07/10/18
This morning the girls got up slightly later than they did yesterday. We had the same for breakfast as we did yesterday and, once they had done their duties and inspection, they got their coats on ready to go to the river. One of the girls said she felt a bit sick so Brown Owl stayed with her and we all set off with the rest of the girls. Brown Owl managed to persuade her that a walk outside might make her feel better so they started by walking to the end of the drive and surprisingly she felt fine so they followed us a few minutes behind. The walk there was fairly uneventful although we did get a lot of giggles from the girls when all the cycling groups that went past actually replied to the girls when they said hello!! Luckily for us the river wasn't too deep when we got there so we drew some boundaries, laid down the rules (no splashing or pushing or you get out), and let the girls in. A few people walked past and commented on how nice it was to see the girls enjoying themselves outside. After a while, we got the girls to get out and dry off. We then set off back to the house. For once, I ended up at the front of the group (I usually end up with the slow walkers at the back!) and we were walking along having a nice chat. Two of the leaders set off ahead of us on their own to make sure lunch was started before we got back (we had enough adults to cover our ratios like that!). Shortly after they had gone, one of the girls from further back appeared next to me saying she really needed a wee and what should she do. I told her she would have to wait as there weren't any toilets nearby and she spent the rest of the walk back constantly telling me how much she needed to wee! She kept asking if she could run ahead because she knew the way and I kept saying no because then she would be without an adult. As we got closer to the house, her walk turned more and more into a waddle/dance! We then got to the back of the house and I told her she could run from there to the toilet and she was off like a rocket! We came round the corner and the front door was flapping in the wind slightly and she was nowhere to be seen! She reappeared a few minutes later looking much happier.
The girls all got back and changed out of any damp clothes they were wearing and then sat down for a very late lunch - spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread. It went down an absolute treat - the girls all ate in silence, finished everything that was on their plate, and many went back for seconds! Definitely more of a hit than the chicken nuggets and fish fingers with chips that we used to do!
After lunch there was only really enough time to pack up their bags (and shove sleeping bags into miniscule bags) and then do a speedy tuck shop before counting up the points. The girl with the most points gets to choose her keep-sake first (this year we had a selection of different games and things from the shop Tiger). We gave out badges and leaders presents and then let all the parents in to collect their daughters. There was absolute bedlam for a bit and then, just like that, they were all gone for another year.
We stayed for another hour cleaning the whole house and then we went home for a much need sleep! This year was a slightly odd one in that our whole timetable got tipped on its head by the rain on Saturday but it went well regardless. We didn't manage to finish either of the badges we were doing, but we can do the last few bits at meetings later in the term. And the girls enjoyed themselves which is the main reason we do this, even if it does take it out of all the leaders.
Showing posts with label river. Show all posts
Showing posts with label river. Show all posts
Monday, 15 October 2018
Wednesday, 22 October 2014
Pack Holiday 2014 - Saturday
This morning I woke up at 7:30 to the sounds of the girls next door moving around. I wrapped myself in my blanket and went to keep them quiet as none of the other Leaders were awake! They were all quite excitable and hungry but I had to tell them they had to stay in their room until some of the other adults woke up. I had quite an amusing conversation with one of the older girls about going in the river:
Girl: Will we be able to go in the river today?
Me: I don't know, it depends if it is too deep because of the rain this week.
Girl: Oh... If it's too deep, will you drink the water until it's not too deep?
Me: No! That's way too much for me to drink!
Girl: *short pause* Well, buy an elephant and it can drink it all!
I then poked my head into the Leaders' room to find that one of the cooks was awake. She said she would get up and make a cup of tea and see if that would wake the others up. I went back to our room and some of the Young Leaders were up too so we let the girls into the lounge, provided they weren't too loud. I then sat in the Leaders' room and drank my cup of tea while chatting to them.
Breakfast was finally served at about 8:30. We sat all the girls down and then those who wanted could have cereals. I spent most of the time they were eating, serving drinks! Once they were done, the waitresses cleared the tables and then brought out eggy bread, toast and sausages. The cooks had taken orders from the girls earlier so the kitchen was a bit chaotic with the waitresses being told exactly who each meal was for so that everyone got something. I'd finally sat down to enjoy my own breakfast when the doorbell went. Our Young Leader and I both ran towards the door because we knew it would be our Guide, much to the amusement of the girls! We let her in and she was attacked by a few girls before Brown Owl told them to sit down and eat. She made herself some eggy bread so the cooks could stay sat down and then joined us for breakfast.
When we were done eating, we made sure all the girls had brushed their teeth and then sat them down in the lounge to explain the plan for the morning. We had 3 activities planned and they would rotate around them in their sixes. One six would paint owl tealight holders, one six would go outside and make rafts and the third six would start on their detective work.
The owls were bought from Baker Ross. The girls painted them with acrylic paints and the could add details with pens once they were dry. Brown Owl discovered that it was quite hard to get a neat join between colours so a line in a contrasting colour helped disguise that. I didn't use the pens though and I think mine came out OK. We sent them home with an electric tealight in (also from Baker Ross) as we thought it was safer and we were told that the paint could peel off if you used a real candle. Here is mine, with and without the candle on:
The girls outside were collecting sticks for their raft. We didn't know if the river was going to be too deep for them to get in when we got there so we thought we should take a back up plan. The plan was that each six would have a raft to race down the river. We made them from sticks and string so, if we couldn't catch them after the race, they wouldn't cause too much damage to the environment as they would decompose pretty easily and quickly. The girls all struggled to actually make their rafts though so they collected lots of sticks and our Guide made them for them while they helped the Young Leaders to collect larger sticks for the camp fire tonight. As it had rained overnight, all the sticks were damp so we had all the radiators on in our room to try and dry them out enough that they could be lit!
