Woke up to a beautiful sunny morning, what is it about blue skies, sun shine and the gentle sounds of waves breaking on the shingle and seagulls screeching at 6.00am? It can't fail to instil a sense of 'good to be alive-ness'. What a dew though! I can't say that I've been aware of heavy dews this year either at home in London or on earlier camping trips - we went to bed with a hefty layer and woke up to puddles of it!
Rosemary and I were up with the larks - well wood pigeons in the woods behind our tents. The campsite is great, basic but with flush loos and showers that were probably plentiful enough for Scouts a few years ago but are now stretched almost beyond limit by it's current users, many of whom also decided to go for an early morning ablution resulting in queues for showers at 7.00am on a Sunday! I read an article in The Guardian the other day about how camping helps us to reset our body clocks in accordance with day
Iight- it's certainly resetting ours - no attempts to clear my emails at 1.00am, we're sound asleep by 11.00pm. Seems that we're not the only ones with many campers on this site getting up with the sun.
The 19 Counties in Girlguiding London and South East England are very varied in terms of geographical size, we managed to clock up 160mile round trip to Campdowne 2013 (near Orpington) and we were still within Kent, albeit having travelled through 3 guiding Counties. In sharp contrast my home County of London South West stretches approximately 10 miles along is length from Putney to Waterloo.
Campdowne 2013 is a 10 day international Scout camp, held every 4 years at Downe, one of their national campsites. 1,200 Scouting and Guiding participants from 21 different countries are taking part this year and I was privileged to be invited to join them for Carnival Day. This was Molly's first experience of an event on this scale but I'm fairly confident that it won't be her last! We were delighted to be hosted by Abi and Philippa from Orpington Guides and Rangers who were complete stars and took us on a tour of the sub camps pointing out lots of different activities on the way. I met many members from our Region as well as Guides from across the UK and was especially pleased to chat to the New Zealand Guide contingent who all camped at Tui 12 the NZ jamboree that I visited last year.
What a great opportunity Guiding and Scouting offers to our young people in terms of adventure, cooperation and friendship. National and international camps and jamborees abound not only across the UK but across the world and only due to the generosity of our volunteers who give so much of their time and expertise to ensuring the very best experiences for everyone. If you are a member of Guiding or Scouting and haven't experienced a large scale event like this yet then look around and book yourself on one for next year, either as part of the volunteer service crew or as a leader taking some of your young people.
Our final stop before we left Campdowne was to a warm welcome from the London Over the Border contingent for tea and scones - thank you Janice et al, delicious! Molly and her new found friend, Amy, become avid badge collectors by the end of the day. Molly has requested a camp blanket for her teddy for her birthday having seen baby Erin's camp blanket! Something for me to do on my Sussex leg of the Coastal Camping trip then!
Very many thanks to Ben, Emma and your wonderful crew for hosting all the visitors - what a great day!
We headed back east to Deal wondering when we'd pick up a 3G signal and decent enough phone reception to ring Lee, Molly's dad , to wish him a happy birthday - imagine my consternation when we ultimately picked one up at St Margaret's-at-Cliffe ...... welcoming us to France! Apologies Lee that you had to wait for your birthday call until we were safely back in England!
We stopped off for a pub meal at the 'Coastguard' in St Margaret's - right on the beach, under the famous white cliffs, what a delightful spot to be at sunset with very few people around. Tipping up in our Brownie/Leader wear was a bit of a giveaway I guess, staff member Penny was keen to find out what we'd been up to and we swiftly established that she's a Brownie Leader in Ramsgate. I'm sure that all customers at the Coastguard get excellent service but Penny and her team were exceptional. I can highly recommend the menu too, my plaice and new potatoes were cooked to perfection and the ubiquitous mixed leaf salad was nicely jazzed up by the addition of a couple of slices of perfectly ripe nectarine and a drizzle of decent dressing. Molly plumped for a child sized portion of cod and chips, also perfectly cooked and presented. We certainly didn't need to indulge in the ice cream sundae menu ..... but we did! No sign of the usual pub fayre desserts, my indulgence was Kentish apples with salted caramel, crumbled flapjack and vanilla ice cream whilst Molly 'smelled heaven' when she was give full rein with the bubblegum, strawberry and raspberry sauces over her ice cream with sprinkles.
I reckoned that a dip in the sea after that lot was off the cards so we settled for unsuccessful pebble skimming but a rather more successful pebble hurling competition!
Back to camp at Kingsdown - where has everyone gone? Very few tents remaining and all quiet at 10.00 pm!
Molly trying her hand at Morris Dancing!
The famous ice-cream sundae!
More sandcastle flags in the pebbles, this time at St Margaret's-at-Cliffe as the light fades
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