Pack Holiday 2018 - Saturday

06/10/18

The girls were up fairly early this morning - 6:30 by the other leaders' accounts! I popped out to wake up my other half in his tent while the girls got dressed and then we had breakfast - cereals followed by eggy bread, bacon, and toast. Once we were done eating, the girls all had duties to do - the Hostess six cleared everything off the table, the Cook six went and helped the leaders dry up the dishes, and the Health six wiped the tables, swept under the table and checked the toilets had loo roll and were clean. Once they had all finished, they had a short amount of time to tidy their beds and then it was inspection time. We introduced an extra sticker for the neatest bed (which we didn't tell them about) and surprised even ourselves with the girl we gave it to - she's usually a bit messy and scatty but she had really made an effort making her bed! We made her day by giving her the second sticker.

Once we were done with inspection, we started our first set of activities. One group made book folding hedgehogs (and decorated them with glitter glue and googly eyes), another made bookmarks and the third made posters to advertise the Brownie Olympics we are holding tomorrow. I sat with the girls making bookmarks and chatted with them. The girls started off in their sixes doing one of the three activities but could then move round once they had finished the one they were on (the only bottleneck was the number of seats to do the book folding).

Our original plan for the weekend was for the girls to make a packed lunch (a clause for the Healthy Heart badge) and then walk to the river to eat it but the weather was so miserable that we decided not to eat outside. The girls each made their packed lunch and then we had a picnic on the living room floor instead! Each lunch had a sandwich (cheese, ham, jam, or marmite), a packet of crisps, a selection of fruit/veg (cucumber sticks, grapes, baby tomatoes, bananas, and apples), and a small cake (mini choc chip muffin or chocolate mini roll). The girls really enjoyed being allowed to sit on the floor and eat, and it was interesting to see what groups they formed too.

We then decided that we would postpone our river walk until tomorrow as the weather was meant to get nicer so we set up the tuck shop. We had a selection of various things from Trading which we sold, along with some sweets (they could have 2 each) and some other small trinket like items. The girls enjoy choosing things to spend their £5 on, although this year the parents hadn't listened when we asked for small change and we had to write a few IOUs and pay them back at the end of the shop, when we had some change!

We then did a few more of the crafty things, which we had planned to do tomorrow. This time, we had one six at a time designing a mascot for their sixes sport from random craft things we found in the cupboard and wanted to get rid of! The other sixes could choose to either make a poster about healthy/unhealthy food (or halfy if you're a Brownie!!) using various foody magazines we had collected or colour in a pattern only uing 3 colours. Annoyingly, a pattern can always be coloured in using no more than 4 colours but the Artist badge syllabus specified 3 so I improvised by not colouring in some sections to make it work! The girls really enjoyed this activity, and spent ages deliberating over what colours to pick (we had some really nice combinations) and then working out what parts to colour in to make pretty patterns. Mine came out fairly well, I think.

We also had some entertaining choices for the healthy/unhealthy posters, including a bottle of whiskey on the healthy side and a phone on the unhealthy side (admitted correct but not a food!).

The girls doing their mascots also had a great time - they had been given free reign over all the craft things we could find, including some big pots of glitter. We had some interesting designs and a few disagreements over what it was they wanted to make. Our YL stepped in and persuaded them to all make a part of their mascot and then combine it at the end to make a whole thing.

When the girls had finished all their craft, they had to write a song about smoking to perform at the campfire, as one of the clauses for the Healthy Heart badge. We then had dinner - the roast we would have had tomorrow but everything is all topsy turvey now! The girls seemed to enjoy it, alhtough not as much as they have done in previous years - they thought the chicken was a bit dry this year.

While the girls were doing their duties, me, our YL and my other half went outside to sort out the campfire. Unfortunately, because it had rained all night, a lot of the wood was damp. We found a few pieces which were dry and then we dragged out the bag of cardboard that hadn't been used yesterday, and was still dry too. We set up a small fire and the girls all came out to watch it be lit and then we sang a couple of songs:

• Campfire's Burning
• Cecil is my Caterpillar
• Oh You'll Never Get to Heaven

The girls also performed their smoking songs - we had 3 very different styles of song and all were equally as impressive for a quickly thrown together song! We then bought out our surprise of the end of the campfire - magic dust that changes the colour of the flames! We had double checked that it was safe for an outside fire and the only thing we couldn't do was cook over them but we had forgotten the skewers for the marshmallows so that didn't matter. We were about to sing another song while the fire burned green and blue but a massive gust of wind came and blew sparks into the bushes and the girls all ran inside screaming! The three of us who were in charge stayed outside watching the pretty colours while looking for a torch that got dropped in the panic and then spread out the embers so they didn't catch again.

