April Training Weekend

Hi! Lizzy here,

I’ve been asked to talk about the April training weekend, another “Green Camping” weekend = no toilets! I arrived at crag wood prepared for the cold weather. We started the weekend with photos of the expedition being presented a cheque, shortly followed by flag break (except that we managed to break the flag – oops).

                  On the first night we split up into the groups that we will be in for the actual expedition. While one group were cooking some soup for supper and slicing bread, other groups were collecting wood for the cooking fires and putting up the tents donated for Kenya. It was interesting to see how we could put up one tent with the wrong number of poles that were the wrong size. We also had a laugh trying every combination of inner tents to an odd outer. Tired and hungry we retired to the mess tent to welcome our supper.

                  The next day had the order of a normal day in Kenya. We woke up and set to work. One group were in charge of making breakfast, other groups were learning different building skills with Steve and Karen. The awesome group 4 however, (my group) were clearing the drains so that the campfire area would drain properly and not be quite so boggy. You could call it an “interesting” experience. Once this was done it was time for breakfast - Cereal, porridge and bacon butties – yum yum. My group moved to clearing the leaves and sludge from the stream that runs through the campsite. After this we moved to “rendering” with Steve. While four groups were on the campsite, two other groups were building some alter fires at Egglescliffe scout hut.

After learning how to finish walls properly with the cementy stuff on the outside, team 4 moved to making lunch. We were preparing soup, sandwiches, crisps, chocolate biscuits and (of course) fruit. I was on buttering duty and enjoyed the repetitiveness of buttering what felt like 1,000,000 pieces of bread. I was then promoted to making the insides of sandwiches, salad, tuna-mayo etc. while I was inside the cooking tent; other members of my team were handing out snacks and drinks. After we had lunch and finished the washing up, team four progressed to learning how to put the glass into window frames with Karen & Lauren. This was another “interesting” experience although in a different way.

We then moved back to the tents, it was decided that the tent without the inner sections would not be used in Kenya so we took it down. As we still couldn’t find the right poles for the dodgy triangular tent, we put that one in the pile with the unusable tents. As there was still quite some time before tea, the three teams that weren’t cooking or at Egglescliffe sat on the cargo net in the trees and passed a ball around, Lynchy was our ball boy and we discovered that only the people closest to me could throw me the ball as I would most likely drop it. Other people, however, would dive into a hole to catch it and still manage to stay on the net. This managed to keep us entertained for a few hours (we’re all easily amused). Before we knew it, it was tea time, but still no sign of the Egglescliffe groups. We were given some plates and bowls to take to Kenya. After tea, Karen took us to the tents and pointed out which tent would be who’s for the exhibition. We had to decide how to split the tent up as we would be taking it on the plane.

Finally, the other teams returned (I think they had stopped at the chippy on the way and that was why they were so late!). We started a campfire and split into some people being round the campfire and some staying in the mess tent.

The next morning my team took over cooking duty so that the other team that had been away yesterday could learn the building skills. Now I was on eggy-bread duty. The pan on the fire I had to fry the bread and then transport it into a tin-like thing that was on top of boiling water to keep it hot. We also made porridge and beans. I think we ended with about 60 pieces of eggy-bread. We washed up the pans and helped Janet to get everything clean and packed away. A final litter check, tents down and flag break can only mean one thing – the end of another successful training weekend.

Thanks for reading and taking an interest.

Lizzy Aumônier

Explorer