Things I've learnt in 2015

Greetings dear friends and Internet stalkers. It's coming to that time of year again where I look back and ponder what I even did with myself over the last twelve months. As ever, the answer is "not a lot".

Still, I seem to have learnt some things. So here are the top twenty pieces of  ~ahem~ "useful" "knowledge"* I've picked up in 2015. I hope some of them are helful to at least one person at some time in the future.

1. According to my flatmate, food (specifically a kebab) is better than sex
2. It's not the ringers that smell of the tower, it's the tower that smells of the ringers
3. Vegan cooking can be super easy
4. The German for "a really big yurt" is "Super Jurte"
5. If you slice off the end of your thumb, it's probably not bad enough for you to need to go to hospital, just stem the blood flow
6. Lock the door when you're in the bath
7. If you don't know the words, just sing "tractor tractor tractor"
8. Mike the Tiger is the mascot for Louisiana University. He is a real, live tiger
9. Chicken fried chicken exists
10. Tea and sympathy get you a long way
11. If you get bitten by a Catholic, you become a Catholic
12. If you get bitten by the Pope, you become Italian
13. Vegan cheese doesn't melt
14. If you reach the age of 30 in north Germany without getting married, you have to sweep the steps of the Rathaus until a young lady comes along and kisses you [SIDEBAR: This tradition is more common among men, I don't know who kisses women. Maybe Santa]
15. "If it ends in 'e' it's probably 'die'" is a lie.
16. Your housemates will think you're crazy if you try to make the house nicer
17. Your housemates will think you're crazy if you try to use a slow cooker
18. Your housemates will think you're crazy if you try to explain sausage rolls and Christmas Pudding
19. If you lose one of your Beavers, they are probably in the tent
20. You will get on better with your friends during a four day hike than you will ever in your life again. Ever.

Season's Greetings and a happy New Year!

*Some of these "facts" are true and some are utter garbage. I'll leave it to your personal judgement to decide which are which.

The Explorer Expedition

So, I said I'd fill you in on what's going on in my massively busy and stressful life. As I'm not sure where I stand on the whole talking-about-things-at-work thing, based on the Official Secrets Act and MI5 and whatever, I think I'll start by pondering the Splorer Expedition.

It was AMAZING!!! We spent a lot of time walking and using buses and some time on the train. The idea was that we would plan and arrange everything ourselves; transport, route, time-keeping and accounting and set up a Geocache route around the Cinque Ports at the same time. (By the way Jack, have you sorted that yet?)

(Can't remember if I've said this on here before but for those of you who haven't heard of Geocaching, it's a worldwide treasure hunt set up using GPS systems to find little caches, or boxes, which have notebooks in to allow people to sign to say they've been there. Some of the caches also have little presents or toys in them, but the rule is "if you take something, leave something of equal value." If you'd like more info on Geocaching, you can check out www.geocaching.com - the official website for this stuff.)

Anyhoo, where was I?... Oh yes, the Expedition. Well there was a lot of walking, which we actually quite enjoyed (except MatT) and also a fair amount of being filmed and pretending to be intelligent by saying big words. And half of us were French for a bit. But that can wait until after the first official showing at the AGM in a couple of weeks.

Another integral part of the Expedition was using the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch light railway. It's a small railway, unsurprisingly, which runs through from Dungeness to Hythe and back. We all managed to squeeze into a tiny carriage with all our massive kits. Then we sang "the wheels on the train go round and round", followed by "the wheels on the Pip go up and down" (don't ask, just don't.) The journey from Dymchurch to Hate, the bit we did, was through some lovely countryside and went past some interesting sheep. However, the best part of the journey for me was definitely being told to "stop the church music" by MatT and having to explain to him that it was actually ABBA...

Of course, other stuff did happen; Pip tried to kill us all in a huge explosion, Jess's legs became hugely stripy like... Well, like a very stripy thing and, between them, Greg and Rachel managed to drag us up a hill, through some bushes and into a barbed wire fence. We also made friends with some nice people in McDonalds and watched as Greg, Rachel and James tried to freeze themselves to death by paddling. However, I really don't have space to write about all these things here.

As you can see, it was a really great couple of days and we are going back to Dymchurch for the Beach Weekend in September because we loved the area so much.

Ross

Apparently, I have received some complaints from a certain goat-breaker that he was not included in yesterday's blog post. So here is a ponderance all about Ross (selfish person).