The girls then had hot chocolate and got ready for bed. We told them they could read quietly for a bit and then left them to it. We then spent some time chatting in the living room and then decided to go to bed. We realised we hadn't heard a single peep from them and the lights had been turned off. There was absolute silence from in their room! Success!! We had a great nights sleep ready for tomorrow, with absolutely no interruptions - I guess that's one of the bonuses of taking a fairly young group of girls.

Camp Fire Songs

Here are the songs we sang on pack holiday (which we would have sung round the campfire if it wasn't so wet!). They can be sung to pretty much any tune you like! You can also see them all, along with other songs we sing regularly, here.


Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar:

All girls: [Name of a Brownie] stole the cookie from the cookie jar!  
Girl: Who me?!  
All girls: Yes you!  
Girl: Couldn't have been!  
All girls: Then who?  
Girl: [names another Brownie]

Repeat until all the Brownies have had a chance-the last one 'stole the cookie'.

Cecil is my Caterpillar:

One of our unit's favourites! It's generally spoken although you could make up a tune if you wanted to.

Cecil is my caterpillar,
Cecil is my friend,
The last time I saw Cecil he was this big (hold fingers a short distance apart)
I said 'Ooh, Cecil! What have you done?',
He said 'I've eaten all the leaves in [insert small local area such as the name of the town], that's what I've done!'

Repeat, increasing the size of 'Cecil' gradually along with the area of leaves he's eaten. In our unit it usually goes something along the lines of campsite -> town -> county -> UK -> Europe -> world -> universe.

Final verse:

Cecil is my caterpillar,
Cecil is my friend,
The last time I saw Cecil he was this big (hold fingers a short distance apart again)
I said 'Ooh, Cecil! What have you done?',
He said 'I've been sick!'   

If I were not here in this room:

If I were not here in this room somewhere else I'd like to be,
If I were not here in this room a washer woman I would be:
Wishy washy, hanging out the smalls,
Wishy washy, hanging out the smalls.
[move hands back and forth as if washing clothes then peg onto a line]

If I were not here in this room somewhere else I'd like to be,
If I were not here in this room a market boy I would be:
Ripe tomatoes, 10p a pound,
Ripe tomatoes, 10p a pound.
[hands round mouth and sung in Cockney accent]
Wishy washy, hanging out the smalls,
Wishy washy, hanging out the smalls.
 
Other verses include:
Bus conductor: Any more fares please, any more fares please, pass down the line. Ting! [winding motion with one hand then pull ticket out machine]
Secretary: Typing letters, typing letters, sitting on the bosses knee, ooh! [typing on keyboard then cross one leg over for 'ooh']
Doctor: Bandaging up the cuts and bruises, pulling the appendix out; plop [wrapping bandage around hand then pulling something up and dropping it]

For each verse, sing back through all previous verses too (gets harder the longer the song goes on but you can have as many verses as you like!)

Last verse:

If I were not here in this room somewhere else I'd like to be,
If I were not here in this room I don't know what I'd be!

Hole at the Bottom of the Sea:

There's a hole at the bottom of the sea,
There's a hole at the bottom of the sea,
There's a hole, there's a hole,
There's a hole at the bottom of the sea.

There's a whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea,
There's a whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea,
There's a whale, there's a whale,
There's a whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea.

There's a tail on the whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea,
There's a tail on the whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea, 
There's a tail, there's a tail,
There's a tail on the whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea.

There's a bone in the tail on the whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea, 
There's a bone in the tail on the whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea,  
There's a bone, there's a bone,
There's a bone in the tail on the whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea.

There's a nerve on the bone in the tail on the whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea, 
There's a nerve on the bone in the tail on the whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea,  
There's a nerve, there's a nerve,
There's a nerve on the bone in the tail on the whale in the hole at the bottom of the sea.

