Brownsea Island: Day 16

Day 16 (8th of August):

One of the not so interesting days. I woke up early so that I could get my 
tent down and eat breakfast before I hitched a ride with Mr. Roberts Roberts into town (Chelmsford) where I took a bus to the airport (Stansted). There was no hiccups or anything, I just got my ticket, waited for the flight, boarded the plane and landed in Copenhagen Airport, where my father picked me up. Later in the day him and I went to see the Simpsons movies in Imperial, which is the best Danish cinema. When I went home to sleep I felt good. I had enjoyed some time with my father, I had just returned from the biggest scouting event ever, and tomorrow... I was gonna go to Australia.

Brownsea Island: Day 15

Day 15 (7th of August):

Do you know what it's like waking up and having forgotten to take your contact lenses out? Well it damn well hurts. And I had managed to do just that… Now isn’t that clever? Never the less I had to get my gear together, find Sameer (the dude who pushed me off the wall) so we could get a ride with Mr. Joe Roberts Roberts. Because this was indeed the day that we would go to WSJ (for me it was the second time, but still).
Going to the jamboree we stopped by Chelmsford to get some food (ended up at Burger King *sighs*) mainly because Mr. Roberts wanted to buy alcohol. In the end we ended up spending more then an hour in Chelmsford, which we all agreed to be rubbish, especially as Mr. Roberts in the end just bought alcohol from a store outside Chelmsford.
When I finally arrived at the camp I limped over to my tent which was still there (and limped, as my poor leg had been in an awkward position for a very long time). But as soon as I had arrived I walked around finding people I know. I first found Ben Lommelen and talked to him, I then staggered off to the opposite end of the camp, (HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE camp) to find Kristian Lund, encountering Kåre on the way, where I also met Elin Paulsen. By then I did feel mighty hungry, and went back to eat some food where by chance Kåre was with his gang of Finnish people and his Finnish girlfriend. After that I had to go back to the dummy Big Ben to find the other staff people from Brownsea Island. When I got there I discovered that I had left dinner to go far away, just to be told that I had to go back and eat dinner (we had to gather so we could go eat dinner, lovely right?).

On the way to the closing ceremony we walked by a band who knew some people from the brownsea staff (and most likely they knew them), resulting in them playing the empire tune from star wars, followed by the theme to the Austin Powers movies. Onto the main arena it was a long wait before the show kicked off, and just before it did, we were told to move somewhere else and went to sitdown (AW, MY LEG) close the scene, and just after we had sat down it started raining; in fact not just raining, it started pouring down.

But I must say that the show was a very varied experience, some parts were good,
such as the show from the Hong Kong contingent, while the indonesian and the mexican measured quite low on my scale. A lot of short clips from around the Jamboree (and 1 music video) were also shown illustrating what some scouts had been doing (Please note that it didn't happen in this order). Thencame the ceremony where England passed on its duties as host for the WSJ to Sweden
which will be hosting it in 2011, a very nice ceremony where the built a big wooden bridge in almost no time and lit some torches (the wooden type).

Then came what I dread most onto the stage... First that chump Peter Duncan
came onto the stage to talk to the various swedes etc. followed by the Italian Eduardo Missoni, who annoys me even more. He is the leader of WOSM and his English
is worse then that of a 10 year old Danish child, and then just the way he speaks, and what he says there is in plan for scouting worldwide. I do know that scouting is about leaving the world better then we found it, but he takes it to such impossible extremes... Those two just make me sick, and luckily for me (not.... really) they are the two main people at the 21st WSJ.

After the show the entire camp just shut down and everybody went to bed, 
I must say that I had expected the IST people to be very lively all night long, but people just want to bed. I remember in Thailand after the closing ceremony, the camp just exploded into a giant fury of a party, so much better; but memories usually are.

