Author: Anne Fox

Sunday the 28th of June at eight o’clock am we had to be at the scout-hut. When we were finished being given stuff e.g. food, then we drove to Hirtshals(north of Denmark) I three cars. When we had got on the ferry we looked for a place to sit, we found a place outside where we ate our lunch packs and talked and stuff like that. Johanne(my friend) and I went to the tax free and bought some sweets, I had forgotten my money in the car I was in so I borrowed some from Johanne. Then we came in at Larvik in Norway and drove for four hours until we came to a place to camp.

 Next day we drove over to some place called Geilo to shop mum Gwen and I have been there before, after that we drove to a place to put the cars while we were walking. But then when we got out of the car the car drove some metres away and parked I was looking the other way so I didn’t se it but I heard it, there was a big smash and one of the boys had accidently smashed the back window. After that big palaver we walked 3-4 km. and set up camp.

 

Tuesday we walked about 5 km up to the place where we had to eat, but just before that we had to go over some water and guess what I fell in… then I changed and we ate, then we went another 5km and we were where we had to set up camp. And my rucksack started to fall to pieces.

 Wednesday we walked without our rucksack and that was very nice. We ate and then there was some people who stayed where we ate, like I did, some people walked a bit further. On the way home I got sun burnt and I was horrible it was the first time in my life I got sun burnt. Then we came to camp and the tent was all ready put up. I fell and hurt my knee.

 Thursday we walked back the same way as when I fell in the water and set camp where we set up camp Monday it was just blowing much, much more.

Friday we drove most of the day.

 Saturday we drove to a weir and that was fun.

 Sunday we came home, it was really fun.

 Mia

A great deal has happened while we were ‘away’. In fact that’s why we were ‘away’ because we had no time to add to this. Added to which there were rumours that the Yahoo blog was going to be shut down and you can’t have failed to notice that in the end the Yahoo blog was more hole than blog as they gradually stopped supporting videos and pictures from outside.

So now it’s crunch time as Yahoo have said they are shutting everything on July 13th so I have been forced to transfer as much as I can before it all disappears. The slide show above (don’t forget to have your sound on as well)  is just a little summary of some of the things that have have happened recently including the deer and the fox who visit our garden, Gwen who went on work experience to dissect a huge number of small mammals and to show that the house just got painted, at last and finally! By the way Mia is not picking up wayside litter but is in fact processing a highly secret cache.

The nature photos are by Gwen who is becoming very interested in taking good photos and is fast filling up our new computer with hundreds of 4Mb pictures. Don’t forget that you can click on the icon at the bottom right hand of the slideshow to see the pictures full screen though they are compressed so don’t blow up well. But the originals are fantastic!

There are alll sorts of bits and bobs on this new blog so just click around. I am also going to rescue the old stuff from the very first web site which featured our news and glue it on here somehow.

So watch this space! … and feel free to add your comments. We may be forced to add a password but we’ll see how things go before going down that route.

For the first time ever we did a typically Danish thing by going just over the border to Flensborg or Flensburg in Germany. We went to do a bit of last minute Xmas shopping and enjoy the very small Christmas market. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant and then went to the purpose built Scandinavian center which is piled high with Danish branded goods priced in both euros and Danish kroner just so that you know where you stand. The girls were agog at the choice and prices of the sweets. After just one attempt I fear this may become a family tradition!

So what’s with the football boots hanging over the street? No idea.

See your pressies in action!
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Hope you’re all tracking Santa at http://www.noradsanta.org/en/home.html

Sweden

by Gwen

Sunday evening (or night as it was 23:45) we started out from the harbour in GrenÃ¥. The Ferry had no good places to sit so we sat on the floor. By and by we all fell asleep though some took more time than others…

It was early morning when we got off the ferry, and still dark. We ate a little of the lunchpack we had, but none was really hungry. After that most of us went with some local buses, but I went with Jakob (my scout-leader) in his old VW van with three others from my patrol (this was an arrangement from the ferry, it was a little cheaper for them).

At 8 or so in the morning we stopped and waited for the others as we from then on were going with a hired bus.

We repacked all our baggage into plastic barrels so that it didn't get wet if it rained. After this everything was loaded into the canoes and we went in after them.

We paddled and paddled and paddled and guess what… paddled! At midday we stopped and ate the rest of our lunchpacks. After that again all we did was paddle. I was in a canoe with Johanne, Mia's best friend. We weren't a good team! We zigzagged all over the place and ended up at the back where it's always “Quick, quick, quick we're behind. We've got to catch up with the others!”.

We set up camp in a clearing in the middle of nowhere. At this point I started to feel sick this kept on until the morning of the last day.

After long discussions of who should do what and where the toilet should be, we finally got the tent up; all four girls had a tent to themselvs (though it was a tight squeeze for the tent was only meant for three). Dinner was bacon and (so-called) curry-rice. It was agony eating it! It was just horrid!!!

The next morning we started off again; this time I was paddling with someone else due to me feeling sick. This went fine until he stopped paddling. Well he started saying don't stop paddling on a corner, don't switch sides and don't take a rest, when he himself stopped on corners (to eat!) switched sides all the time and was nearly always resting. Him being a leader (not Jakob) I felt that saying it to him would be disrespectful. So for the rest of the trip I was the one paddling, not him.