Actions for each thing:
Hole: Arms make circle in front of you
Bottom: Point down
Sea: Draw waves in air
Whale: Arms out as wide as possible
Tail: Hands together and wiggle
Bone: Hold out first finger
Nerve: Arms above head and wiggle body

As you are singing, get slowly faster and faster through each verse - it makes it far more entertaining trying to pair up the correct actions!
My Ship Sailed From China:

My ship sailed from China with a cargo of tea,
All laden with presents for you and for me,
They gave me a fan, 
Just imagine my bliss,
When I found myself going like this, like this, like this, like this

Each repeat wave another body part - we do right hand, left hand, right leg, left leg, head
Last verse say 'like this' once and slump forwards

Campfire Songs

These are some of the songs we sang around our campfire on pack holiday last month. You may be able to find the tunes on the Internet but they can all work with any tune with the right number of beats in, do some experimenting! You can also see them all, along with other songs we sing regularly, here.

Campfire's Burning

This one is good as a starter (particularly if your campfire is taking a while to get going!). It can also be sung as a round with the second group coming in as the first group start the third line.

Campfire's burning,
Campfire's burning,
Draw nearer,
Draw nearer,
In the glowing,
In the glowing,
Come sing and be merry!

Cecil is my Caterpillar

One of our unit's favourites! It's generally spoken although you could make up a tune if you wanted to.

Cecil is my caterpillar,
Cecil is my friend,
The last time I saw Cecil he was this big (hold fingers a short distance apart)
I said 'Ooh, Cecil! What have you done?',
He said 'I've eaten all the leaves in [insert small local area such as the name of the town], that's what I've done!'

Repeat, increasing the size of 'Cecil' gradually along with the area of leaves he's eaten. In our unit it usually goes something along the lines of campsite -> town -> county -> UK -> Europe -> world -> universe.

Final verse:

Cecil is my caterpillar,
Cecil is my friend,
The last time I saw Cecil he was this big (hold fingers a short distance apart again)
I said 'Ooh, Cecil! What have you done?',
He said 'I've been sick!' 

3 Little Angels

3 little angels, all dressed in white,
Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite,
But the kite string was broken,
Down they all fell,
They couldn't get to heaven so they all went to

2 little angels, all dressed in white,
Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite,
But the kite string was broken,
Down they all fell,
They couldn't get to heaven so they all went to 

1 little angel, all dressed in white,
Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite,
But the kite string was broken,
Down they all fell,
They couldn't get to heaven so they all went to 

Don't be mistaken,
Don't be misled,
They couldn't get to heaven,
So they all went to bed! 

Other verses include:

3 little devils (or Rainbows), all dressed in red, tried to get to heaven on the edge of a bed.
But the bed springs were broken, down they all fell, they couldn't get to heaven so they all went to...

3 little Brownies, all dressed in brown, tried to get to heaven, but their knickers fell down,
The elastic was broken, down they all fell, they couldn't get to heaven so they all went to...

3 little Girl Guides, all dressed in blue, tried to get to heaven on the edge of the loo,
But the loo seat was broken, down they all fell, they couldn't get to heaven so they all went to...

3 Blind Jellyfish

(sadly)
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.

(spoken)
And one fell off. Oh no!

2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.

(spoken)
And one fell off. Oh no!

1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.

(spoken)
And he fell off. Oh no!

(very sadly)
No Blind Jellyfish,
No Blind Jellyfish,
No Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.

(spoken)
And then one jumped back on again. Yay!

(happier)
1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfish,
1 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.

And another one jumped back on. Yay!

2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfish,
2 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.

And the third jumped back out again. Yay!

(really happily)
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfish,
3 Blind Jellyfi-ish,
Sitting on a rock.

Pack Holiday 2013 - Saturday

28/9/13

The girls woke up at around 7:30 this morning, already hungry! However, because they had kept the leaders up until nearly midnight last night, the adults were all still in bed! The 3 Young Leaders, me included, crawled out of bed at around 8 to try and entertain them quietly while the adults woke up! Finally the pleas of the girls became too great and they got up to make breakfast. 

