swans – Bushcraft Days

Hard to believe that just a couple of days ago we had a good covering of snow (nothing like in the North & West of the UK though) and then in a flash it was gone.

We have an informal and relaxed service at 9am in our Church – St James in Bramley that I attend when I can (other conflicts being Finlay’s Footie or Cadet weekends). After the service I left Jerry and Finlay to clean the hall and had a stroll around the cemetery to see what I could find.

I spotted a lovely dew covered Daffodil and a grave marker for one of The Old Contemptibles – James Johnson – I will have to try and find out a bit more about James and his time in the army. The term Old Contemptibles is supposed have come from from an order from the Kaiser at the beginning (as known then) of the Great War when he reputedly ordered his army to “exterminate … the treacherous English and walk over General French’s contemptible little army”.

The Vyne

After dropping Finlay off at a friends house Catherine Alison and myself all headed over to The Vyne National Trust property that is near Bramley. The Vyne had been shut during the cold snap and just re-opened again.

My first spot was some Lungwort near the main house however as usual it was the sight of the 100 Guinea Oak that got my attention. This grand 600 year old oak (Quercus robur) is propped up by a couple of poles because of damage caused by the main road to its roots (the oak was there before the road) but it is still a magnificent sight to look at. For scale you can just see Catherine in the bottom right corner of the picture.

Old & New

I was not expecting to see too much but I was pleasantly surprised to see plenty of late winter/early spring plants such as the Primrose, Winter Aconites, Snowdrops and one or two Cowslips. All these dainty little flowers were popping up near the sight of a rather rough and silvery dead conifer trunk – quite a contrast.

On the Water

I spent a lot of time watching life go by on the water. There was one lovely spot where the Snowdrops drooped over a stream, a Swan cruised by a wood carving of itself and the Ducks were happy to get some ice free water to feed under.

Amongst the Trees

There are a wide range of trees at the Vyne however the Cedar of Lebanon does produce a rather grand seed that sits upright. There were also plenty of nodules sticking out of the ground under some conifers on the bank of the lake – no idea what causes this but will check it out.

After a lovely coffee and cake it was time to pick the boy up from his friends and head home.

A Happy Spring Sunday.

Cheers

George

Since 2010 I have been part of the team running the Basic Expedition Leader (BEL) Award in London Area Sea Cadets. I have lost count of the number of potential Adventure Leaders I have trained and assessed over the years and more keep coming – we must be doing something right 🙂

This year we were joined by Roy Sellstrom from Southern Area Sea Cadets as he is looking to start the course in his area. The award is nationally recognised and the success of London Area has started to be noticed now by other Sea Cadet areas.

As the course is designed to be undertaken by students with very little adventure training experience we cover all the basics that a good leader should know. These included classes on clothing, rucksacks, leaders kit, stoves, the law and tents to name just a few we covered.

Our group contained a mixed bunch in terms of experience with quite a few who have been Adventure Leaders under the old Sea Cadet qualification system and are now looking to get this nationally accredited BEL award. This helps us as instructors as we can buddy the students up to share knowledge with each other.

The first weekend is always undertaken at a Sea Cadet unit (this year once again at TS Black Swan) so that those students who are not so experienced can be introduced to the subject in a more controlled manner. As the weekends go on they will be operating out of campsites in different parts of the country and passing on their new found skills to cadets as we observe them.

Not all the classes are indoors and we get outside for subjects such as looking at tent and stove designs. These are very hands on classes designed to let the students have time to get to know some of types of kit cadets will bring along to camps. Life would be easy if we could issue our cadets with all the same kit but as we are a charity each unit must source their own kit so it all comes in different shapes and sizes.

One of the reasons I love running this weekend out of TS Black Swan is the great food we always get. The galley staff are always there to feed us from breakfast time to supper time and this is really appreciated by everyone as it lets us get on with all the classes we need to cram into this course.

No course run out of TS Black Swan would be complete without a little bit of relaxation time in the wardroom in the evening :-). Also the fact that the unit is in Sunbury on the Thames helps with the great views as you walk out of the door.

Normally I get to spend my evenings on my friend Paul’s canal boat but this year it was booked out with his new lady friend 🙁 Sort it out for next year would you Paul – I miss my bunk).

While we were running our classes there was plenty of other things going on at the unit including a Seamanship class and a Power Boat class. I spent my breaks sitting by the Thames seeing what was happening and hoping for the odd decent picture.

Sunday morning was all about map and compass work. After a couple of classes by Roy and John on compasses and maps we were all off out onto the North Downs to practice our navigation.

We broke the teams up into small groups as we had plenty of instructional staff and really concentrated on giving the students some quality tuition. A massive weighting in the assessment is on navigation so this is a skill we practice and test on every training weekend.

One minute the students would be in the woods trying to figure out the paths, then out in the open gauging distance, then to find themselves trying to figure out the best way to get a group across a busy road.

In between all this we had plenty of breaks to sit down and discuss all these skills and to just appreciate the countryside around us.

Back in the woods we started to meet up with the other groups as we took them of the paths and got them to work out their route using signs from the land around them. We get very attached to paths and I am a firm believer in getting off the path every now and then and adventuring about.

There are plenty more trips on this course ahead including Dartmoor, Ashdown Forest and the New Forest before the assessment at the end of the year.

Cheers

George

Tag: swans

A Spring Sunday

The 2017 Adventure Leaders – Weekend 1