Once a Guide, Always a Guide...

Tonight is another night out in the garden camping. Tonight we are having a Ranger Guide campout with all the girls either camping in their garden or inside their house. We have arranged a call at 7pm and may even burst into song with a virtual campfire. We have all arranged to photograph the evidence of our group sleep out and post it in our WhatsApp group. Luckily the weather is good and it is set to be a warm night so we shouldn't have many mishaps.

We were due to go camping as a unit in July but this is unlikely to happen. It is good to encourage the girls to enjoy the great outdoors and camping is an excellent way to introduce them to this primitive way of living outside. I have camped since I was a Guide enjoying weekends, weeks and even longer camps all across the Country from Cornwall to Scotland, Yorkshire to Norfolk. Obviously the weather is a factor in making camp a wonderful experience but it is good to teach the girls that you can still have a great time in the wind and the rain. So yes, I have dug trenches round tents to channel the water and dealt with extreme weather when as a Guide we camped on the Isle of Wight in 1979 at the sametime as the infamous Fastnet disaster. I have camped in canvas tents, tents designed for one person and even outside under the stars. I love it all.

My fascination with camping continued as an adult and led to me taking my Guiding qualification enabling me to take my own unit away at the ripe old age of 21. Teaching girls to cook on open fires, to look after their temporary accommodation, sleep warmly and safely in the great outdoors has been wonderful. Over the years, many girls have joined us at small unit camps and large County camps, have joined in silly games and challenging activities, even emptied toilets and cooked their own meals. The routine of camp has been handed down from days when I was a Guide and altered and adapted over the years. From flag break to elevensies, whistle commands to summon everyone for meals and sitting in a horseshoe formation also for meals. Patrol duties and midnight feasts...Guide camp always was and always will be a wonderful experience.

So tonight, this is the compromise. Camping in my own garden at the same time as the Rangers are camping in theirs. At least I won't have to get up in the night to tell excited girls to stop talking so we can all get to sleep. There has to be some perks!