1) Leaving work at something approaching normal time. Actually I made time for lunch and had a nice sit in the Barbican so that was good too. Even if we did mostly talk about work.
2) Watching a no think film.. Lucy
3) Treat food for dinner..
Monthly Archives: September 2015
[Happy] Logical conclusions
1) The revelation that a chocolate teapot is actually useful, you could eat it.*
2) Nope can’t think of anything else today, I’ve had another busy / stressful day at work with me eating lunch at my desk and then leaving late.. Followed by a completely avoidable rear puncture.. ** Which was even more annoying as it was only 24 hours since my last one.
At that point I headed for the nearest train station and just gave up on the day..
Didn’t have long to wait for a train, so perhaps that is a win..
Right tomorrow is Friday, so hopefully that will be better.
* It is the same with dipsticks, brilliant at what they were designed to do.
** I failed to hook my saddle bag on correctly, so it ended up pushing my mud guard against the tire, and then it went bang…
[Happy] Yet more things..
1) Cycling the slightly longer route this morning, it was a very nice crisp importantly dry morning so nice for cycling..
2) Finishing the first drafts of the report and presentation that I have to write this week, both have been hanging over me for a few days now.
3) Having a relaxing evening, home alone, sure there is stuff on my job list that I need to get around to, but it was good to have a night off, and watch some TV.
[Push] Lessons learned from Sky camp
So as I mentioned, we were the runner up on Sky Camp by just 15 points out of a possible 4,000 and I’m just a little bit gutted by that, as we thought that we had done enough to clinch it.. heck the team who beat us also thought that we had won it.
Not sure I did a good enough job of expressing just how much fun it was, but hey not going to address that now.
So where could we improve?
1) Camp craft during the building process. While there was no litter on our site, our build process lacked style, and quite a bit of our kit was just in a heap.
2) Late dinner. We should have started our cooking fire earlier, our first fire was too small and then we lost time resetting and letting that bed in so we could carry on cooking.
3) Use of wet pit. Not convinced by this one, as we felt that not using a wet pit was bad practice.
4) Falling over on assault course. Couldn’t really help this one but it did lose us at least 10 seconds, making us one of the slowest teams for this challenge.
5) Use of found materials / objects. We didn’t do a good job of looking for found objects that we could have introduced to our structure.
6) Poor build of wind chimes. One of the challenges was to build wind chimes, and mine didn’t chime and would have taken a _lot_ of wind to move..
7) Build of welcome sign. Another challenge, our poster was quite small and drawn from stuff we had brought.
8) Forgetting to wear tiaras at dinner. No comment.
9) Not very clear theme. Our theme was the queen, which ended up being a bit weak.
10) Not very creative team name.
11) Conservative choice of menu for dinner. We could have been more ambitious.
12) Poor cooking fire containment. We accidentally set fire to our seating platform underneath our cooking fire. Oops, think that we might have got away with this one.
13) Time spent on the ground to tend fire / do other stuff. We should have tried to do these things while in the shelter.
Just so I’m not all doom and gloom, what things did we do well:
1) Vastly improved camp craft on Sunday, we all remembered that we were in a competition, so kept the site tidy during the clear down.
2) Wallpaper – yea, we put up wallpaper.
3) White table cloth, laminated menu and candles for dinner, shows attention to detail and that the 3 course dinner we were serving had some class.
4) Good use of space. We used all of the available trees as part of our build, so that our shelter was really quite big.
5) Solid lashings, and well built structure. Each of the pioneering poles used was very solidly attached, and we didn’t use many ratchet straps.
6) Creative method of getting our kit to site and not needing to spend points for additional journeys or equipment. As leaders we were only allowed one trip, so we built a trolley that could be dismantled and used as part of our build.
Still it was our first time competing, so second is a very good result.
But we were just so close..
[Happy] Not only when it rains
1) I cycled to work today, I wasn’t going to as it was raining hard when I woke up. So I curled back up into bed ..
A short while later the rain had stopped and I cycled into work.. I got soaked when it started up again.. but that doesn’t matter.. I was dead glad that I wasn’t on the train.
2) Attending a workshop on meditation during work hours.
3) Going to bed early.. even if that was because I was over tired.
[Push] Take me to the sky
So my weekend was spent taking part in Sky Camp a competition weekend for Explorer Scouts / Scout Network an Leaders. So what is Sky Camp? Well apart for lots of hard work and good fun.
The idea is simple, you have to build a shelter that is at least 50cm off the ground and not more than 2.5 meters. You are in a team of between 4 and 8 people. The rules are quite simple, you place all the kit that you want to use in your designated bay.
