a load of camp stuff and items from our trips to jamborees.  We sleeped in the Training centre with about 25 other leaders.  I showed the leaders my camp blanket and hi-vis jacket.  The group sat around for ages talking, but not to bad as they decided on a group name and badge for the South East England IST.  They are now the Moldy Boot IST!  I checked but did not see anyones footwear looking moldy!?

J-W got to  use the tractor to move wood and cook pits on.

1 night away, making 122 nights.

On the last Saturday in January, with my friend Cabbage, J-W and J-W's Mum went up to Bentley to spent a day getting the Cubs cold.  In all 80 cubs turned up from nealy all the Groups in the District.  Cabbage got J-W to drive the tractor around with all the camp site's Fire Pits on the Trailer.  The Cubs then had to cook their lunch of sausages and mashmellows. Some of the packs seemed to be smoking the sausages before cooking them.

The cubs then did some wide games, using the whole site.

I forgot to post about this, as I helped J-W with his blog.

J-W cycled up to Bentley Copse in the rain on Friday the 14th and then spent the day repairing arrows for the scouts to break later

He had to direct cars in the dark in the evening.  We sleeped in the Lodge both nights, the first night J-W & I had one bunk room to our selves, whilst the othr had two ladies in it.  One of whomwas locked in a cage all day!  The second night we had another leader in with us.

On Saturday I was in charge of the Shooting Range, and on Sunday J-W helped on the Prone shooting range.

Weather was damp and warm.  One Network laady had to be driven off of the Hurtwood in the tractor, as she has a leg which does not always work, and it went on strike!

 We traded badges and sold some Badges to help get to Sweden.  Got hold of two more unit badges.

Two more nights away, making 121.

Hello all.

Well we have had snow a couple of times this month.  It should be good practise for going to Sweden in the Summer.

J-W fianlly built me and the Bears who also live here an Igloo.  I think it may have been a bit big, and was not sure about the colour.  See link to Flickr.com account.

So over last month got 2 badges with a red boarder, and lots of ones with blue boarders, and some IST T-shirts and hoodies.  Went down with J-W to the last Scout Meeting and handed out some of the blue badges to the scouts.  Got to do this for the Cubs and Beavers next term.  I may hid the badges first.

17/12/2010.

Hi all, well that snow stuff is falling again.

J-W had a parcel turn up on Monday, and I opened it for him.  It is full of Jamboree Badges!!!  So I climbed in and have been keeping them safe.  He has told mr not to drool on this lot.

Ok why do we have to go out in the cold and dark to do night hikes?  It would be much easier and warmer in the day and maybe in mid summer.

Night of 23rd October.  So J-W and parents and about 6 to 8 other Fellowship / SAS members were staffing a Food base on the Guildford East Scout and Explorer Night Hike Challenge.  That moon thing was up and was very bright.  We had to cook for the scouts and stand by the road to slow the cars down where the crossing point was.  J-W says the drivers seemed to think we were some sort of police check point, as there was so much hi-vis about.  All I know is that we had lots of cakes and bacon butties!  Something strange happened, we were home not long after mid-night!  Not sure about the Scouts.

Tom our Cub Young Leader some how found a stone on the sandy hills and ripped his trousers, and cut his knee a bit.  His uint had a large first aid kit which only seemed to have wound dressings in it.

J-W says no nights away for this.  but I did get to see some of the lot who went to Kandersteg, and a couple who are going to Sweden.

15th to 17th October.

We went by mini-bus to Foxlease in the New Forest, this is a Big Guide Centre.  We also took 10 Cubs along and put them in the Stable! I never did find any horses.

We got them up and out of the stable by 9am on the Saturday, as we were taking them across to Brownsea Island on the ten am ferry.  Whilst waiting for the ferry the cubs found the statue of Lord B-P which is on the Quay.  One Cub was heard to say, "I can get my finger's up  his nose."  So there followed the talk about who he was and why the statue was there.

The weather was great and the Cubs were ok as well. We had a guided tour of the island from a National Trust lady, and then in the afternoon she had the Cubs and the Leaders reinacting the activities from the Brownsea Camp.  Over lunch the Cubs had been mugged by a Peacock.  The Guides who were also there, did not seem to like it when it tried getting food from them.  This is the time of year to see Squirrels on the island.  One Cub made it up to seventeen, and one of the others was very proud of his six sightings.  We were getting a bit cold from the wind, so took the 4:30pm ferry back round the island.

On the way back to Foxlease we stopped off for Fish and Chips.  We had phoned in the order from the bus.

On the second day had to get the cubs up for breakfast.  It took the Cubs quite a time to clean out the stable and load the bus.  We got away by 10am.  We were only going a couple of miles down the road to Beulea and the National Motor Museum.  Not too sure of having a monorail running through the roof of the museum building.  The Cubs spent ages watching the videos about the land speed cars, and they seemed to like the Top-Gear and James Bond displays.

We left around 3pm and were going to be on time (i.e. home for 5pm) untill we came across a three car accident on the Motorway.   Our bus driver is a member of the Ambulance Service, so had to stop and give First Aid as there were no Ambulance staff or other Emergancy staff there.  So we ended up with two leaders in Hi-Vis in lane three and one leader and the mini-bus full of Cubs on the hard shoulder inside an On-slip road about 150 metres after the accident site.  This was ok for the first ten minutes, but at the end of half an hour the Cubs had got bored with playing spot the emergancy vechile.  Quite why any large white van with orange lights on top was said to be an Ambulance, I do not know.

Two nights away.  Up to 119 now.