Brownsea Island: Day 14

Day 14 (6th of August):

For the night I slept outside the wooden building everybody else was sleeping in. Due to no circulation it felt more like a sauna then a place to sleep; well that and Adam Sankey snored so loud, it sounded as if someone had stuffed a jumbo jet up his "arse". After I went outside, first a couple of mosquitos came around, but I soon killed all of them, or somehow chased them away. Now you would think that was all that is necessary to have good nights sleep, but oh no... It started raining.. Yep and since I was outside, it started raining on me. So I had to get up and move all my things under a bit of roof sticking out over the adjacent building, to shelter me from the rain. But anyway when we woke up and went to breakfast, something very nice was waiting for us... Yup, we had scramble egg for breakfast; I was oh so pleased. Never the less I developed a nasty headache, and unfortunately I had run out of headache pills (which George or Karen had given me anyway). So Helge and I walked back and after some guerilla warfare tactics, I managed to extract his rucksack from the truck and he found his headache pills, which I heartily swallowed... It was actually quite a lot of fun (not swallowing, but getting them). When we came back up to the white marquee it had been taken down where we did a final litter sweep and went for lunch.

Now for lunch there were lots of lunch packs left, as this was the last day on the island and a lot hadn't been eaten. So after having eaten our first the catering crew comes out and asks if people want any; after which I quickly run up and grab one, triumphing with my extra Freddo, and very quickly it catches on... So the crew start throwing the lunchbags around to us, on a shouting loudest, first served basis. But as I am getting as many as I can, a bag hits my head and Georgia snatches the Freddo in it which is rightfully mine. As I thrust my hand around her to get to the Freddo on the other side, Sameer snatches my Freddo bar out of my hand, after which I get up and start charing towards him (there is where it all goes wrong), but as I am wearing my big boots and standing on slippery bricks, my feet are not really stuck well, so I slip and fall down with my leg first, resulting in: THIS; thank you Sameer...

After hanging around for some time, trying to get the pain to get away I limped down to the ferry where we were taken across to the mainland and to the scouthut where we would spend the night. Once we got there, JP (Jean Paul, not John Papworth), Helge and a Welsh guy whose name currently eludes me. We went to a Wetherspoon pub and I had fish and chips while the 3 others enjoyed some beer.

In the evening the major dinner started, the most delicious meal in my entire stay in England (not much of a compliment really, but it was actually good). It was a three course meal with potatoes, meat and all the regular stuff. However once we had finished eating and all the speeches etc. had been given I went back to get some sleep since I wasn't feeling to well. But once I got back I had some water and felt better, which resulted in me walking back and talking with some different people and saying goodbye to those who weren't coming to the WSJ closing ceremony, some of those people being Jane, Katty, Graham and Dave . However eventually I did go back to sleep, but maybe I should also mention that throughout this entire day my leg had been hurting so much it was hard to believe, but such is life. At a later point I am also going to upload a picture of Adam doing... What Adam does best.

Brownsea Island: Day 13

Day 13 (5th of August):

The wakeup after the party was rough... Joe Roberts Roberts started singing... Oh misery.
This was also the day that the Hispanics and Panu went to the Jamboree and left the rest of us the take down the rest of the camp... So they get to enjoy themselves while we work... And the leaders agreed to that? I am offici8ally disappointed.
Anyway the day was very uneventful we just packed down the place, and tried to do it in a relaxed tempo, as the participants were gone, and most of us felt more like relaxing then anything, which also resulted in Dec, Lola and me sitting under a tree talking after having done our litter sweep, instead of returning to fine some more work... But don't tell anyone.
We ate lunch at pottery pier where Graham had a swim and the rest of us just ate our food. Recently me and Georgia developed a deal where she got the innards of my sandwich (I prefer eating a bread sandwich) and I got her Freddo. I love this deal and it went on until the last day (tomorrow) from the day before today (12th). It was after the lunch that we went to do the litter sweep, after which I sat down with Dec and Lola, and Helge slept in the grass. In the evening I went down with Malcolm to the Quay to send off some stuff, and spent almost two hours sitting down there talking to whoever would talk with me, it was very nice and relaxing, exactly what I needed.
The dinner was some chicken stuff as far as I recollect (I am writing this on the 25th, 20 days after) after which I went to sleep, and didn't sleep well as it was FAR too hot inside the wooden building (no air circulation) and when I went outside to sleep, it started raining lightly... How lovely.