Puddle splashing.

Tuesdays morning is the time for the Conserver group to work in the forest, but they also take with them candidates from the Explorer and the Discovery group. This helps the Conservers pass on their knowledge to others on a regular basis, a great opportunity to practise this skill. It also gives the Explorers a chance to work more frequently in the woods, watching the more experienced candidates and learning from them, also adding to the hours they need to work. The Discoverers love to come out as often as they can!

It was a wet one. As we stood by the Log Cabin waiting for Mark to let us in I was watching Shane standing under a drip if water and Denver and Ethan splashing in puddles and for a moment I was back to being a youth and thinking of the times I did the same thing. Why do you enjoy doing that enjoying? " I asked.

"Because it's fun! and being our ages, it's allowed!"

"Listen lads", I said, "never let the child in you go completely," and joined them puddle jumping. It was good.

The aim today was to encourage the group to tell us what they wanted to do to keep the work interesting. This is also good practise for them to develop their conversational and social skills.

The group did very well, sitting down for a good hour and contributing well to the discussion.

We then went to Sean's Plot, Bowkerstead, to show Ethan the site as he had not seen it before. As Shane was telling him all about the woodland management programme that he had been working on, Ethan looking shocked said:

"How does he remember all that information?"

"Simple" I said "he enjoyed learning it".

We all left the forest deep in our own thoughts.

Megan had a fantastic two days on her Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Expedition. More of that to come.