Mini.

It occurs to me that my last two posts do not paint the Scouting movement in a particularly favourable light. That's a bit unfair, but I do want to take this opportunity to tell you about the time I almost killed a 13-year old.

Every year Scout groups in our area take part in a night hike race called "Antler". The event is organised by a local Venture Unit, each taking turns, and we had been asked to man one of the checkpoints. It was hidden up a muddy track, and most of the Ventures had reached that point in a 4x4. Not me.

I had recently passed my driving test, and was the proud owner of a D-reg Mini Mayfair. It was and still is the best car that I have ever set foot in, and I had naturally driven it to the event. I took any opportunity to drive it, well, anywhere. Someone wanted a lift? I was the man. Old lady needed to cross the road? Hop in love, I'll take you.

Feeling peckish? Let's go get a Pizza.

So I had driven into town to fetch the aforementioned, with my mate Jon in the passenger seat. On the return journey I was showing off my driving skillz to Jon as I thundered* up the muddy track.

Everything from this point onwards happened both so quickly I couldn't give you all the details, and so slowly I can still remember the how many badges the Scout that was directly in my path was wearing. I saw him in the distance, and put my foot on the brake. Hard.

Being muddy, the car didn't stop, but rather kept on going at almost the exact same velocity. The Scout was getting nearer, and he wasn't moving out of the way. And neither was I.

I tried to steer one way or the other, but the car wouldn't have it. Straight on and bust was the only option. I closed my eyes.

And the car stopped with a thud.

I opened my eyes and the Scout stood in front of the car, just a few feet away. He waved a cheery hello, and walked off. The bugger hadn't even noticed.

I'd hit a breeze block. I'll forever be thankful that Minis are so close to the ground.

*As much as a 980cc Mini can thunder

Bob.

OK, the story of Bob the Totem Pole was what I promised yesterday, so here it is. Find yourself a comfy chair, get yourself a box of tissues and a warm mug of cocoa - this is gonna be a sad 'un.

Well, as sad as bits of wood get, anyway.

To give you a bit of an introduction to my good friend Bob you can read about his conception, the seemingly enless labour, and eventual birth here.

A somewhat more truthful account is that while I was a member of Venture Scouts we once went camping at Gilwell Park. At a loss for something to do one afternoon, we decided to emulate the nearby Cub Scouts and make our own totem pole. Rather than being an afternoon's work, it ended up taking about three days from start to finish, and became something of a Unit mascot that was taken to every event we attended.

Until it got nicked.

It was taken to a Scouting Event called "Trek Cart", which is basically an excuse to chuck the aforementioned (usually very ancient) carts around a wooden course at breakneck speed. Like many such events, there was a friendly competition between teams that continued late into the evening, which deteriorated into outright theft. Bob was in fact stolen not just once, but twice, having been rescued from his trap on the first occasion.

The following year he was spotted by the Unit leader, who made a valiant attempt to rescue him. Alas, the infidels struck back, slightly wounding the esteemed leader in the ear. He reluctantly gave up on the rescue attempt, but the captors agreed to return him after the event...

But he was stolen again! He did send us a letter to let us know he was OK, which sort of made us feel a bit better, but we were determined to bring him home. The whole story of our race to find Bob before he was turned into Hamster bedding can be found here, but to surmise we got lots of letters from around the world from people claiming to have him.

This chase story differs from Hollywood hostage fillums in three significant ways. 1. It didn't star Mel Gibson, 2. It was all for a bit of wood, and 3. We ultimately failed to bring him home.

It's now almost four years since I last had any news about Bob, and truth be told I miss the thing. So if you know of the whereabouts, or his final demise (no doubt a campfire, to be frank) please let me know.

History.

I really should blog more often. Or maybe I shouldn't, who knows. Anyway, here's a story from my childhood.

Many moons ago, and back when I were a lad (about six or seven years ago) I was in the Venture Scouts, having been involved in Scouting since the tender age of six. We had been led to believe that Venture Scouts was mostly doing "proper" stuff. Man stuff (even when the women were there). Climbing things, breaking things, swimming in things, driving things. That kind of stuff.

Actually, it was mostly sitting around drinking tea.

But there are a few events that really stick out. And this is one of them:-

In 1998, we were given the opportunity of camping in Poland. We jumped at the chance, and (truth be told) that whole camp was great, involving midnight hikes in rivers, setting camp in deserted islands, historical lessons in the form of a visit to Majdanek, and accidentally breaking into a castle.

I didn't mean to, honest.

I forget exactly where it was now, but we were visiting some quaint Polish town, and there happened to be a castle type structure there. It looked fairly interesting and so I wandered off to go have a look around it. Except I couldn't find the entrance.

But I did find a random Polish guy who seemed to be heading in that direction, so I followed him. In retrospect, he probably wondered why some malinformed English teenager was stalking him, but since he didn't bring it up, neither did I.

About half way to the castle, he took a detour across a field. It did occur to me that he might not be heading to the castle afterall, but I held my trust in him and my luck bore out. Eventually, he climbed through a hole in the wall, I followed, and we found ourselves in the main street of the inner walls.

Mere moments later, the rest of the Unit came from round a corner, and seemed very unsurprised to see me. "Wasn't it expensive to get in?" mentioned one.

"Not really," said I, having never been particularly good at lying.

So anyway, that is the story about the time I invaded a very small bit of Poland. Maybe that was only interesting to me, so tomorrow's blog may be more exciting. It may even be about Bob the Totem Pole.

Some time, no blog.

Isn't food poisoning horrid?

Stuck in Orange for a week, I decided to enjoy myself at a local seafood bar. With three gert big pots of Mussels. Yum. Oh, and three gert big glasses of wine as well.

Something didn't agree with me, and so I spent my night decorating the hotel bathroom a rather fetching shade of brown (lovely*) followed by a six hour train ride home. I've been out of sorts a bit since, but think I'm getting myself back together now. Sadly, I think my out-of-sortsness might have impaired my judgement vis-a-vis a few social matters, but I hope I can be forgiven for those. You'll never read this, but sorry Matthew, even if you are an idiot.

It's no secret that I'm looking for another means of gainful employment. Actually, that might be a lie: It appears to be common knowledge to everyone except those people that I have applied to, most of which seem to think that I am perfectly happy where I am and that there is no need to even acknowledge my application. I'd love to blame my lack of decent application and covering letter writing skills upon the illness, but some of these stem back to before then.

Just how long do you wait before you understand a non-response to be: "You're a twunt and we don't want to hire you"?


* I would tell you about how much lovelier it was to clean the sink after I blocked it, but you don't want to read about that.

*waves hello*