World Scout Jamboree (mini) reunion

A couple of weeks ago, I met with some of my World Scout Jamboree unit in Birmingham. The reunion included Blue the bear and if you remember Brian the flamingo. Yes, you read that right, we walked around Birmingham with a flamingo and a bear.

We started the day off with coffee before then heading to do a little bit of shopping. We went into the Worlds largest Primark where there was a Disney cafĂ©, a Harry Potter section, and over 5 floors of clothing and sales. In the make up section, we decorated Brian (the flamingo) with some of the eyeshadow before we headed to get some food to eat. The downfall here was, we all agreed to meet at McDonalds, except we went too 2 different stores – however, En route we did see a Santander building. (I’m still a proud member of the International Anthony Santander Fan Club)!

After lunch we did a bit more shopping and went into all 3 Pandora shops looking for a charm for my friend. In the end, we managed to find the charm in one of the shops. We then wondered around for a little while before, one of my friends brothers (who did attend WSJ) met up with us and so he took a photo of us by the Bullring statue. We all then wondered around for a bit more until it was nearly time to leave – in order for everyone to be able to get the right trains home as in the morning there was a little bit of a train issue.

A couple of us went into Tesco Express before saying goodbye where we brought a meal deal to share between us all. The chicken and bacon sandwich was very nice – thank you! It was then time to say our goodbyes before everyone headed home.

As I then went to meet my parents, we spotted some bears in H&M home, so conveniently, Blue had to have a photo with them. Also, as we headed home we stopped at IKEA for our usual rendezvous before continuing to head home.

BLOGMAS (day 1)

Hi all, to get into the spirit of Christmas (and writing more blog posts more frequently), I have tasked myself with taking part in a challenge I like to call BLOGMAS. It requires me to write a blog post each and every day counting down the days until Christmas. Blue might write a few blog posts as well here and there. For now, lets get into todays blog.

Yesterday evening I attended my County’s Explorer and Network ball. It was thoroughly enjoyable and I got to see my friends from across the County. I got to see Santa and sang many classic Scouting songs. To top off the night, the World Scout Jamboree Participants all sang Country Roads swaying together in a circle.

The badge we recieved

There was a Pick ‘n Mix, Buffet and drinks all to our delight. We even got a badge from the event (I can’t say enough how there is a badge for everything in Scouting!). It was a lovely evening and I cannot wait to see all of my Scouting friends again soon.

Cathedral – the final event before WSJ

So last Friday my county had our last meetup at my districts Cathedral. We all wore (apart from a few who ‘forgot’) our Jamboree uniform and hence mostly all rocked our UK shorts.

At first we got a tour of the Cathedral learning about the Edward Jenner statue and how his discoveries helped to prevent small pox. We also learnt of the structure of the cathedral and how the east window is the size of a tennis pitch. Our county was able to climb the cathedral tower where we were able to go into the bell rooms. Once we climbed to the top we admired the view as well as had a photo opportunity. There were also a few presentation’s to be given out.

As we climbed back down the tower I realised how tired I had become – this was not a good sign given that I would be on the Jamboree site in now less than a week. Our guide then took us towards the choir seats where we received a blessing to wish us well on the journey.

We then had a quick Q&A session but had to travel through the cloister’s (where part of Harry Potter was filmed). We had a few questions and later on was given an itinerary from our unit leaders (whom some had travelled from the other county my unit is made up from). This was proceeded by a short speech from our county commissioners who reminded us of who we were representing (UK Scouts and our own county).

There was then a few more photo opportunities and thank yous as we then parted our ways to all see one another the following Saturday.