"Give me an 'A'"

Okay, so this time I'm going to brag before Jess does it on my behalf. After a four week wait for my last assignment, I finally got my result - an 'A'. Yeah, yeah, I know - humility is an admirable quality, but who cares - I GOT AN A, PEOPLE.
But, my boots are already growing, as my next assignment is proving to be an absolute pain and, once again, I don't know where to start. If the past is anything to go on though, I'll just wait until the day before it's due in and then go flat-out at it. That seems to have worked before!

Anyhoo, it's been a good week - well a cold one. We had our Scout Wintercamp at Gilwell Park, Essex, with over 2000 other Scouts. On Thursday I had to go to the site to pitch some tents, and thanks go to Ian for his assistance which was much needed, and to Jan for picking up the kids, seeing as we got lost in the pea-soup fog on the way back looking for the M25! I had to leave home early on Friday too to pitch the tents that we didn't have time for on Thursday, and I had a nectic time, loading the van, unloading the van onto a trailer, unloading the trailer a hundred yards from our site and then transferring all the kit, singlehandedly from where it was dropped. I then had to set up; get the generator and gas cooker working (which I failed at coz my fingers were completely numb and painful by this point!) and then collect all the boys from the car park as they arrived at intervals.
Thankfully, two parents stuck around while I got things sorted until Al turned up about 8:30pm.
Sleeping on Friday night didn;t really happen due to the pain in my feet because they were so cold and my hot-water bottle didn't last as long as I'd hoped. But the boys seemed to sleep enough (eventually) and had a great day on Saturday doing lots of activities. Joel came back with his target sheet after Air Rifle shooting and he was a crack shot. Almost half of his hits were in the centre ring.
We slept slightly better on Saturday night after thawing out slightly in the sauna...er...I mean the overheated marquee thanks to the gas burners we had on full blast. But Sunday morning was freezing, but then we warmed up as we broke camp.
All in all it was an 'okay' experience, but we won't be doing it again in a hurry.

Last night, we had our firs M.O.T. evening in the church centre. Catering for 60 men, we had just over 70 turn up, but we still all came home with loads of cheese each. A great night for men just to get to know other guys and to chat, drink and eat. 'Great crack!' as one guy put it.