Jersey 2007

"Rosie where is my toothbrush!?" The answer I got was you packed it. Packing a couple of days early seemed very strange necessitated buying replacements for silly items but it was about time I got a new toothbrush. The camp did not really get started until 6.00am on Wednesday when my alarm went off or 6.30 in Jessica?s case who managed to sleep through me turning her light on and calling her name. She eventually woke and was dressed in her scout shirt before we arrived at the airport for 8.00am very hungry and with a full bag. Most of this spaces was occupied by the bop-it I was carrying and wondering if I was going to get it through customs. In the end it was 500ml bottle of suntan lotion in Jessica?s bag the customs didn?t like. Ooopp! They did say it could be put in the hold but I didn`t fancy staying by the conveyer belt waiting for a bottle of suntan lotion!

This was Jessica?s first flight and both me and Red were a little nervous how she would take to it. She fell asleep just after take off and only woke up when Red opened a tube of Pringles. Dave and Lee were waiting for us at the airport. Dave decided to walk back with the others, leaving the 3 of us & Lee to drive back in the mini-bus. Dave then handed me a Jersey £1 note and said you need to pay as you leave. What he did not tell me was the exit for the car park was as far away from the terminal as you could get and the pay machine was inside! What?s more when I got there I found the machines do not take £1 notes!

We arrived very impressed by the building with it?s large main hall complete with climbing wall, dining room, 2 bunk rooms, male, female ( which were swapped around ) disabled/first aid and leaders toilets/shower rooms. It also had a kitchen where we had tea before putting up tents.

Day 2

The morning revealed that one of the tents had a mini paddling pool under the ground sheet but this dried before the end of the day and was not seen again. Because of the over cast weather a trip to St. Helier was decided on. First stop tea shop then I started on my quest to raise the level of footwear I had from 1 to 2 pairs. We ended our trip around St. Helier by entering what looked like a small gift shop but ended up a warehouse over 2 floors of ever type of tacky gift you could think of.
Lunch was on the beach followed by rock pooling. Ray was in his element picking up crabs no photos though the photo group were a bit slow there. I then got a very strange look, well more of a stare from a large guy on a road sweeper. Maybe he was just admiring the big orange flower in my hair...

Despite the number of leaders we managed to leave Dan and most of the scouts at the underground Hospital whilst the 2^nd minibus run was the rest of the leaders! Is this proof that scouts can get ready quicker than adults? The hospital was not how I remembered it. Last time I seemed to remember more about the hospital where this time it seemed to be a lot more about the occupation, but it was sill very interesting. George disappeared with my camera and only returned because the memory card was full and Jess fell asleep half way round. We then had lunch in the garden of Rememberance where some child (not a scout) decided it would be fun to throw pine cones at us! Unknown to him his dad was behind him by the time I asked him to stop it.
The afternoon was spent on a picture perfect beach where we build our only fortress and went swimming. No one managed to build sandcastles faster than Jess could knock then down, though many tried.

Day 4

Activities! 1^st for our group was abseiling and Clive had planned everything to a T, we arrived 20 minutes early so had time to take in the view and ponder the lack of real rocks to abseil down. The abseiling wall turned out to be the large German gun emplacement / observation tower in front of us. Whilst the others abseiled, me and Jess went to explore the other fortifications. We both felt she was a little young for abseiling. She slept in the minibus on the way to the 2^nd activity, watersports where we had lunch on the beach waiting for the others to return.

After we had had lifejackets and wetsuits fitted and waded through 3 foot of slimy seaweed we were taken to a pontoon in the middle of the bay and from there participated in various water sports including water skiing, power boat rides and jet ski rides. The rest of the group left on the pontoon spent most of the time jumping in the water or in my case being pushed in! Getting back on to the pontoon wasn`t very easy though. There was a boat ladder they said we could use but that bent, the easiest way was jumping on the back of one of the jet skis.
Back on the beach we had a little wait to be picked up so we had a ice cream and built more sandcastles but still not as fast as Jess could knock them down.

Day 5

The Zoo was the furthest trip from the camp site. So it took a little time to get there. I was in the second group and the guides were waiting when we arrived to take us on a whistle stop tour of the Zoo. They were exceptionally knowledgeable but with Jess insisting on walking everywhere in a zig-zag line, it was hard to keep up.
Lunch was on the luscious green lawns where Bethany joined the 62^nd photo club lying on all fours to take photos of the flock of geese heading for us. Ray also got down on all fours to say hello to the geese. After lunch we left Dave sleeping for a wander round the Zoo.