2008/11/28

Sweet, sweet advent

Personally, I think the weeks leading up to Christmas are better than the accual holiday. The anticipation and the excitement, the cooking smells and the decorations, the lights and the music. It's too much to apprieciate in a few days, so why not savour it for a bit longer?
The whole town is getting ready for the Christmas market on Sunday. One of the local football clubs have hung all the lights up across the streets and the town gardeners have just revealed this year's centre piece: As beautiful and well composed as ever. Even the vandals and the late night ramblers usually leave it be.
Corn Flake Cakes are quick, safe and easy to make. For luxurious, lush, crispy cakes, just melt some nice cooking chocolate (or even more luxurious ones: Use Fair Trade, Organic, dark 70% chocolate, and enjoy with a light heart) and mix with Corn Flakes or Rice Crispies.

A little hotter, and very much smoother are Swedish Ice Chocolates. Don't ask me why they are called ice chocolates! It might be because they contain coconut fat and need to be kept reasonably chilled.

This week the Cubs (or the Tracker Scouts as they now are called) were producing sweet things for the Sweet raffle, one of the important and most popular things on our market stall. It got very sticky, but the kids took it very seriously, and were rewarded, after having washed their hands thoroughly, with a hot dog and marschmallows cooked by the fires outside. A scout LOVES comming home, smelling of log fire smoke!

I'm off to lovely old Oxford, England, for a few days, and will miss the market. I'll try and put the recipes, and a report from the market out when I get back at the end of next week. Have a lovely one!

2008/11/23

Breaking news!

The national scout conference this weekend was concluded today. Delegats from the five scout associations have been debating and deciding. As Swedish scouting is in a dynamic phase of change, lots of little and big things are in motion. The new national program is taking shape, and on Saturday the new names for the different age groups were presented.
In Sweden we have until yesterday had "minior", "junior", "patrull", "senior" and "rover" scouts. Today we are Spårare (Tracker scouts, 8-9 yrs), Upptäckare (Discoverer scouts, 10-12 yrs) Äventyrare (Adventure Scouts 12-15 yrs), Utmanare (Challenger scout 15-18 yrs) and Rover scout 18-25 yrs)
So, welcome to the blog of Falkenberg's Tracker Scout group!

2008/11/18

Leaders on course

This last weekend some of the leaders in the district got together at Timmershult, the Woodcrafters' cottage outside Laholm. On the Friday evening there was a buffet with contributions from all the participants: Yummy pies, chicken wings, snacks and sallads were some of the dishes, and afterwards everyone got chatting and tried some new craft ideas.
Susanne got taught Viking jewellery by Sterner, our District Commissioner, who is very skilled with pairs of pliers and rings. Sterner in turn made good use of the old district badges and experimented, making stylish woggles.
Thomas, Training Officer for Falkenberg, made charity shop cuttlery into fashionable accessories for the next camp. We also successfully used polymer clay for woggle designs.On Saturday and Sunday a Basic Scout Leader Training course was held, going through the basic elements of the organisation and giving the participants tools to meet and inspire the scouts by going through basic educational theory, methods for evaluation and reflection, outdoor safety and skills and code of conduct for scout leaders.
Although the weather and the dark prevented us from being outside, we came away fulfilled and relaxed and at least a couple of kilos heavier than when we came from all the lovely food and smelling homely from the log fire.
Recipe for Thomas' Surprise
Peel and cut bananas into three or four pieces, wide as streaky bacon slices.
Roll the said banana bits into a slice of streaky bacon and place in an oven proof dish
Dust spicy curry powder over the rolls and pour a some single cream on top.
Bake until golden brown in a moderately heated oven. Eat warm.

Get those gifts ready!

Christmas is only just about a month away, and it's time to start thinking about those gifts! The cubs got crafty to make those special Christmas presents for near and dear. Everyone managed to make a tea light holder out of a drinking glass and tissue paper, using decoupage, little santas out of Cernit, or Fimo, a polymer clay that could be baked in an ordinary oven. (Unfortunately containing PVC and phthalate). Most also made some spare woggles for themselves. Suddenly, there was a call from someone by the window! There was someone outside! He had red clothes, a long white beard and a lamp. He also seemed to be carrying something else. The children rushed over to have a look. The mysterious person skulking in the dark outside got startled by the knocking on the windows, but when the smiling children in the window waved to him, he waved back, left his sack, lifted his light and waved again and was gone in the dark wood by the hut. The cubs were delighted to find that the bag was filled with goodies: Gingerbread snaps, satsumas and santa marshmallows all went down a treat before it was time to go home.
Next week there will be more for the sweet tooth! Then we're making goodies for the market.

Flags

Sweden is very wet, dark and cold at the moment. When meetings start at 5.30 it is already pitch black, so after singing our cub scout song we go indoors.
This meeting was about symbols and cermonies, an important part of scouting. The sixes are now finally fixed for this year, and all sixes were to make a new flag with the six's totem or symbol on.The sixes worked very well together, and the flags turned out beautifully. We use awning cloth, donated by a local company, Falkenbergs persiennfabrik, and craft felt for our flags, which makes them wonderfully colourful.
After a quick steam release game and the scout song, it was time to get out into the dark and the rain again. Now we're starting to prepare for the annual Christmas market on the first Sunday of Advent, where the Cubs will be busy busy, selling raffle tickets, hot dogs and calenders.

Wet and wild

The wet meeting of the autumn went well, and several cubs managed to complete their first swimming badge, and those who didn't make it this time had fun trying and trying water basket ball, water volley ball and practising diving through hoops under water.
As the pool is very busy, it is difficult to get a lane to do the swimming tests in, but we pretended that there had been a ship wreck and the toys and floats and the other people playing were wreckage and had to be avoided. Marie is directing the cubs from the side of the pool


I realised that I must have started this blog about this time last year, as the first post was about the meeting at the pool. Back then the thought hadn't occured to my to take photos, and I hadn't yet found Akela Joy's fantastic blog.



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