Breakfast was cereals for those who wanted it, followed by eggy bread or toast with a sausage. The waitresses laid the table and the girls had all sat down and were tucking into their cereals and I was in the kitchen, helping to make the eggy bread and toast, when the fire alarm went off. It always goes off when you make eggy bread because the pans are covered in old fat which smokes a lot. Usually, if we know that it was definitely the cooks, we ignore it (as much as you can ignore a high pitched, insistent beeping!) but, because Snowy Owl is doing her test we used it as an opportunity for a full fire drill. We got all the girls outside (amidst complaints that their slippers were getting wet from the grass) and assembled under the tree, as we had told them to do and then did a register. Once we had explained that a real fire wouldn't wait until they were wearing sensible shoes and that they should just leave and had also told them that, because we knew it was a false alarm, the cooks had stayed inside to make sure we didn't cause an actual fire by leaving the food in the cooker, we went back inside to enjoy our breakfast!

After breakfast, the girls were set the task of writing a short play with puppets that they would be making over the course of the day. The three plays were very different; one group did Despicable Me 3, another group did Minions Meet One Direction and the third group did their own version of Romeo and Juliet, involving two frogs who met in a toilet as the title characters..! There were a couple of arguments over who was going to play what character and what the script was going to be but then everything settled down and the scripts all came together. They had a short break and then set about making the backdrop for their play. The were given paper and pens and could create what ever they wanted to be held up during their play. It went OK but some of the girls were getting bored pretty quickly because you only needed a couple of people to do it, not the whole six. If we were running it as a normal pack holiday, we would have had some back up crafts to hand for these moments but Snowy Owl hadn't thought of that so they had nothing to do.

Lunch was sandwiches, crisps and fruit which the girls thoroughly enjoyed, with the majority of them eating their crusts too! After lunch we always have what we call 'rest hour'. All the girls have an hour where they must stay in their room and be fairly quiet. We don't force them to be silent, it's just a time for them to have a break from everyone else if they want and chill out for a bit, without us watching over them all the time! It also gives us leaders a bit of a break, which I used to do a bit more homework (as studious as I seem, this isn't a normal occurrence, it just happened that I quite liked the look of the sheet we had to do...). The other Young Leaders set up our tuck shop. We sell the girls little trinkets that they can keep as a memory of pack holiday. Usually we have some badges, pencils and notebooks as well as the ever popular handmade bead geckos and sweets! We always limit them to 3 sweets so they don't get too hyper although this year Snowy Owl had bought some melody pops which are basically lollies in the shape of whistles which make a rather horrible noise when blown incorrectly (and an irritating one when blown correctly, as proved by one of our Young Leaders..!)! We let in one six at a time so that we didn't get too crowded and we take the opportunity to improve their money skills by asking them to work out how much change they are owed.

After that came the highlight of camp for most girls - always the most talked about afterwards and the first thing new girls hear about camp before their first one anyway - the walk to Eastleach and the River Leach! It is around 1.5 miles from the house to the river and we always have complaints about how far it is, usually before we've even left the woods! This year was no different with a continuous stream of complaints and threats to not walk any further but we all made it to the river eventually. We were confronted by a swan and her young where we would normally have got in so we went a bit further upstream. The two Young Leaders went in first to establish where it was too deep for the girls and then we let them all in! They had all brought wellie boots and all of them got in. In previous years we've always had one or two who'll be apprehensive or won't want to go in (which is fine - we don't force them to and I was one of the ones who never went in) but this year all of them went in with no hesitation! They enjoyed around 20 minutes of walking up and down between the two marks the Young Leaders had decided on and us leaders stood along the bank laughing at them and talking to a few curious members of the public who were walked past. Finally we got them all out and went through several more minutes of wellie emptying and shoe changing (for those who'd thought ahead enough to bring dry shoes and socks) and started the walk back! We always have more complaints on the way back as the girls who didn't bring dry shoes start to regret not doing so when their wellies start to rub and a lot of the girls start to get tired too. I walked back with two girls, one holding each hand, and we had a nice conversation but, somehow, we ended up bringing up the rear. The girls at the back are always the ones who complain the most because they're the most tired and this year was no different... One of the girls swung between being really happy and informing us of all the antics her imaginary friend Mr Frank was getting up to and crying because she was "too tired to walk any further"..! At one point she sat down and started crying in the middle of the road (country lane which was very quiet) and refused to walk any further, although she got up and carried on when I told her that, if she didn't want to walk any more, we would pick her up next year on our walk! 2 minutes later she was in fits of giggles because Mr Frank had run into a field of sheep and was sat on top of one..! We made it back to the house in one piece and then we had the usual trouble of getting the wellies off the feet of some of the girls. When the wellies have a bit of water in them, they become really difficult to remove and sometimes require a leader holding the girl around the middle and another leader pulling the wellie off! The girls found this hilarious but we eventually got all th girls back inside for a quick change of clothes and a dry off before making their puppets for their plays. 