There's not really that much to say, Ross is awesome; he likes construction and has some weird obsession with triangles, which did help us win the pioneering challenge at Splorers recently but, apart from that, is just odd. He likes watching weird videos (no, not like that) on YouTube, mostly about crazy french men and llamas, and he likes Lego, because it's like big person bricks, but smaller and eaiser to manipulate.

Ross has become famous throughout the imaginary realm of Cuffley for his immense goat-breaking skillage (just, just don't ask) and for finding sand on the beach. He has affiliations with the wonderful Becky (BT) and Philip (Gorgeous, who doesn't read this, so I can get away with calling him Philip), who are both pretty cool.

When I was younger, we used to visit Ross and his family for Christmas, or they would come to us. This led to such events as "the Tutu Incident", which I don't remember, but Ross's parents have a video of. More recently, he has become one of our Splorers and has been involved in several camps, hikes and teapotting experiences, most of which involve him repeatedly saying "erm..."

So yeah, that's all there is to say about Ross, apart from that really awkward time he invited us to the cinema with his mates and then didn't talk to us for the ENTIRE TIME. But I already wrote about that. (Rude!)

Thanks for reading, guys. If you like my blog (or even if you don't) please try to read this blog:
http://shirleynomates.blogspot.co.uk/
It might be interestring, you never know! (more likely not though, because Emily writes it...)

And, if you feel like it, you can follow me on Twitter at @EmPernilla. Thanks :D

Cub Camp

So, as many of you may know, I have been helping at the District Cub Camp this weekend with a fantastic group of people. Therefore I have been pondering the joys of Cubs, camping and the general topic of Scoutists. So basically, I have decided that I really don't want to be a Cub Leader! I don't know how they do it! The first night, the majority of them were awake until two am chatting and generally being awesome, yet several of them were awake again at four thirty, yelling at the Cubs to shut up and go back to sleep (but more politely, obviously). How do they do it?!?!?! It's amazing. The second night was almost the same, we were up until at least quarter to two, and yet everyone was awake and functioning properly fairly early the next morning. I swear, Cub Leaders have super-human powers.

At this point it may be useful to introduce the leaders, although we didn't actually learn their real names until the last night, as the Cubs tended to call them all by names such as "Akela". We invented our own nicknames, some of which I shall explain. Firstly, there was (of course) Jean (the Cuffley Akela) and Maureen (Hathi). Then there was Rolf Harris, who I think was really called Dave, who appeared to be the Akela-In-Charge, and his sons Beer Guy (Baloo - also Grant) and Steve-the-Two (not sure of his Cub name, but he was really Ian). Finally there was BeardyWeirdy (Miles, we also heard him called "Teenage Mutant Ginger Turtle") and Pencil Guy (Rikki Tikki Tavi - definitely pronounced Tar-vi, not Tay-vi - who was also known as Paul). I shan't go into the whole double-alias thing as it begins to get confusing.

There was also Other Ian, Bagheera (whose real name we don't know), Juan, Julio, GuythatlookslikePip and various people who didn't get nicknames as they didn't do anything awesome enough to warrant one. Or spend enough time with us for us to get to know them.

Anyway, these guys were cool.

Finally, this weekend, I have decided that, in the highly unlikely case that I actually become a Cub Leader, I would like to be Baloo, as he is awesome. Also, I think I would suit Baloo more than, for example, Bagheera or Kaa, and Rikki Tikki Tavi is just really really long...

Splorers: My Real Homies (Or Something)

'Allo Darleeengs. Today I am pondering the Splorers, who are perhaps my homies, besties, and the coolest people I know who I don't share the Common Room, or the lounge room at Church, with (Sorry guys, I have to put in that disclaimer).

Currently, our Explorer Scout Unit consists of:

• Andrew Wilhem Nigel Marshall
• Elizabeth Gillaaay Concertina Sartori
• Emily Rupertia Alfonz Young
• Me
• Jacktopher Arnold Maria Coleman
• Jessiqua Juan Wendy Kraushaar
• Joshua Irene Callum Roper
• MatThew Icecreamcone Raccoon Weller
• Oliver Nancy Margaret Brossi
• Philip Pippin Gorgeous Collis
• Phoebekins Noel Philanthropist Neal
• Rebecca Jayne (BJ) Tyrannosaurus (BT) Harvey
• Rossington Goatbreaker Toasteroven Staunton III
• Samantha Post Office Theodora Watts

And the Leaders consist of:

• Beardy McBeardson Bedwell
• Special Steve Bicyclist Motorcop Rowsell
• Pete von Petey Pete Pete Slugdance Cracknell
• Lovely Likeable Leedley Leeeeeee 
• Diane and Pam, The Logical errr, Man(?)

