Centenary Camp, and coats of many pockets (by alaric)

We've had a busy weekend running the Cranham contingent at the district Centenary Camp.

One highlight for me was finding the Cubs all scrabbling about searching their pockets for small change and whispering conspiratorially. "Akela, Akela!" they said when I approached. "You've got to buy this badge we found in the camp shop! It says Akela and it has a wolf and it'd look really good on you!"

So I let them excitedly drag me to the shop tent, where they pointed out this badge and looked me expectantly. I presume (from the conversation I walked into) they'd been trying to see if they could buy it for me between themselves, but had failed to raise the pound required, so I bought it myself, much to their delight.

I've surmised that having it sewn on in time for our next meeting (Wednesday) might mean a lot to them, so I've stayed up tonight attaching it to my coat-of-many-pockets 🙂

Now, I used to be famous for wearing coats of many pockets, stuffed with first aid equipment, compass, and the like. I gave up the practice due to fears that the weight distribution wasn't doing my back any good, and moved to a belt of many pouches instead, but that finally died a death, so after a terrifying period of wandering around not equipped for an unexpected nuclear strike, my brother in law and his girlfriend bought me a new coat of many pockets for my birthday. So I'm back to wearing coats of many pockets, except this time I'm not going to load it up so far!

Daffodils (by sarah)

The finially Daffodiles have died in our garden - obviously at their hieght we had many different types - Barabara said she'd never seen so many of them in the garden before - I've missed a few types like the really fluffy dwarf ones but I photographed as many as possible - here they are:

Walnut Tree (by sarah)

I was going to writ a nice post about how well Jeans Walnut tree is doing, it was in budding nicely and looking really good so I thought - I must remember to take a phot of that for the blog - I went back the next day with the camera only to discover that the deer have munched it 🙁

So in hope that it can recover we fashioned a deer protector out of some chicken wire - as its actually two bits of chicken wire its not that sturdy and kept flopping over so we had to use one of the hooks for our garden lantens to keep it in place.

We're hoping its not too late :'(

Of Easter Eggs and New Hats (by sarah)

Jean was spoilt over Easter by a second Easter egg hunt this time with Barbaras friends grandson joining in the fun though he did decide that Jean could have all the eggs he found as the Easter Bunny had left him so many at home and he wasnt sure he'd be able to eat them all!

Him and Jean had a great time playing with the soft play kit and the scout and cub sports equipment and of course Jeans slide - though there was also an unfortunate incident with Als metal watering can and the cattle grid and a very forlorn and guilty looking child and a large dent - we only heard the crash so still not entirely sure what happened!

Jean likes Minty the dog who was also there at the egg hunt though she does seem to think smeel dogs are sort of strange cats!

Of Easter Bunnies and Helicopters (by sarah)

Over the Easter weekend Alarics Uncle Roderick and his duaghter Philippas visited - they arrived in Rodericks helicopter! Jean must be the only little girl to get shoe deliveries by helicopter! She also now waves and waits expectantly every time she sees a helicopter - planes, helicopters, cars and vans all get called too-too (her impression of a horn).

Barabara had the idea of doing an Easter egg hunt with her so me and Philippa hide some little chocolate eggs along the wall of the raised flower beds - Jean adored this though didnt realise the eggs were food!

Whilst Roderick took Barabara up for a tour of the villiage by air we made yummy mexician ffood which we fed to the unfortunate Phillippa who had spewed breakfast on the flight over. We also got to watch Jean enloy her new Weeee!