The climax of day two was when a leader and his son fell in. It was a nice warm day so it didn't really matter. Before we stopped for the night we had to pull the canoes up and carry them past a waterfall.

That evening we slept on an island in a lake dinner today was creamy pasta with chicken sausage, that smelled of cat food! Better than before, but…..

For breakfast we had cornflakes (I had this every morning). The tents were taken down and the canoes packed. Off again!

We were looking for a town or village where there was a supermarket as we needed more food and water. We found a town but all we got was water from a little old lady. There was no supermarket, they said, it had closed down. The nearest was 6 km on foot or 12 km in a canoe. So we chose the canoe and paddled the 12 km to Gislaved.

When I walked into the giant supermarket the first thing I thought was:”Back to civilisation!”.

For a greater part of the day it had been raining and still did, so everyone was reluctant to go outside again. We had tied the canoes under a bridge for shelter and many wanted to sleep there. The leader however want to set up camp “out of town” so again we pulled them up and had to carry them as there again was a waterfall. As we were about to get back in the water we were told to put up the tents as it was getting dark and there was no use in going on.

That night we had spaghetti bolognese. Tasteless and dull!

Every night I had woken 3 times or more but that night I woke 11 times (I counted). This was because of the rain, for it is very loud against the tent.

The next and last day brought us quit far and yet it was only 3 or so when we stopped. The rest of the day we did nothing really. We went to the church that was only 500 meters away, we put up the tents, made the dinner (mashed potato and meatballs (Umm)), cleaned the canoes and started a bonfire. That night I slept so well!

The morning came and brought with it a frost. We did get the bonfire started again though and dried off wet socks and shoes for we had until 12 to get packed; and since we had got up at 6:30 we had all the time in the world. When the bus came everything was loaded on and everyone slumped in a seat. At Varberg we first went to the fortress and were then left to our own devises. So we split up and went to various shops. Dinner was nothing.

The ferry awaited us and on it none was ready to sleep for we had done nothing that day. Everyone had eaten millions of sweets and used lots of money. The kiosk on the boat didn't go a miss! Though I bought almost nothing.

In the car park of the harbour all the parents were waiting though one of the scouts in the VW didn't think they would have remembered.

You must have this or a similar TV show in the UK. In Denmark it is just called ‘Talent’ and last week there was an amazing performance by a young trio playing violins and cello. The performance starts one and a half minutes into the video and only lasts one and a half minutes. The rest is the comments by the judges which you probably won’t want to hear. Even though the performance is so short I wondered if they would have any strings left on their instruments before they finished.

So now Mia has something to aspire to!

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Mmm… maybe this is not the best time to boast about some sharp shooting in the Nordic region but Mia has been trying it out and doing rather well. This was a school activity and part of a competition. If they do well the class will progress to further rounds around Denmark.

We have a new kitten. Her name is Chocolate. She is in addition to Rosemary and where Rosemary is mostly Gwen’s special cat, the intention is that Chocolate should be mostly Mia’s special cat. How is it going? Here is Mia’s report:

When she comes outside she goes directly up in a tree and it’s quite difficult to get her down again. She is always going upstairs … she is not allowed to. It’s funny how she can just sit or lie on your lap and then when something happens then she is up and going and uh she wants to play here and not there and which toy shall I choose now and all sorts of stuff. She loves computers and doing all the things she is not allowed to. If she does something she is not allowed to she gets locked out in the back hall and she of course startes miawing. If you go to the toilet then she wants to know what is happerning sometimes she even picks some of the used toilet paper up and tries to play with it… I mean she fishes it up from the toilet! It’s not nice, sometimes she manages to get it down on the floor and then you have to pick it up again. By the way we call her Monster.

Rosey does not like her… if you don’t know who Rosey is it’s our other cat. Every time she sees “Monster” she starts growling and hissing, so they don’t like each other.

There have been many birthdays since the last time I wrote here. For my birthday we went to a restaurant in Rønde, for Mia’s birthday we went to Randers Rainforest, for Tony’s birthday Ann and Jenny came for the weekend and we ended up at the Helnan and for Gwen’s birthday she requested a return match at the Helnan so we have eaten well in the last month.

Another thing to take our time away from the computer has been the acquisition of a new cat called Chocolate who is incredibly lively and curious but was at least house-trained from Day 1. The problem there has been getting the two cats to get on. Chocolate has no problem bouncing here, there and everywhere but big Rosemary is terrified of the little newcomer and simply takes a high vantage point and watches her without blinking, hissing when she gets too close and sometimes growling like a dog. So you can imagine what fun it was when Gwen and I took both of them to the vet to get their cat influenza jabs a couple of days ago.

So it has been back to school for the girls since mid-August, Gwen has started French and continues to need a challenge in English. She has started a blog but this will only be motivating if she gets comments! So go to http://nimtofte.edublogs.org, see what she has to say and add your to’hapence worth by clicking on comment even if it’s only to complain about the colour scheme.