Avon/Hannover Twinning Diary Part 4

Posted on 22 September, 2010 by Kiff

Hello Dear Reader

It has been a long while coming be here is the final part of my recent trip to Germany with the scouts

Incase you need to catch up you can find parts 1, 2, & 3 at the links provided. So where had we got to, yes Friday.

Friday 30th July

This was quite and important day for the scouts from Hannover this was the day they actually finished the E1 through Germany, the last walking group finished there walk at lake Constance however the very last section was to walk from the lake across the German/Swiss border a grand total of about 1km.
Before this walk took place we gathered in what appeared to be a band stand in the park in Constance. We hosted the Mayor of Constance at this little gathering where we discussed the journey to get to Constance and presented awards to people in each of the age groups in scouting who had walking the most km of the E1. This was followed by all the groups doing a freeze frame showing their journey.

Marks the End of the E1 in Germany

It is interesting crossing a border within a town there were no guards, no patrols there was a passport control but it was closed. I mean it all looked pretty official there was even a barrier across the road but it was just empty, the real comedy of the whole thing was if you walked round the corner then there was a large playing field where you could effectively stand with on leg in Germany one leg is Switzerland.

Border Control

Following the photo of everyone on the border we had a picnic lunch in Switzerland (giving everyone much amusement in saying I am just popping to Switzerland for lunch)

The last part of the day was spent exploring Constance and finding presents for family etc. before heading back to the campsite.

Saturday 1st August

After all the excitement of the day before, Saturday was spend on the campsite. We played a huge wide game in the woods behind the campsite and followed this by having fun in the site swimming pool. The pool had a slide and it was a lot of fun to see how many people we could get to slide down the slide at once I think we got about 20 people in a constant stream down the slide into the pool below.

In between the fun in the pool and the fun in the woods we started to pack up our kit and tidy up to make the Sunday and easier day.

Sunday 2nd August

The morning of Sunday was organised chaos, there was a large amount of tidying up and there is a fair amount of canvas to put away and the gateway had to come down and the bits of trees taken back to the woods. All this before 14:00 as there was one bus from the campsite to the station and we had 2 min between the arrival of the bus and the departure of the train.

Gate Way

Once everything was packed away and the campsite was cleared we held our closing ceremony and there was the usual mix of badge and knecker swapping.

Despite our tight timeline, German efficiency won through with and we were on the train with 2 mins to spare.

The train took us with one change all the way to Zürich where we caught a bus to the Airport, a plan home to the UK and finally a Bus from Heathrow back to Woodhouse Park. I know that end sounds like I rushed, it but there is very little to say about it, apart from while we were on the train to Zürich we saw the most awesome waterfall (picture below)

Waterfall from the Train

I enjoyed the whole thing it proved to me a number of things

I am not a fit as I thought I was
Language is no a barrier to Scouting and Friendship
Scouting really does mean you can throw together 15 young people and make a trip work in 3 months

Well I think that is enough for now.

TTFN

TTFN

Kiff

©ChrisMeadows2012

Hello Reader – Are you new to Jabbering All Day Long can I suggest that you check out our Starter for Ten Page which will hopefully give you a guide as you take your first couple of footsteps around this site.

Where Did Kiff Go

Posted on 20 September, 2010 by Kiff

Hello Dear Reader

How the devil are you?

I said it was only going to be away one week and it turned out to be two, and for that I am deeply sorry.

See I came back from my Holiday to Italy (calling at Pisa, Lucca and the surrounding Tuscan area. It was a wonderful time that included a nightmare windey road, an electrifying toaster various wildlife and a lot of wine but more of that another time) to find that my diary was not only full of work

Badge of the 1% club

stuff but scouting stuff as well.

On the 14th September I attended Avon County Queen Scout Award Reception, which included doing some presenting of certificates.

This event was held by the county to recognise all those members of Avon who had gained their Queens Scout in the last two years (we missed a year in 2009 ohps). The event held in the Cathedral in Bristol and was attended by Mrs Mary Prior MBE JP Lord-Lieutenant of the County & City of Bristol, The Very Revd Dr David Hoyle, MA Dean of Bristol Cathedral and Councillor Christopher Davies Deputy Mayor of Bristol.

It is something that I feel is very important to do, Within Avon we present each young person that gains this prestigious award with a certificate and a commemorative bristol blue glass. It is extremely important to recognise, as one of the recipient on the night said, the top 1% of 1% – which is very true.