Each girl was given a wooden spoon and loads of foam, wool and pipe cleaners as well as a tonne of glue and sticky tape! They could use whatever they wanted, however they wanted, to make their character. As usual, we had some tears as some girls took other girls' comments to heart (always happens when you have a group of tired, young girls all in one place for any length of time) but it was quickly resolved. Some of the puppets were a little dubious (as it always is with Brownies) but some of the others were actually quite imaginative! The testers showed up while the girls were in full swing and had a look round the house and asked a few questions. One of the testers was another Brownie guider from our district so we had a good old catch up too! The girls were quite excited about their visit and all wanted to run down and say hello as soon as the doorbell went but we managed to persuade them to stay in the craft room until they came down to see them. 

Next came dinner, meatballs and pasta followed by choc ices for the girls and cheesecake for the leaders. The two testers joined us for the meal so we had to squeeze two extra chairs around our already cramped table! We split them up, as we do with all the leaders, so they could talk to the girls. The leader from our district ended up sat opposite me and near to Snowy so she had some civilised conversation as well as being able to talk to the girls but the other tester somehow ended up sat between two of the most vocal girls in our unit! The poor woman had non stop, totally irrelevant conversation for the whole meal but I think she dealt with it OK...

After dinner, the testers left and we had our campfire. The two Young Leaders took a few girls outside before it started getting dark to collect wood and then they went out after dinner to pile it all up ready to light. We then got all the girls outside and sat down before we explained about our jar of ashes (we always tip on some ashes from the previous years' campfire so that our new one has some of the memories of all the previous ones in it) and then lit the fire. We had a few problems getting it going but, once it had caught, it was quite impressive! The wind caught it a few times which scared the girls but we still managed to sing several of the girls favourite songs around it, including 3 Blind Jellyfish, Who Stole The Cookie?, Cecil is my Caterpillar, 3 Little Angels, Tra La La, and Campfire's Burning (lyrics to all follow in another post!). We finished off by making s'mores over the embers which always goes down well with the girls!

Finally they all went back inside and had hot chocolate. The 3 Young Leaders left the adults in charge and stayed outside. We wanted to test the theory that acorns and conkers explode when put in a fire but we didn't think it would be safe with the girls outside too! It turns out that acorns are a bit pathetic because they just make slight popping noises but conkers are quite spectacular as the other two found out when one of them exploded unexpectedly! I had moved away from the campfire a bit and was heading back inside when there was a loud pop from behind me and the two other Young Leaders came running back inside shouting that they had been hit by flying conker! When they got inside they found that it was only a little bit of soot and no harm had been done but most of the girls found it utterly hilarious (as did I, if I'm honest)!

We eventually got the girls to get ready for bed and then we had the same battle as last night where they wouldn't shut up and go to sleep! Us 3 Young Leaders ended up getting into bed around 11 and the girls were still making noise. We heard Brown Owl go into their room and tell them that she was going to bed and did not want to be disturbed until the morning and thought that we would finally be able to sleep but, no, 5 minutes later there was a frantic knocking on our door and 2 girls saying that a friend felt sick but they didn't want to wake up Brown Owl because they were scared to. She wasn't actually asleep at that point and heard too so she dealt with it (the girl was fine, just over tired) and we finally got to sleep after a very busy day!

---
Making s'mores:

•  Put a marshmallow on a wooden skewer and heat it up in the embers of a campfire until it begins to melt (I personally like mine to have caught on fire so the outside it burnt to a crisp and the middle is warm and squidgy but this isn't a good idea with a lot of girls)
• Spread chocolate spread on 2 digestive biscuits (or alternatively use chocolate digestives)
•  Squash your marshmallow between the two biscuits
• Eat and enjoy!