Hello Everyone !
Its been a while, somehow I never got round to writing about the last meeting we had as Unit 8. . .
The last meeting was at Stokenchurch and was only a one day event, when I get hold of some photos of the day I will hopefully post them, but for now, I'd like to show you what happened when we all united back at the Quarries campsite in Milton Keynes. I'll keep it brief.
Every unit attending the Jamboree has to present and organise an activity relevant to their culture and background, we have so far put quite a bit of thought into what we want to do so began Saturday morning testing out our ideas. Bearing in mind that Stoke Mandeville, in Bucks, was the birth place of the Paralympic Games, we want to bring some paralympic sports all the way to Japan !
Leader Stuart, had kindly researched 4 different paralympic events, and brought along the equipment for us to have a go at and work out which will be best to take to the Jamboree. We all gave it a go, with some fairly varied results . . .
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| Sitting Volleyball wasn't too hard |
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| Goal ball, blindfolded with a bell in the balls |
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| Blind Football |
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| This was probably the hardest of the sports |
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| Things got quite heated |
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| Boccia, essentially seated boules |
After trying out the sports, we moved on to the second part of our task as a unit for the Jamboree. We have to make and give out small amounts of food to again, reflect the culture and area we are from. At our last meeting, we did a lot of brainstorming and came up with the idea to make sweets and chocolates like those from Roald Dhal stories; Roald Dhal lived and wrote in Great Missenden which, obviously, is in Bucks.
Under the careful guidance of head chef Stuart, we attempted to make 'Candy Coated Pencils for Sucking in Class', or in our case 'Candy Coated Chopsticks for Eating Before Lunch'. To say things got messy is an understatement, however, some of us did manage to make something vaguely similar to that in the recipe.
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| 'Just follow the recipe Matt !' |
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| We went for green orange flavored candy |
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| Attempting to cover our chopsticks |
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| Concentration was key |
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| They weren't the easiest things to make |
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| Candy Coated Pencils for Sucking in Class |
Once again, we had a mixture of Sushi and sausage rolls for lunch, sat around Cathy's 'Imaginary table'.
After lunch, we were lucky enough to be given three presentations from three students at the University of Buckingham. Miki, who we had already met at our July meeting, gave a really interesting presentation about daily life in Japan, filling us in about taking shoes off when entering a guests house and loads of other small features of Japanese culture. We were then told about 'Kawaii' culture, essentially Hello Kitty and photo-booths, which literally means 'Cute'. Our final visitor told us more about food traditions in Japan, especially making sure you say 'Itadakimasu' before and after eating. Luckily for me, and I'm pretty sure many of the other guys in the unit, its considered polite to clear your plate and ask for more, signifying you have enjoyed the meal !
We then had a little wonder around the campsite to get some fresh air and after taking a couple of selfies, headed back to the hut to play some more sitting volley ball. Some of the unit formed a little study group, catching up on homework and revising whilst myself , Grace and Amber did cartwheels and hurdled the volley ball net, as you can tell, we are a very serious and academically dedicated group . . .
Its come to my attention that all I ever seem to do on training weekends is eat, which is just about all we did for the next two hours. Stuart once again led the marathon effort of cooking for 30 people and delivered us a great meal of spag bol and stir fry, followed by apple crumble. The pictures don't quite do dinner justice, it tasted better than it looks.
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| Itadakimasu |
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| Home made apple crumble |
Another thing we have to do out in Japan is to have something to perform at campfires and when visiting other units. Chris Field took charge of organising us into some sort of musical arrangement, but to be honest, we sounded more like a group of strangled cats than a choir. I would post the video but its far to embarrassing for everyone involved, however it can't be denied that we had a laugh trying to sing in some sort of rhythm as a group.
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| Chris conducting the Unit 8 Choir |
Saturday finished with us playing various games and listening to an unusual amount of George Ezra for some reason. We all slept on the floor in the hut and attempted to get a decent nights sleep. . .
As per usual, we started Sunday morning with a cooked breakfast; eggs, bacon, beans and sausages always go down well.
We had to leave the hut by 9 on Sunday, so it was only 10 by the time we had built another set of A Frames for racing. Unfortunately, the weather got progressively worse throughout the morning so we hadn't raced for too long before we lost all feeling in our fingers and were absolutely drenched.
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| I could not feel my hands by this point |
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Because of the wet and cold weather, we decided to cut the day short, finishing off by trying to warm up drinking hot chocolate and receiving a Christmas tag telling us who we had for Secret Santa.
Once again, another great weekend with people I can firmly call my friends, despite the weather we all had a pretty enjoyable time !
Thanks for reading
Lauren x