A clever bit of maths for you. The archives show that since the Queen Scout Awards conception in 1952 there have been about 50,000 awards presented I have been informed that we can estimate that since 1952 there have been approximately 5,000,000 scout invested in the UK (don’t ask me how to work this our I am crap at maths) so 50,000 in 5,000,000 is 1%

Current population of the UK is 60,000,000 and there are approximately 500,000 uniformed member in the Scout Association 500,000 in 60,000,000 is 0.8%

So getting your Queens Scout really does put you in the top 1% of 1%

Over the weekend of the 18th & 19th September (ok it was Saturday night to Sunday am) I attended the One Night Stand (ONS) an Explorer event run by one of our districts but is open to the whole county. ONS this year had a spooky theme and in a last minute ditch to fit in, I bought one of those Halloween face painting kits and painted my face white, put talc in my hair and when as a Ghost. (sadly none of the other adults dressed up so instead of fitting in I stuck out but there you go)

And on top of all that it was my first week back at work it was all a bit crazy, so I am sorry you got neglected but I am sure you will all cope.

On two entirely separate notes

I came back to find 67 spam comment on my blog that was, 4 whole pages of junk I had to wade through and delete, I have never felt so popular.
I also came across a very interesting post by Nick on Safety Culture which I though you all may like.

hopefully normal service will be resumed from here on in

TTFN

Lucca, Italy: cultural city guide (telegraph.co.uk)
Star-studded Scout honours list (mirror.co.uk)

TTFN

Kiff

©ChrisMeadows2012

Hello Reader – Are you new to Jabbering All Day Long can I suggest that you check out our Starter for Ten Page which will hopefully give you a guide as you take your first couple of footsteps around this site.

Selection of Photos

Posted on 25 August, 2010 by Kiff

Hello Dear Reader

I have gone for a bit of a cop-out with today’s post I thought I would show you a selection of photos from my trip to Germany I hope you enjoy them.

TTFN

TTFN

Kiff

©ChrisMeadows2012

Hello Reader – Are you new to Jabbering All Day Long can I suggest that you check out our Starter for Ten Page which will hopefully give you a guide as you take your first couple of footsteps around this site.

Avon/Hannover Twinning Diary Part 3

Posted on 18 August, 2010 by Kiff

A Statue in Radolfzell am Bodensee

Hello Dear Reader

Well in the last instalment of my travel diary we had completed the walking element of the trip (you can ready PART 1 and PART 2 if you have not done so already)

Wednesday 28th July

I woke up early on the Wednesday bloody freezing, I had been intelligent (for once) with my packing, knowing that for the walking part of our trip we would be sleeping mostly in building, and the fact that is was summer in Germany I had brought my 1 season sleeping bag (if you interested go HERE) and a cotton liner for when we were in the tents at the end of the camp. However all the best plans and all that, one of the scouts in my walking group has also brought a thin sleeping bag and I had therefore donated my liner to him (Still maybe shivering will burn a few more calories and make me slimmer).

However being awake I decided I might as well make the most of the early morning and headed down to have a shower ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… (You don’t need to know the details of that) heading back from the shower the sun was trying to come out but was fighting a loosing battle, it was going to be a wet day.

Today was a transition day, getting to know the camp site, putting up the tents, trying to keep dry, welcoming the remaining members of the group back from their walking and hearing their stories. I also managed to prove that I was a better table tennis player than any of the guys who went on the trip (it was not that hard a challenge really).

Camp Fire

We closed Wednesday with a campfire and each group had to do a play or a freeze frame or a song to convey to the rest of their group how the three days of walking had gone.

So we tucked into our sleeping bags with the hope that tomorrow would be a better day (weather-wise) I had been to the site shop and bought a fleece blanked with Whinie the Pooh on it and I was feeling much warmer as I snuggled down to sleep.

Thursday 29th July

I was woken early by the sound of heavy rain drumming on canvas, it was nice to hear it, and it’s a sound that I have not heard for a long time. as an adult I have predominantly camped in a small tent with a Nylon flysheet and the sound is very different. There is something very calming about the sound of rain drumming on canvas (or maybe that is just me).
I lay there listening to the sound of the rain with the big decision of the morning in my head, could I wait for the rain to stop or was I going to have to get wet running to the bathroom five minutes later I had decide I was going to have to get wet, so packed up my shower bag and put on my coat and headed outside. With impeccable timing the rain eased to a light spatter making it a dry walk to the showers.

