Blogs from Hailsham, East Sussex, England, United Kingdom, Europe

Last day of training today. It was a bit sad as I have enjoyed this week very much. We have learnt a lot and made good friendships. We learnt some lashing today and by creating a zig-zag we could then twist it and turn it into a star. There is a woodland just down the road from the scout camp and I could see a beautiful carpet of woodland anemones as I was driving past each day. I tried to find access yesterday down a side road but there was no thoroughfare. Today I just drove up onto the side of the A22 and climbed over the wire fence to get some beautiful pictures. Apart from it being close to the road it was a lovely carpet of white in the forest. I then drove the ... read more

Awoke to bright sunshine this morning. It was a bit of a shock! By the time I'd finished my beautiful breakfast and arrived at the scout camp, the clouds had come over again. Today we learnt more about tools, fire and tent building. The theory part of today was an environmental impact study on the area where Forest Schools are run, woodland in the UK and bush at home in Australia. The tool we learnt about today was the billhook. It's a short bladed cutting tool for splitting smaller logs. It requires two people to operate. I'm not even sure if they are available in Australia as this is the first time I've actually seen one. It worked really well on the English softwood like oak but I'm not sure how successful it would be on ... read more

The course I came all this way for started this morning. I'm only a couple of kilometres down the road from the Scout Camp where the course is being held. There are 15 people doing this course including me. No one has come as far as I have! There are only two guys doing this course so mostly women. We spent the morning getting to know each others names and where we all come from. We went out into the forest. Luckily today was a non-rainy day. It was chilly and grey. There has been so much rain that the forest was really muddy. My boots felt about 2kgs heavier with the mud on them. We played some games, wandered through the forest, found some fungus and apparently there were lots of voles running around. I ... read more

I arrived in England on September 3 and the flight was good, but one of my bags was lost which was not fun at all. On the flight over I met Emily, who actually goes to Etown with me and Jane who goes to Queen's University in Canada. We arrived at the castle and it wasn't quite what I expected at first but it was an amazing sight. That week was full of orientation, listening to speakers, and filling out papers. I also took a tour of the castle and gardens and had a beer, which I decided i don't like in the castle pub. Thursday I did receive my suitcase which made me very happy! On Friday they had a rugby practice and two hand touch game in which I participated and had a lot ... read more

So so much to tell, and probably not quite enough time to tell it in so I’ll have to sum up a bit. Two weekends ago was our trip to the Courtauld institute to see the Impressionist greats. It’s a very small place and there were hardly any people there so when we came to the entrance I really just wasn’t expecting much. Fortunately, I couldn’t have been more wrong. They had arguably the most important works ever painted by Renoir, Cézanne, Gauguin, Cassatt, and even Manet, as well as incredibly important works by Toulouse-Lautrec, Morisot, Pissarro and Monet. There’s something insanely inspiring about standing in front of a painting that you’ve contemplated for years, and that was absolutely my experience standing in front of Cézanne’s portraits, which are painted in an very thought out manner ... read more