Exiting April

A pair of locks next to the lock keepers cottage, it is hard to imagine this could be close to a heavily developed area that in some twenty odd years has changed so much since I've personally known it.

Postbox hats are a craze here and this one is for Spring by the post office in a mid victorian group of properties.

The trees come out in colour

 

The foilage returns to the magnificent trees in a undeveloped area between the principal road with a mixture of Victorian properties with extensive infill development and the massive late twentieth estate that ate much first rate agricultural land.

The trees were planted in part to deal with flooding which did help and subsidence issues that plague this district being a rare thing to have in a busy centre.

St. Georges Day

 

Yesterday was the 23rd of April which is St. Georges Day who is not just the Patron Saint of England but of the scouting movement as a whole and to which we mark usually on the nearest Sunday to the day but as this year it fell on a Sunday event took place yesterday.

Here parades were held and we renewed our Scout promises.

Blossoms are out

It's Spring all right, my nose is twitching a bit from hayfever I'm afraid but it's a great time to be out and about here.

Part of the reason for that twitching and sneezing is due to the blossoms that emerging such is this magnificient specimen spotted in our local park looking and smelling so fresh and full of life.

Just looking at a branch worth shows how beautiful they really are although trying to keep the focus fully locked when it was blowing taking these pictures was a challenge as was avoiding the odd bee.

Scouts at ease

 

Take four scouts and two instruments, clearly posed and one suspects they had been parading at some point before this photograph, carefully enhanced,was taken that shows the older scouting uniform ethos very much out of Scouting For Boys.

The drop

 Some measure of extent to which land has dropped here due to subsidence can be seen in this photograph where there is a sharp drop from the foreground to the fields below dropping to the start of a stream.

Off and out

I'm going to be off for a couple of days having finished off my last Easter Egg this morning so I have been rather engaged with packing as in wash bag, change of clothes, supplies to take with me and so on.

I do rather hope I have a better time at it from this young chap who looks bored rigid who is wearing a pretty good uniform with footwear woith good thick soles which really does help and a watch too.

Perhaps he's got ahead of the reminder of the group and so is having to wait at an agreed point until the others show up?

Things from the past

 

We've two sheds here, one more a functional storage area, the other more a place where things seem to go into to never return so I can anticipate just what thoughts are going through that ladies mind when two scouts turn up on Bob-A-Job week asking if there's anything they can do.

She's chosen doing the gardening for which her shed is used a the place to store neatly the tools including a manual lawn mower, something incidientally I haven't seen for years as most here are electric.

Those not around in its heyday might wonder how this was managed and a part of it lives in my visual memory and that part is the Bob-a-job week labels scheme

Put simply a few million yellow labels printed  help to prevent a person who has been visited by Scouts being bothered by further calls once they has helped the cause by giving a job.

Every Scout and Cub in the country was issued with a supply of these labels of which I saw a load of at the time and you were instructed to give one of them to the householder when the job has been done and their  green job card signed.

A note on the label asks that if no further calls are required the label be displayed in a prominent position such as in a window so as a Scout you'd see if someone else had beaten you too it and move on.

Scout news

 

It was announced Tuesday April 4th that Scouts had won a £6.35M grant from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) Uniformed Youth Fund, the largest award to date received.

A similar award with given to GirlGuiding UK.

This will enable support for continued work, not least in the more disadvantaged communities in the UK in providing opportunities for children and young people to follow through the five current programs offered and the volunteer and behind the scenes support that underpins it.

The funds aim is to reduce waiting lists and to create new provision. 

This will will create 7,250 new places for 10 to 18 year-olds in under-represented and levelling up areas, where young people are most in need of what Scouts has to offer. 

Apart from this welcome news, Scouts is involved in The Big Help Out, a series of events to work towards organizing events in local areas to raise awareness of and gain new members to volunteering, which as someone who has I will say helps you gain new skills and makes a real difference in many areas.

At ease

 

It's been pretty mild lately and while out I caught these two ducks having a playful swim in the local canal when sat, taking a rest.

Scouting and Photography do have a history together, for one thing Eastman-Kodak did market a series of cameras for Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts in the early part of the last century.

This one uses the no longer available 620 roll film, has a carrying handle around the film advance knob and the shutter release on the right.

Maybe that picture is Badge worthy?

One boys adventure stops...

Well after three years under the stars, Max Woosey, otherwise known as Tent Boy slept his last consequiative night in his tent on Sunday before folding and packing it up having raised some £750,000 for his local hospice.

That set a new Guiness authenticated record for the maximum amount of money raised by a individual camping having started this back in 2020 during "lockdown" having been gifted a tent by a man who was in that hospice with the message to have an adventure.

His achievement, in all weathers is a fine example of just what young boys and girls can do and he truly deserved the many awards bestowed upon him for it.

 He's recently picked a new bed as as a thirteen year old, he'd grown physically quite a bit since he slept in the original.

Your wellbeing

 

Exploring the way some did things in the past but today we'd seriously suggest "thumbing a lift" wasn't a thing even worth thinking about because of the wellbeing and safeguarding issues involved in isolated areas with little habitation.

You may miss out on potentially fascinating conversations but it's not worth the risk and as someone who is more vulnerable I'm used to weighing these things up for myself whenever I'm alone and thinking ahead responses before I make that journey out.

Staying safe matters.