Spain 2013

So, I think i've blogged about Girl Guiding before but I wanted to dedicate a post to our camp, because the last camp we went on was possibly one of the best that I've ever been on in my life. We went to Spain, more specifically Costa Brava. We drove for 24 hours on a coach and stayed for 10 days. 

We always go on camps with the same company because we've had such good experiences with them. They are called Akorn and they are always really cool. The typical situation is that you are on a camp, you stay in tents which are already set up for you. You then have a group of staff who stay with you the whole time, they sleep on the camp, they eat with you, they do the activities with you, and most of the time they join in with activities even though it's their day off. The best bit is, all the people who work for them are typically university students from the UK so they are all really close to the same age as us. 

This camp was slightly different though, because we stayed in cabins - there was electricity, beds, showers in your cabin. It was great. I was in the young leaders cabin, all of whom are shown in the top picture. That's our whole cabin (I'm in the middle on the left). We are all over 15, which meant that we were given special privileges like having a kettle in our room and being allowed to stay up late. 

Spain was a waterspouts trip, everyday, after breakfast, we would take a 10 minute walk down a huge hill - because we were staying, essentially, on the side of a mountain - and end up on a beach. The beach was open to the public, however it also had a section cornered off, especially for the camp. 

Everyday we would do two activities, separated by lunch. Over the whole 14 or so days, I took part in snorkelling  kayaking, paddle boarding, sailing and other things along those lines. Most of these things I had done on other camps. I actually have a qualification of some sort in sailing and have taken part in a two day descent of the Ardeche river. The experience was still a lot of fun. 

On a non-beach day, we went to Barcelona, guided by one of the Akron staff on their day off, and went around all sorts of cool places, including the Cathedral in Barcelona, the name of which I have forgotten, however I do remember that it was unfinished, and has been for a very long time. Some of it looked really old and some of it looked really new. It was weird. 

We also went to a garden which was huge, when there we were allowed to walk around and buy some of the things off the stalls. I bought my mum and dad a hand drawn picture of one of the buildings in the garden, but it was clever because one way it was that and the other way it was a depiction of the local market. Very cool. 

We then spent another day travelling back, and you know what they say about trips and things, the coach journeys are often more fun than the actual place you're going. Which might have been true on the way there, but on the way home everyone was just ready to sleep in their own beds. 

I wanted to make this post for more personal reasons than anything else, because I have a journal, which is a cute leather-bound thing with a darker leather cross on the front and it's all hand made and bolted and I write almost everything in it. So I did write about my time on camp in a lot more detail, writing about specific moments and people, but I wanted to make this post because I was chatting with one of my friends from that trip, and for both of us it could have been our last camp together, which has never happened before, we've been going on camp together for the past 7 odd years. And I got reminiscing about it. 

At the end of camp, we sing a song, specific to girl guiding and it's called 'Linger'. It's about how you don't want to leave and it doesn't seem right that you've shared all these memories and learnt so many things about yourself and what you're capable of and you've done it along side all these people and then you're going to just go back to you're normal life and it doesn't quite seem right to not acknowledge what happened. The lines of the song really stick with me, and I think it's the reason I know that I will never be able to just quite guiding: mmhmm and as the years go by, mmhmm we'll know the reason why mmhmm it was goodnight and not goodbye. 

In guiding I've made friends that I know I will be able to go to in years to come and jump straight back into that friendship we had on camp, even if we haven't spoken in a few years and we've changed. I've made life long friends and I think this was an acknowledgement of that. 

Some of the girls paddle boarding in the beautiful ocean - this was one of the staff playing with my friends camera, he was intrigued by the panorama function.

This was the cove where we did our activities - remember when I said big hill and on the side of a mountain.... yeah. I wasn't lying. We had to walk down there. 

This is all us girls in front of that cathedral, it wss super hard to get this picture, which made it all the funnier! 

Ladies and Gentleman - Paco.(By the way, he was actually really gorgeous and funny, but he was super short, as in he was shorter than some of the 11 year old girls) 

I know! Girlguiding, why's there a man there?! He is the husband of one of the elder guiders and they were put in charge of us because we don't really need any looking after. Although we all loved John to bits and had some great fun with him. He wasn't at all intimidated being the only man there, we even had a girly chat outside our cabin one night. Talked about make up and hair removal techniques. It was great. 

Me and ma girl Leila. We were having a moment. We did that a lot. Leila and I rarely get to see each other when we're not on camp, so we cherish the moments when we are together. We are a force to be reckoned with.  

These are the staff. Remember when I said that they are all young, most at uni or just finished. Yeah. Yeah. They get kinda attractive. Not our pretties staff - we've had so much better BUT there were some super nice people there. Jack (who is three in from the left) came to a watermark with us on his day off and spent the whole day with out group, and he went on all the big scary slides with Leila when everyone else was to chicken. They were great. It's unfortunate that they aren't allowed to add us on Facebook etc, because I think I would've like to have actually been friends with some of these guys. 

I don't... I don't know what this is. I, uhm, yeah. 

Oh look at us, aren't we cute. Sitting watching the lights on the ocean. We are so cute. Look at that posing. 

When we realised that we were exactly the same. This happened on pure coincidence. There was no planning here. Also note that slight pink in my hair. Remember the time when I died my hair pink and blue. No you don't, because I didn't have my blog then, but it's something I did, and I miss it!!