They are beautiful, and I very love them much. They should all be awarded with awards and shiz for recognition. And we recently got a reverse TARDIS. It says "Blue Box" on it and it's bigger on the outside. We're gonna put mirrors on the ceiling for Becky and Ross...

The Warped Minds of Children

Hello. These last few days I have been holding a competition of "Who can come up with the most inventive thing to do to a traitor?" with the Splorer girls (minus Sammi who doesn't know the person), therefore I have been pondering this. This is the list so far (Any personal details have been omitted, making them a little less funny, but I can't be seen to be offensive or bullying):

1. Pull out his insides and stuff him with love and rainbows, making a giant teddy (Phoebe)
2. Insert a Bible somewhere... private. (Emily)
3. Shove a Crout inside him (confusingly) (Emily)
4. Shave him. Then he'd completely malfunction. (Phoebe)
5. Stand him up then knock him down. (Phoebe)
6. Break him in half (Phoebe)
7. Drown him in a barrel of water and ferment him, then he'd be beer (Phoebe)
8. Roll him out, cut him out, flavour, bake in the oven at 210 degrees for 20 minutes, then he would be a Ginger Bread. (Phoebe)
9. Mush him up and put him in a bakery oven, then he'd be bread (Emily, somewhat uninventively)
10. Scrub him into your hair, then he'd be shampoo (Emily)
11. Crumble him over apple crumble. (Emily/Miranda)
12. Hollow him out and use him as a canoe (Liz)
13. Fill him with jelly (Liz)
14. Tap him with a wooden mallet (Becky)
15. Lock him in a room with me and Liz. Let's watch what happens (Jess, somewhat rudely)

As you can see, it is quite disturbing how strange my wonderful friends are. Add to this the fact that Maria said she liked rearranging faces (we knew she was a good serial killer) and it is quite horrifying how my friends think. I'd better start keeping a closer eye on them, in case they decide to leave me in a hole to die or something. It has been threatened on many an occasion...

You Tube

Hello again,

Today I have pondered why on Earth do people put videos of themselves doing funny things on You Tube?? I mean, look at these fools for example; they look so stupid...

Why would you do this?

(That's clearly not me shouting "Do it again!" on this one)

It's ridiculous that people would allow themselves to be filmed and have these funny videos put up on the internet for the world to see. I mean, honestly. And clearly I'm not the cameraman and the person who put them up on the internet or anything...

Sorry. This post had nothing to do with anything, but you chose to read it. It's not my fault.

Hiking

Welcome Back,

Today I got bored of revising and I have reverted to pondering Hiking. Seriously, it's fun, but is there really a point to it? Yesterday I arranged a hike, just because I could, starting and ending at the Scout Hut. We walked, erm, not very far. When we stopped for lunch at... somewhere, I got the map out to discuss the next part of the route. The response from one member of the group surprised me. She said "which way is quickest?", a fair enough question had we been hiking somewhere for a reason, but seeing as how we were hiking in a circle because we wanted to it seemed a totally pointless comment. We ended up walking a completely pointless route, which turned out to be shorter than we thought anyway.

And I know walking (especially whilst laughing that hard) is really healthy and all that, but seriously, we ate so many sweets it must've cancelled out anyway. So basically, what we did is walk in a circle and hide in some guy's rape seed for no real reason, apart from to chat and because Cuffley, Northaw (and the M25) is such a beautiful place...

Although we did have some fun: Sammi broke the countryside by leaning on it; Jack hid in a river while Jess jumped over him; Emily... Well, Emily was just Emily. Then it rained, and we hid under a tree. That was quite fun, until it started hailing. Oh yeah, and we stood on a bridge over the M25 and waved at the traffic; several lorry driver beeped at us. I felt so loved :') So perhaps I've answered my own question here somewhat; maybe we do just hike for the hell of it. Like camping - there's no real reason for camping but we still do it, because it's fun. And we get to set stuff on fire. And buy copies of "Practical Pigs". And laugh at each other.

So, to continue the laughing-at-each-other-ness, here is a picture of Jess the Ninja Monkey.