18°C, heavy rain.
All day. There are met office warnings of possible flooding. We’ve been spoilt by fine days this summer, I really fancy a bike ride today. Off to the garage to skulk around mending and servicing.
Later … A respite:
The tracks were dotted with puddles, often overlapping leaving the bike splattered with mud.
29°C, hot humid sun and some thunder.
A week with 4 coach loads of kids from Northamptonshire doing NCS. They are divided up into teams of about a dozen, most of whom have never met before. Each team is coordinated by team leaders who are usually ex NCS ‘Young People’.
They do various outdoorsy activities like climbing, water sports and I do hiking with a team each day. We, as leaders get to see them develop confidence over the week. That’s something some kids need a break from their usual social circle in order to do.
For myself, I get to walk 8+ miles each day and the working environment is comfortable. We’ve had a hot and very humid week so I chose to sleep in my tent. For me, this is the way to get a good night’s sleep, it’s cooler than the huts..
22°C, grey cloud with occasional sun.
I could ride this bike all day, unless it’s windy. Though my legs are getting sore, that turgid feeling has gone. Rides like this remind me of a the way we can take several days to warm up to exercise.
The last three days adds up to 100 miles. Result.
22°C bright sunny after an early shower.
A long drive for one day’s work. On paper, not a good return for my time. The time was made worse by many traffic jams, a lorry blocking the M42 roundabout, soon followed by a 3 car pile-up and finally another broken down lorry. The average speed was 11mph. I set off allowing 1 hour extra but lost that before I even reached the motorway. My arrival was 1/2 late. The team was sympathetic.
Anyway, we spent the day with groups on a rota learning basic skills 1, mapping; 2, Tents; 3, cooking; 4, first aid. I did the mapping. The groups varied in their concentration which led to a slightly different approach with each group. The latter ones were set a chellenge where they listed grid references, direction and distances on 3+ legs and the other team had to identify place names they had listed. In other words, make a simple route card. Then the maps lists were swapped to the next table on the right to be solved by the next group.
That done right at the end of summer term; they were obviously in need to a summer holiday. Some were due to fly abroad tomorrow and others simply looked worn out.
The company I was working for seemed really good so I intend to sign up with them because they do lots of DofE expeditions nearer to home. I’d like to cut down on the number of very long drives that I do currently. Let’s see if I can be more canny with these trips in future.
22°C, sun, very dry with N breeze.
18.0: easy drive to the edge of the M25. Paccar Scout camp is huge, but my little bit is about an acre. We seem to have 4 clearings booked.
18.1; The cohort arrived by parent drop off and were indeed, only a few groups, five in all. I got two groups of girls. As is often the case, one group went wrong out of the start. I always try to make them go with a clear start because this kind of error is very likely. It’s an easy one to to mess up; being dropped off somewhere they don’t know is quite disorientating.
18.2: rain to start but clearing later. My groups’ routes diverge, meet then diverge again. The other instructors’ routes are pretty identical to one another.
One group got off to an energetic start and finished quite early. The other got stuck in woodland but responded well to question prompts over the phone. As an assessor, I really enjoyed overhearing their debates on location and clues they can see. This group were offered a lift to the debrief checkpoint but I declined because they might finish under time.
Group 4 reached the end in just over 6.5 hours but the other group had gone. They’d been collected before I could debrief them properly. Oh well…
We got some feedback from the school:
“We just had an email from waingels to say how great the exped was, well done guys! Also, apparently 2 groups are now officially part of the ‘we love mike club’ 🤣🤣”
22°C, bright and sunny.
Not quite the ride I wanted. Rather like 2 weeks ago, I took the Bannister Hill route with the same cafe stop. Energy wasn’t there though, I got up the climb well enough, bit getting round felt like effort. Last time, I could have gone on past the 60 miles done.
18°C, grey with slight drizzle.
17.0: a day filled with logistics. Google’s satnav took us round the long way to Edale. Then I had to ferry kids from Hope because the coach driver refused to drive to the carpark in Edale. We’re all baffled by his refusal since there are 2 other coaches already there.
17.2: Tuesday – a 15h30m shift on Kinder Scout. Rain and very late groups. 1 group made such a mess of nav that they didn’t get onto the hill and were found in the afternoon – back at the start.
