I have cautiously renamed our camp site Costa del a Grossmont. The sun has been beating down on us for three days in a most un-Welsh fashion. If it wasn’t for the accent of our postman and the check out lady at Waitrose I wouldn’t believe that we were actually in Wales. That said, the forecast suggests that the mini-heatwave is due to end tomorrow and a more ‘Welshlike’ climate resume.
Yesterday’s day hikes were a fantastic success allowing the Troop to witness some of the beautiful views and scenes first hand whilst also getting a sense of the topography and local community in which they would be living for the next two weeks. While they embarked on their hikes a few hardy souls intrepidly ventured into the Hereford Bookers. To say it is situated in a less than salubrious part of town would be an understatement. We bought enough pop, sweets and tuck to sink the Titanic and returned to camp to see weary boys on weary legs returning from their hikes. A quick health and safety briefing about going in the river and off they went to cool their sweat drenched faces (supervised by ASLs of course).
On Monday evening, Mr Causton ventured out to get a phone signal leaving me in charge of pop and crisps with the PLs once the other lads were tucked up in bed. Being a big softy and taking pity after witnessing their yawns and exclamations of tiredness, I abused my temporary power and set reveille at 08.30. Giving us all a precious extra 30 minutes in bed this morning!
So we awoke to another blue sky and I sat outside my tent to the smell of cooking ‘eggy bread’ (not one of my favourites) whilst sipping fresh coffee and refining the morning activity which I was running. This involved patrols going up against each other in a series of challenges of strength, speed, resilience, etc…. all with a little twist I had dreamed up to make the job a little bit harder! It seemed to go down ok with the boys and we moved gracefully into lunch which consisted of beautiful beef burgers (we use a fantastic local butcher for all our meat) cooked over an open fire. Wonderful!
The afternoon consisted of the second round of the Horner shield. I was due to go into Waitrose again to pick up supplies but, alas, on trying to start my car it was plainly obvious that the battery was flat. There are only so many electric devices the vehicle will take before saying enough is enough!
Rather than muck around with jump leads I called the AA. I do, after all, pay for the service and a lovely chap came and had everything working fantastically in 5 minutes. He confirmed nothing was wrong but that I should be more careful with charging my various electronic devices! There’s no fool like an old fool!
As I sit writing this, the boys are standing in silence as evening inspection takes place. All is calm so I assume that Mr Causton is happy. We have a sing song planned around the fire for later and so we move effortlessly and extremely quickly into the middle of week one.
