Maze 2018

The theme this year was the NHS so it was Ambulance shaped.

We had friends from abroad staying with us so we went very early in the season.  The height was still fairly low but it was high enough to tower over the head of our young friend and just see through enough for us not to panic if she ran off to another path. But it was still high enough and thick enough for it to be a full on challenge.

Being as they may not have been as 'dedicated' as me and HWMBO to walk every inch of path and Cog isn't currently well enough, we did just enough to collect all the boards - which actually is still most of it.

We had the map with the number boards and the quiz boards marked on it.  It seemed sensible with post-sepsis legs and little legs in the group.  Most other years we  take the one without them marked so make it more of a challenge.


We went midweek, the car park was still heaving but it copes with numbers, it is huge.

As always my tips for visiting a maize maze are:

Call in advance, they will tell you how muddy (or not) the paths are and if you need wellies, trainers or sandals. And then stick all 3 in the boot anyway!

Take a small backpack, with waterproofs, hats, and bottles of water.

Take cash - ours is on a farm and only take cash - I'm sure lots (There are many across the country) take card but best be prepared.

Take a couple of pens - they will charge you for a pen.

If you want to make it easier, take a highlighter pen and mark off the paths as you go round.

Ours is totally wheel chair and pushchair accessible unless it was really really muddy. They have lots of viewing platforms and helpers, you won't lose your children (for long) no matter how hard you try and they have quick exits so you can get out to the loos and then go back in again without having to walk a million miles.

At ours there are lots of other games and mini mazes to do as well, picnic tables and plenty of parking. It is an easy, fun day out and I thoroughly recommend it for a family few hours of togetherness and exercise....oh yes and yelling at each other debating about which way to go!


And for my own viewing pleasure, as maze post tradition now dictates, here is my maze gallery:


2017 - A hot year and a good crop

























2016  was a bad year all round but points to us for still making the effort to go.

 

2015

This was a good crop year and a fun afternoon with friends.

2014
The weather couldn't make up it's mind, warm, sunny and wet at different points of the walk.

















2013

This was the best crop they'd had in a long time.





2012
Dreadful crop year. But the sunflowers meant it was still well worth seeing.














2011

The owners said it was a bad crop year. It seemed pretty tall to me, but maybe it's about the size and number of the maize itself, not just the height of the plant.










2010

The height was there but the plants were rather lame








2009




A wet year I think as we are wearing wellies.









2008   Again not too bad a height.




















2007
Looks like another bad year.
















Cog  always reminds me that 2006 was the 'alien' year and she went with her father, not me.








2005

. 

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Every Girl Dice Game for Rangers

I've been struggling with coming up with the best way to introduce the new programme to my ranger unit,  in order to plan what to do they need to understand the nitty gitty of how may hours of this and parts of that it all involves.

There is a beetle type activity in the Autumn 2018 Guiding magazine but it is light weight on detail and I like the rangers to be up and running fast on any activity.  So I've come up with a 'game card' for them to use.



I plan to quickly run through the themes with them and pin up the dice making poster that came with the magazine.



Set up 2 tables away from the 'playing area':
One with the programme resources on: the skills builder cards, the unit meeting activity cards and printed out interest badges (These can be printed from the official website directly but it is untidy and wastes ink, HQ have given permission to hold copies of the badge and syllabus to download and show the girls or for printing out if you don't have wifi in the meeting place) 
One with sweets, biscuits, cut up fruit or whatever type of treat will motivate the Rangers best.



They will each throw the dice in turn (use smaller groups of girls if you have a large unit).  They need a six to start.  On a six that girl can go to the resource table and choose a theme. She can write it on her playing card.

After that, on each turn as she throws the dice and if she gets a number she needs, she can fill up her Theme section in any order, either going to the resources table or the treats table as indicated on the card.  When she fills it she can shout 'THEME' and get an extra treat.

Once she has her 'THEME' she can move on to trying to throw a 1, 2 or 3.  Once she has them ticked off she can shout 'GOLD' to win.

Let your girls decide whether they want to play on until they all get GOLD or restart the game.

I'm going to use laminated cards and dry wipe markers, but keep a note of what they write in the bonus box, for planning later. The bonus box is not required for a win - it is just a bonus.

I'm hoping this will get them familiar with the structure of the theme awards, the concept of the Section gold award, the cards themselves and the interest badges.

Once we've played and treated out, I'll remind them that interest badges are out of unit activities, and UMAs and Skills Builders will be done in the unit setting. Hopefully they will have seen a skills builder they fancy for the term and can decide between them what they might like to do as a unit (we are too small to do it in groups to start off with).

They also might have seen a few UMAs they fancy.   The UMAs they do should be from a different theme to the Skills Builder they choose for a good balance, but to start off I'm not going to be precious about it.  If they can find stuff they want to do from the new resources I'll just be happy with that, I've not been especially impressed with the activities and if they are happy and motivated to do them then I will be made up.

So this is my plan for introducing the new programme to the unit - the usual way: games and food - it's always worked before so I  see no reason to change that pattern!  Wish me luck.

As always, the resources are available to download here if you want to use them.  But, please, I spend so much time on these things, don't repost them as your own in other forums, be polite and credit me.

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Record keeping for Rangers

Girlguiding has an online system that if I were in my day job mode I could explain to you forever and a day why it stinks, but in my evening role as volunteer I simply say we keep records in this system.  And that has been the case with all the information about member details for a few years now.  Until recently all records about what badges girls had achieved were kept on paper. Now it will also be kept online and that is great for a holistic view and historical records but as I've said before, for the Rangers themselves and for me in the meeting place that system is of little use.

