Kat's blog

March 2009

So onto March. March was really, really, really manic for a whole host of reasons and is the reason there was no Feb blog. The first week of March was spent madly trying to finish off that bit of coursework and meetings with lecturers at Uni to sort things about with regards to deadlines.

I know I've mentioned my wrist before and yes, it's still giving me a lot of bother, so as a result I need longer to type things and the pain killers I'm taking make my drowsy and very, very "stupid" for lack of a better word. Anyway, things were discussed and my final year project was put on hold. That means instead of handing it in April 1st like everyone else, mine will be restarted once my other work is handed in and I'll work solidly on it until hand-in in July. In hindsight, a bad choice of hand-in date by me (I should have said I'd need a week longer then that!) as it's the day after the Senior Section Media Selection Weekend (hope you're all getting your application forms in by the way). I'm certainly hoping to be at the selection weekend as I'm now the assistant webmaster for the camp website and I'm really, really looking forward to it all!!!

So back to March. Sadly in the middle of the month things got a bit hard at home as Mum had an accident and for the first time in my life I had to call for an ambulance (I swear in 1st response trainings they tell us the 999 people will ask which service we require - this person didn't which totally threw me!), an experience I don't particularly want to repeat again so if people could not have accidents around me, that would be much appreciated (I really I am a walking accident zone myself). Thanks. =) Anyway, she's been hospital ever since so daily routines have included between 1 and 2 (or more if I have my own hospital appointments) trips to the hospital every day. I think there's some sort of black hole around the places as even if you go for 1 visiting time (1hr, 1.30hrs or 2 hrs depending on the time or which hospital she was in at the time) the entire afternoon seems to vanish. Money vanishes fast to pay for car parking too but that's a debate of it's own I won't get into.

Anyway, back to the Guiding side of my life during March. I'm not entirely sure how but despite the trips to and from the hospitals I seem to have done lots. The Guides made friendship bracelets which was fun as they never seemed to have made them before. 2 weeks of tying little knots we had some rather nice final bracelets made which everyone was proud of. We also had a walk to the local McDonalds via the lake to sail rafts with tea lights the Guides had built. I'm pleased to report that all the rafts floated and no Guides were eaten by vicious swans.

The Rangers seemed to have a busy time of it too. We put together packs of information for the county Centenary launch party (we're a helpful bunch like that) and went out to take some photos for the Plan CTW. After a mini photography presentation (which linked nicely into my QG) we headed over to the local park (well, racecourse) and walked around practicing and taking photos of each other with random props - which reminds me. A certain Ranger still has a rounders bat! I hadn't planned on doing more then 1 trip out to take photos thinking of encouraging the others to continue in their own time but near the end a group of Rangers came up and asked where we were going "next time". Looks like we're going to be having another outing but to the beach when it's warmer.

I also went to a Senior Section training in Cleveland County (and yet run a member of and with over half the participants from my county!) which was great. Gave me a chance to buy some of their badges for my ever-growing camp blanket and there were plenty of new ideas.

I was going to mention a night Geocaching outing too but to be honest, it started badly and went downhill from there! It involved a forest, the dark, torches which weren't really bright enough, looking for tiny green reflective dots, lots of ditches and tree branches and after all that we didn't find the cache. We're planning on take 2 tomorrow (having discovered despite noting down the co-ordinates in her phone, a certain person has lost them so we'll have to do it all again) so with any luck I'll be able to tell you about what a great adventure it was in April's blog. I hope.

At the moment though my Uni work is calling me back.