17.3: crossing Ladybower. To a lovely little campsite at North Lees near Hathersage.
Much better day for all groups. They’re getting tired as usual. The overnight camp was basic to say the least. In my opinion, we should stay in the area, within radio range anyway. That way we can get there early and urge them away by 07.30. Their night’s sleep wasn’t enough after Kinder.
I was a little worried about one of my group’s confidence and navigation so I decided to walk halfway with them. It was here that I hit on the idea of a neat nav teaching method. I’ll explain…
If your group has a few navigators and the others trail along, then this might demonstrate how information and observations should flow through an effective group. Sit one kid down with a map; preferably in a hollow so they can’t see much. Others can then take turns giving them information until they can locate the group. Here is a field boundary, this way slopes down, that way is north etc.
I’ve only tried it a few times, but it does seem to work!
17.3: along Stannage Edge. A good geological handrail. After the road crossing, they go up Moscar Moor. It’s a fine place to set up a checkpoint I found. I sat in a hollow the bits where it rained but eventually, the groups brought the sunshine. Some got stoves out and cooked lunch. Others wanted to march through and get back first.
We finished ontime with all groups safely completed. Then logistical problems started. The coach was late again. Part of the M1 was closed, but then again- why did it go on the motorway? Nobody knew.
I was able to get off with my Year 11s easily enough in the minibus. The coach didn’t get the Y10s to school until about 9pm. Outrageous! The staff were livid. That’s the third time the same coach company let us down in a fortnight.
Bright and sunny, tops will be 25°C
Long drive after a full day’s teaching. The satnav chose a good route and there were no holdups. Still, I didn’t arrive untill 23.30.
16.1: we some instructors would have two groups today, the others- one each. There are different ways we could decide, double up the smaller groups, match the routes. In the end, it was a complicated (and not very interesting) combination that we chose.
I got my info packs and flicked through- two groups of girls. Their routes looked okay and their bags not too heavy this time. Yet again, they didn’t bring enough water. One of them, O* had a leaking platypus which she knew was leaking on practice 2 weeks ago!
Quite a stretch of the route was in woodland along cycle routes. That suits me too because I can do plenty of walking to checkpoints rather than waiting with the car. Their route finding was fine and timing, reasonable.
The last section really troubled me. The public footpath was closed with barbed wire. The only alternative a was a narrow road without verges but with blind bends. I walked each group, one at a time along here. That path was visible behind the hedge and would have been trouble free, why is it closed?
horrible!
16.2: A problem has appeared. One of our assessors is absent. His groups did not see him at all yesterday after the start. That would take some working out by sharing out the workload. If something went wrong, the consequences would be serious for him and the rest of us.
Note, sleepy horses standing in the road can make you late.
Both of my groups seemed to be in a darker mood today. The smaller group was especially tense. You know that feeling when you walk into a room after an argument, the one where you can sense something indeterminate? It’s that feeling on each checkpoint.
Gareth pointed out that they were well out of their ‘comfort zone’. These girls were all tall, leggy, elegant and beautiful; like models they were. But the surly exasperated tone in their voices caught my attention.
16.3: the kids are much more upbeat today. The fine weather continues and one group is quite cheerful, probably because they know it’s the last day. The other group remain prickly. Oh dear.
18°C, brisk W, sunny and dry.
In a way, heading out with a tail-wind is a good way to way up. The penalty happens when you ride back.
All this DofE work has hit my cycling. That can mean twitchy legs and trouble sleeping. A decent ride can fix those as well as another. I am surprised to find my posture is far better post ride.
30°C, full sun, light wind.
We were issued with detailed plans this morning and I am working as a Supervisor along with an Assessor, we have three groups to manage. We have a uniform tower and have radios for staff only. For the first time, we issue GPS beacons. These only return a position once pinged by the expedition manager. That sounds better than some centres who monitor a continuous track.
15.1: Their routes are very similar but they were spread out over time. The extraordinary heat didn’t harm the kids’ progress as much as other schools. The Chase does offer good shelter amongst the trees. The last groups required a ping a few times and they finished 2nd to last.
15.2: most of the routes are very similar today now we have come.down from the Chase onto low farmland. The slow group from yesterday we’re even slower today. They have many many breaks.
Micycle 