The Rangers will be offered record books to ignore or diligently lose.  Their choice as far as I am concerned.











But I will continue to keep my trusty blue book with both old and new programme records for a while until Look Wider ages out.

And to add to the storage joy I have now also gained an extra 6 folders to store.












My trusty blue book contains the Look Wider programme that has been read over and over by me and the Rangers when trying to decide whether something 'counted' towards their Look Wider badges.

It now also contains the New Programme notes which I know we will be rereading to clarify things for a while.

The detail about the change over period that covers off questions about things like uniform, age range changes etc  So I can give the girls the facts each time not just what I manage to remember.

A one page recording sheet for each Ranger that will start the New Programme.

A one page record for each of the girls that will be sat in the change over rules.

The Look Wider record for the girls that will finish off on Look Wider before it (and they) retires.

That trusty blue book will be our unit bible and I will transfer everything that gets written onto it into the online recording system.

The six new folders contain all the programme resources relating to each of our new themes.

So in each folder there is a UMA section with all the activity cards relating to that theme.









A Skills Builder section with all the skills builder cards relating to that theme (levels 5 & 6 for both sections in the theme)








And a print out of the 3 interest badges for the theme for the girls to get an idea of what they involve too.  (Deciding to hold prints of these is a bit of a gamble as they will date and the girls will have to check online when they do the badge to make sure they are working from an up to date syllabus)

So my plan is that the girls will be able to look at everything in an organised way but when they plan they will need to choose UMAs and Skills Builders from different folders so we have a good mix for our meeting nights.  Once they've chosen I will move the ones we are going to do to yet another folder so we know what we are doing and once they are done they will be returned to the organised filing folders.

At least it is the plan, I'll let you know if it works.

So just to recap:  I AM A VOLUNTEER. I do this for free in my own limited time and yet the level of control and admin that is now being  given to us is huge and clearly time consuming.  I believe the ivory tower guider's long term plan is this is all going to make my life easier.  Again, I'll let you know if it works. But currently my jury is definitely out!

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Post Sepsis - 3 months

So Cog is just under 3 months out of intensive care.

She’s still exhausted, often feeling ill and regularly in pain.

There is no path post sepsis on the NHS. She goes to the GP fairly often, she’s had antibiotics for a few things like an eye stye, that was getting bigger and bigger, and an infected bite but each thing is looked at in isolation.

I’m paying through the nose for her to see a counsellor weekly to help her through the emotional trauma.

She’s been to see a private consultant about her after meal cough she has developed since being intubated.

She’s been to the GP to ask for blood tests for ‘everything’ to try to help find out why she is in so much pain so often.  She has also asked for help with disability support related to Post Sepsis Syndrome.  The GPs do not seem to have experience in anything Post Sepsis and getting help is proving impossible. 

For the most part she looks fit and well, this doesn’t help her. People see a healthy young adult and look at her in judgement when she is sitting and I am standing or when she cannot get out and do stuff.

She needs to avoid germs, her body isn’t able to deal with them yet (ever again?). So she has had to cancel plans and things she’d signed up to do and the JudgyMcJudgy world does what it does best.

She’s not yet 3 months away from death, I’m hoping that this will improve but forum signs indicate what she is experiencing could go on for many many years or *shrug* life.

Time will tell.

When you are a young adult, it’s hard to be patient with time.

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Gromit Unleashed 2

Having got myself hooked on trails with Shaun in the City, and having the good fortune to bump into the Snow Dog in Brighton, we found ourselves in Bristol during the Gromit Unleashed 2 trail.

This was a happy coincidence to other plans so we took in sculptures as we came across them on our travels rather than going full out to do the trail, but we still found a respectable 13.

 I didn't take photos at them all.

 Many were inside shopping centres or shops.

 Some looked great from one angle...

 And then looking again appeared to be in a rather dubious position!

 Wallace is on this Grand tour as well as Gromit.

 In many guises.

















And Feathers McGraw, the master of disguise is also there.  This one, deep inside a hotel, was a challenge to find but we did take time out to go look for him because we were so perplexed that the GPS said we were there but could not see him in the street.  We saw one go past us on the Ferry (we were in a different ferry!) So we saw it but did not get its number to log it.


The trail being on rather endeared me to Bristol, which is a rather 'earthy' town to say the least.  It made for a little extra fun to be had.




If you are going to Bristol, download the app before you go, it costs £1.99 but the money goes to Charity.  It is worth getting.

Have a look at the trophies you can collect before you go, there are a few you will collect if you have a read first on what they are.

Beware the app will drain your phone battery, it is a GPS app and will kill your battery as fast as any other maps app.

You can pick up the official trail paper map at a number of places and you can also download it as a pdf.  See the official website for details.

I always find following the apps for these trails easier than the map though, the arrow tells you the direction you are walking in and keeps you on the straight and narrow!

The trail is on until the 2nd September 2018.

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Counting Holiday Blessings

20 toes cooling in the sea.

2 mooching on the sea shore

A 3rd person to take a 2 people photo

a 2nd person to laugh at a 3rd person with

A hole in 1

Some 1 else to play the fool

1 person sat watching the sun going down counting blessings of the happy kind















1 very brave person, struggling through, with constant fear of infection, nightmares about the trauma survived, severe fatigue, muscle wastage,  throat problems, and still battling the old daemons.

'Brave' doesn't do her justice.

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