We had been informed the night before that the plan for today was to head to the town of Radolfzell am Bodensee where we would play the game Apple or Egg in the morning the have a picnic before going swimming in the lake in the afternoon.

Now I was given a little insight into the Apple or Egg game and I have to say I did not believe it would work.

The premise is you split the YP’s up into groups of 3-4 and you present the group with an Apple and an Egg they take these two items and head off into the local town. They then must barter with the apple or the egg or both to gain the best item possible; they barter with shops or by knocking on house doors etc. So for example one group swapped the egg for a chocolate bar they swapped the chocolate bar for a can of nuts and two chocolate bars they swapped one of the chocolate bars for some cereal, then the other chocolate bar for some tinned tomatoes, then the tinned tomatoes for a bag of crisps and two chocolate bars. They were quite disappointed no one wanted the apple. I thought they had ended with a really good haul of goodies. One group went into a shop and the shop keeper said I will take the apple you can have anything you want from the shop they took some Pasta.

An Apple traded for Custard

It was an amazing display of trust and respect, the shop was a fine example the YP’s took 1 item when they had free reign of the shop [TRUST] and they took something that was not to expensive but useful to the camp as a whole, pasta [RESPECT]

I was trying to see a situation in the UK where the same game would work, ok if you did it in your local village and you had done a leaflet drop letting shops and locals know that the scouts were doing this. But we were in a large Town and at the other end of the country it would be like scout from Bristol going to Carlisle and playing this game without any prior notice given. Maybe I am jaded but I think if you had ten groups, eight would come back with the apple and the egg and two would have made a trade.

However in Germany every group came back with more than they left with they had all managed to make a profit on their apple and their egg. Each group was then challenged with selecting one item from their haul and discussing with the group why this item is the most beneficial to the camp.

Presentations

While the YP’s had been out bartering their way round the town the adults had been trying to work out if there was somewhere we could swim in the lake. We established that there was but as we gathered to have our picnic the heavens opened the rain came. It was the kind of rain that even though you were in to of a second you looked like a drowned rat.

We eventually found a leisure centre in a nearby town and we headed there for the afternoon.

There was a plan for the evening however, due to some confusion with trains and buses we ended up about 4km away from the campsite with no mode of transport except Shanks’s pony so off we headed. It was nice walk and the weather was kind keeping dry. I spent most of the walk discussing English language, German language and International Scouting with one of the German Leaders.

We finally made it back to the campsite about 22:00 and enjoyed a very tasty pasta with cheese & ham sauce.

Well I think that is enough of my diary for now Part 4 will follow shortly.

TTFN

TTFN

Kiff

©ChrisMeadows2012

Hello Reader – Are you new to Jabbering All Day Long can I suggest that you check out our Starter for Ten Page which will hopefully give you a guide as you take your first couple of footsteps around this site.

Avon/Hannover Twinning Diary Part 2

Posted on 12 August, 2010 by Kiff

Hello Dear Reader.

Well where had we got to that is right end of Sunday

Monday 26th August 2010

After a nights sleep in a tent we packed up camp, with a reminder to the YP’s that you only need to carry Water Lunch and a rain coat [they still did not listen]. With the camp packed away and our kit stowed back in the van we had breakfast in a bus shelter to avoid the rain.

Breakfast in a Bus Shelter

If you have not been to Germany, breakfast is predominately very dense Rye bread with cheese and cold ham, and some fruit. We had also been given some chocolate spread similar to Nutella which the young people devoured with much relish. We also has to use the left overs from breakfast to make lunch.
One Tip here if you put a chocolate spread sandwich and salami and Cheese sandwich in a sandwich bag together and then put it in your rucksack you will end up with chocolate spread on you salami and cheese sandwich.

With a wave to Martin [who was driving the van] we set off for our second days walking, the aim was to get to Engen some 19km away. The morning went well despite the frequent burst of rain and we head from Randen to Riedoschingen. As we started to climb out of Riedoschingen one of the YP was struggling again and although had partly heeded my advice to lighten his load still has his wash kit and clothes in his rucksack. the German Leader who was with me suggested that he swapped rucksacks with the YP to give him and easier load to carry. This made a marked difference and we then heading cross-country to the north of Berghof and Watterdinging. The YP’s even had the energy to climb up to a deer hide and pose for photos. We stopped for lunch under a tree (to shelter from the Rain) at about 13:00 having completed about 10km, which for three and a half hours walking was pretty good.

