Helen's blog

March 2009

March was started off with Operation Red Flare, an Explorer organised 13 mile incident night hike through the Surrey countryside. 2 Senior Section members and I went along and joined with 3 Explorers for the hike. It was somewhat challenging mainly because the 3 boys we were with were young and said they couldnt map read, so no pressure on us. We started at 8.15pm and 4 of us reached the finish at 6.15am. 2 of the boys dropped out as did half the teams competing. It was a very long night and a few eerie moments when you can just see hundreds of pairs of glowing eyes staring at you through the darkness which turned out to be a field of Shetland ponies and then sheep. Out of 20 teams we came in 8th position which we were quite pleased with.

Met up with my rangers this week, I havent seen them since Christmas and we had a great time catching up with each other and playing some board games as well as eating home made muffins that I had made earlier much to the delight of one of my rangers who polished off 3!

My moonwalk training is now well under way and this month I will be training with my colleagues doing 3 walks a week of increasing amounts, 5 miles power walking seems such a long way at the moment but Im sure by the end of the month thatll be nothing.

I had my first Chile phone conference this month, it was very exciting and wed been chatting on our facebook group and emailing each other loads so I was looking forward to hearing everyone. When we all logged onto the conference it went quiet, none of us apart from our leader had done one of these before and it was quite weird that you could hear everyone and then everyone would talk over each other. It was great fun though and we discussed lots of things, namely final badge designs- very exciting.

I went sledging with my local SWITCH group and another guide group. Some of the girls were a bit apprehensive about going down the slope but the guides encouraged them and they all loved it within minutes and there was lots of protest when it was time to stop.

Had to do 14 miles for my moonwalk this Saturday, it was not good. My feet so much at the end of it and I have a blister on a blister on the side of my foot. I need to start planning how to decorate my bra and set up my fundraising page - (note to self must set up fundraising page).