At last the April training weekend arrived and four Boston Scouts loaded into the car ready for the Highflyers 9th training weekend! This weekend was particularly special due to the presence of our kit! This included our holdalls and rucksacks as well as our especially designed sweat towels and hats!
The welcoming campfire also brought along a feast with marshmallows (of course!) and doritos with salsa with loads more to snack on whilst we all caught up. It always feels so long since the last month!
Bright and early the next morning we tried to enjoy the confusing combination of products for breakfast. From Japan, we saw two different kinds of miso soup, and from England we saw rashers and rashers of bacon and croissants! (Technically they're French, but lets skip that small detail) However there was a twist- if we didn't eat a bowl of soup, we could have any bacon or croissants.
Spoonfuls of miso soup were swapped from one bowl to another and some even went into a few drinks of tea! However finally we all enjoyed a good breakfast.
The morning activity was to create a sketch or piece of entertainment that could be used at the jamboree. This meant we couldn't speak much English as other Scouts may not understand us.
True to our name, we came up with an aeroplane sketch that we hoped would be perfect for the jamboree. After a quick lunch in the sun, we split up into our patrols for a drop hike! Each patrol was dropped off into Melton Mowbray, given a map and told to get back to camp with a picture of a pork pie. We thought it was going to be easy- however we didn't realised we were going to be blindfolded! If you peeked Ali and Kev took you further, unluckily Harry, from the other patrol, peeked and they got taken another mile out from the site!
After a lovely hike back to camp, we had a little rest period before the TV challenge began. The TV challenge was four famous television challenge programmes with adapted challenges for the four patrols to compete in.
The first: to sew a kimono. It had to fit and be modelled by a unit member and any extra appliqué was allowed. The second: to make a specialised Japanese honey cake. Any specialised moulds or decorations were allowed. The third: to decorate a tent with the theme: Japan. And the fourth was to make sushi with the given ingredients, and present professionally. We had two hours as a patrol to complete these challenges. After a busy two hours sewing, cooking, baking and decorating as well as squeezing in time for a quick piece of Steve and Kev's special bbq chicken. Judging commenced shortly after each round being judged out of 25. Sadly my patrol didn't win but came in joint second.
After another peaceful night KIT DAY OCCURRED! This was the day we received all of our issued kit for the Jamboree and another post will be uploaded shortly discussing the kit we have gotten in more detail.
In one of the pockets of our main suitcase, however, were 6 cards each with possibilities of flights, airports and home hospitality destinations. We had to work together to work out which were correct. Finally we found out that excitingly, we have a direct flight from London's Heathrow to Tokyo Narita airport and for Ho-Ho we are staying in the Kanazawa area!
Before we knew it, that was the end of the weekend and once again the Highflyers are one weekend closer to Japan!