The Explorers get 3 trips from the bay to the marked out site. Leaders only one.
You have then build a shelter to sleep your team, and cook a three course dinner in the shelter. The Explorers can coo using gas stoves, Network and Leaders have to cook on an open fire.
4000 points are available over the weekend, and are awarded for camp craft, teamwork, style, and for complementing challenges.
Now this is not something that I have ever done before, the rest of my team had a practice weekend a few weeks ago, so we had some ideas. But given that you don’t know where you will be building your shelter so don’t know what sort of trees that you will be able to use. It is all about being flexible and creative.
I can’t even remember the last time I took part in a competition camp.
Over the weekend I tied more lashings than possibly the last 10 years, it was great to do some real scouting for a change, rather than supervising hiking or instructing.
We had a team of Explorer scouts in the competition but during the weekend they had to be on their own. Which in turn meant that we had a free weekend to pool creativity into our site.
How was it it was really full on, from the moment we started we were pushing ourselves to get things done and build and to complete the shelter. While be interrupted by challenges to do blindfold sheep herding.
Now we had put some up front thinking into how we were going to decorate our site and the sort of things we would need, some of which I would have to lug across town and into work on my way.
My standard kit was supplemented with my complete climbing kit (which I mostly didn’t need), 2 hammocks, a mirror ball (and motor), a white tablecloth, a candelabra. a roll of wallpaper. It is an old climbing joke when you get stuck somewhere or take a very long rest, that you are thinking of wallpapering it. So if I was going to build a tree house I had to incorporate wallpaper. (I used string at the top and bottom) and then stapled the wallpaper to it. Which worked surprisingly well.
Anyway after a great weekend, were the weather amazingly stayed dry, which was impressive given the recent very heavy rain.
So how did we do, well despite being confident, we didn’t win. It was very close, we came second by just 15 points.
Going to have book myself up for next year, and buy myself a hammock.
[Scouting] Woo woo it’s Friday
Been a busy week, I have been out drinking with friends the last 2 nights so while that has been good it is a little exhausting.. What’s more tonight I am heading out to Sky camp, so heading directly to camp from work.
Now I have been looking forward to Sky camp for a while now, as it is the sort of competition camp that has lots of opportunities for being brilliantly mad.
The rules for Sky camp for the Explorer Scouts are quite simple.. Working as a team you have 3 trips from the car park to your camping area, where you must construct a shelter that is at least 0.5 meters off the ground (and not exceeding 3). You will spend the afternoon, evening, and sleep in the shelter. You will cook a 3 course dinner.
Extra points are awarded to creativity and style. There will be several challenges set during the day.
What makes this more fun is that there is a leaders competition.. The only changes to the rules are..
Only 1 trip from the car park to your site, and you must cook on an open fire.
Which is why I am currently sat on a rush hour tube with 2 huge very heavy holdalls, which contain the following additional bits of kit.
1) My climbing kit
2) A roll of wallpaper
3) A doorbell
4) Enough tools to be able to make it work..
5) A mirror ball (with motor)
6) 2 hammocks
7) A set of flying ducks (pictures)
Based on that and the other stuff I have with me, I think that it will very homely.. and jolly good fun..
[Happy] Smart looking chap in the city.
1) On the train today out for drinks with old work people so that means I’m on the train.. which gives me an excuse to wear my new bowler hat.. 🙂
2) Nearly got a seat on the train, but decided that given I was looking like a smart city gentleman, in a hat and umbrella, I would act like one and offered it to the lady behind me.
[Happy] Finding things..
So I’ve missed another day, and this post is late, but hey not beating myself up about that.
Monday I was frustrated as I was trying to sort out kit for this weekend’s camping trip, and after ages clambering around in the loft my back was aching and there were several things that I just couldn’t find..
So Tuesday’s big happyness was finding them. Quite how I managed to perchance onto one of them I have no idea as I had given up on finding that. Just goes to show, maintain a positive attitude.
Not sure that I can remember anything else to record, so will leave it at that. But I found stuff that I was sure that had been lost.
I also found H’s hat on Monday so even that day wasn’t a complete write off..
[Happy] A relaxing weekend
Only one post for the weekend, so we will have to see what I remember.
1) Curry for dinner, I’ve not had curry in ages..
2) An afternoon nap, which has hopefully helped beat my cold.
3) Finishing pruning the lavender, makes the garden look so much more tidy.
4) Getting to the dump, been meaning to do that for ages.
5) Some time catching up with people.