The final group of girls were starting on the detective work covering the whole weekend. A full post on this is coming soon but these girls were working on the first two activities; biscuits and fingerprints.
We had a break for elevenses and then the girls rotated so, by lunch time, they had completed all three activities. Lunch was a quick meal of sandwiches, crisps and fruit. The food was put on the table and the girls could help themselves. We encouraged, but didn't force, each girl to have some fruit and I was surprised by the number of girls who did take some, even if I did end up eating most of the bowl of apple slices from my end of the table!
After lunch, we did my wide game. I coloured in the clothes, cut them out and laminated them. I stapled some string to each one so it could easily be hung on trees and bushes, Each set had a coloured dot on the back that corresponded to the colour surrounding one of the people outlines so the girls had to find a specific colour. I took one of the YLs and we tied the clothes to trees and bushes along a path that goes round the house. We then got the girls in their sixes and gave them the outline of a person before sending them off with 2 Leaders. We told them that, if they saw something that didn't have their colour on the back that they were to leave it where they found it and they were all really good at doing so. Two groups found all their items by the end of the trail but my group were still missing one thing (I made a point of not helping them except for telling them which way to go and the junctions) so the whole unit walked back along the route looking for it. As I knew where things had been put, I knew where to look for it and I found it pretty quickly. We put the stuff back in the house and set off on our walk to the river.
Shortly after we had left, it started spitting with rain but, as we had made sure that every girl had a rain coat, we carried on. A couple of the girls complained when we came out of the woods into the open but the vast majority seemed to be enjoying themselves in the rain! I ended up at the back, as per usual, with 4 girls and 2 YLs. We were doing quite a good job of keeping up with the rest of the unit for a while but then the girls started slowing down. We tried quite a few tactics to speed them up, some of which worked briefly, but we were slowly being left behind. It didn't really matter as I know the way well but it was quite tiring for us to be continually encouraging the girls. Eventually 3 of them ran to catch up with a friend in the main group and we were left with one girl who, when told to speed up, would do so for a dozen steps or so and then slow down again! We did eventually make it to the river and most of the girls were already in as Brown Owl had decided it was safe for them to do so. They paddled around for a bit and then we got out the rafts and had a few races. We had one girls from each six stood on the bridge and then two YLs stood downstream. On the count of three, the girls all dropped their rafts into the river and the YLs caught them when they reached them so we could reuse them. We had a couple of issues with rafts getting caught under the bridge but, after quite a few races, we crowned the winner. We then got the girls out the river and walked back to the house again.
When we got back, we had the usual fight with a few girls and their wellies as water creates quite a lot of suction. This year, however, we had a girl who wearing some wellies that were a little bit too small for her and it took 3 leaders and a lot of giggling to get them off her feet! We then had a lot of the girls wearing their pyjamas for the rest of the day because they had got soaked, including me as I'd just taken one pair of jeans because I knew I wouldn't go in the river forgetting that it could rain and soak them through... We put all the wet things over drying racks and radiators but we had to tell the girls to take their clothes off the radiators in their room because the dust on them set off the fire alarm briefly.
The girls then had rest hour. I spent the time sat in my room, attempting one of the worksheets I was set this week and the girls were in their room, being quiet. Two of the YLs set up and ran the tuck shop during that time. We sell a variety of small things the girls can take home with them to remember pack holiday, as well as (a limited number of) chocolates and sweets to supplement their midnight feasts (that, theoretically, we don't know about!).
Once we were done, the girls then did some more of the detective work in their sixes and worked on their owls if they had more to do on them until dinner. Dinner was fish finger or chicken nuggets with chips and peas.
After dinner, the YLs went outside and lit the camp fire. We decided though that, because most of the girls were in their pyjamas because their clothes were wet and the grass was also wet, that we would sit inside and sing songs while watching the fire outside. We sang, Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?, Cecil Is My Caterpillar, Wishy Washy, Hole at the Bottom of the Sea, Have You Ever Seen a Penguin Come to Tea?, and My Ship Sailed From China (lyrics to follow in another post but I think most of them are here anyway!). We had to do Cookie Jar because of our theme and, ironically, the last person in the song was Snowy Owl; one of the suspects in the detective work the girls have been doing. When we got to the end, one of the girls yelled "so it was you Snowy!" to which she replied "ssshh, it's a secret!", which made a lot of them laugh.
We then started getting the girls ready for bed. We had tears from a couple of them because they were missing their parents; in particular we had a few who's parents are split up and they would normally see their Dad over the weekend but they couldn't this weekend. We normally have some girls who get a little homesick when they get really tired but they all settle down when we tell them that they'll see their parents the next day anyway.
Eventually, they all got into bed and were relatively quiet. The Leaders all sat in the living room for a while, chatting before we all went to bed too, at about 11.
Saturday, 5 October 2013
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!
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Making s'mores:
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!
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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!
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