I see no Deer

As we set off after lunch the rain appeared to ease and it looked like we were going to get a dry afternoon, no such luck about 10 mins after we set of we got the heaviest down poor of the day it is the kind of rain fall for a short period but make everything very very wet. Thankfully we were not out in the open for long as the path went off in to the forest and thus giving us some cover.

It is always difficult to keep spirits up when walking it is even more difficult to keep spirits up when the rain is dampening everything. However as a group we started to play a guessing game. In turn a person selected Book, TV programme, Film, Scouting Badge, the rest were allowed to ask questions to try to establish what the person was thinking about. It is basically the YES/NO game but we were not strict on the answers being only yes or no. It was very interesting to see how by playing this game they YP forgot about the walking and just kept putting one foot infront of the other and as we came out of the forest the rain stopped and we had completed 7 of our 9km in about 2 hours.

We were now on the edge of Engen and just had to walk our way down into the town to find some where to stay. We called into the first church we passed on our way into Engen and they suggest trying the other church in the center of town. With high spirits we started to sing camp fire songs as we made our way to the centre of Engen and to the Church.
Our luck was in although we could not sleep at the church there was a community hall associated with the Church [similar to those you might find the Sunday school in or where tea and coffee is served however this one was not attached to the church like most are in the UK].

The raised part of the Town

We were given directions, go down in the lift [that statement confused me until I saw the view in the photo above] and it is up the road past the school. We found the accommodation with ease and set up for the evening. The real bonus was the centre has a full working kitchen so not cooking on Trangias and washing up in a public toilet [That was the night before].

The fact that we had made it to our accommodation early was nice it gave the YP’s a good long break before our last days walking which on paper was to be a 26km slog to get to Singen by 18:00 to catch the train which was about 16km away by road and probably only 13km as the crow flies.

As we bedded down for the night I looked over the route and identified some places where we could shave some km off and make the walk more enjoyable and less of a slog for the YP’s

Tuesday 27th August

We woke up on the Tuesday morning and started to pack away our sleeping stuff, this time I told the YP’s the only things I want to see in your day sacks is you water bottles (full), your lunch and your rain coat and I will be doing a kit inspection before we leave. Just before we sat down to breakfast we were greeted by a visit from the minster who brought fresh croissants for everyone which I have to say was a very good start to the day.

He also brought news that the weather was to be nice for the day and it should not rain. With bellies full of croissants and the joy on the YP’s faces when I said I was going to make a few minor edits to the route we set off for the last days walking.

The E1 is not a distinct path and uses a lot of local routes and path ways, for most of our journey we had walked on the a local walking route and our plan was to stay on this local route when the E1 diverted off to climb 300m in 1.5km and instead we would take the path that contoured round the hill.

The walking was much better and the YES/NO game that was used to keep spirits up during the rain was continued by the YP’s without assistance from me and we managed [all be it with a little detour when we got lost] to keep a steady pace of about 3km per hour up to lunch time. We stopped in the small village of Welschingen and occupied what appeared to be the park bench and the horse trough with some of the YP’s cooling their feet in the water.

We had come 9km of the route by lunchtime and I judged we had another 15km to go. Now this is where a lack is a lack of a good spoken language [either German or English] had it’s down fall, I had understood that we had to make Singen by 18:00 to catch the train and meet all the other groups at the campsite Tuesday night. When intact we could have slept the night close to Singen and got the train first thing Wednesday morning.

With the knowledge of our walking speed and the lack of knowledge about the trains. I again decided to remove a loop where the E1 departed from the local route and cut another 5km off the route. With the reduction in our route we made good time and arrived at the station in Singen at about 16:00 with plenty of time to catch our train. It was at this point I learned that all the groups were not arriving to the campsite today, some were arriving today some were arriving tomorrow and we could have walked to the evening stayed over night close to the station.

The end - the diamond on the lampost indicates the path we followed

We caught the train from Singen to Nenzingen where we met up [by accident] with another walking group and walked the last 2.5km to the camp site. The rest of the day was used to start to put up the campsite and greeting other as they arrived.

We finished the day with the most amazing sunset over our campsite, and the knowledge that we did not have to get up and walk again tomorrow.