It’s been a while since I was travelling thanks to my poorly neck but I am, once again, back out and about visiting scout groups and touring the country. My first proper trip this year was going to be a non stop round of events, deliveries and one night stopovers up and down the country. First stop was Dunkirk. And I mean stop in every sense of the word. We missed our ferry by a few minutes (we did get there in time to watch it sail away) and the next one had been cancelled so we had to wait 4 hours on the dockside. Four hours! What made it worse was that we were the first car there at 2pm and practically the last car loaded when the ferry finally came back at 6pm. I was fuming. This was not the kind of service a travelling giraffe like me has come to expect. Do better DFDS. I am very disappointed in you. Luckily we then went to the lovely Dave & Theresa’s place where we were given a proper warm welcome and fed lovely food (good cook that Dave). The next day saw us dropping Rachael off for an extended stay in the Uk while she studies and heading for the first event – Carum: The shaping of the Way (whatever that means)where we put up a Ranger bell tent for some friends to use and our Kohte. Mark spent the evening playing some sort of thing called a Silent Walker where he, and all the other Silent Walkers, were anything but! How’s a giraffe supposed to get her beauty sleep when they’re talking and fighting and banging a rattley drum? Despite the late hour he crawled to bed I still managed to kick him out soon after dawn to take photo’s of the new site – The Wing Drumble – in the early morning mist (If you want to see more then join the Wing Drumble or RootnBranch Acres facebook pages – well worth it if you are into LARP).

And then we were off leaving them to play for the rest of the weekend while we did some real work – scouts! We headed for Manchester (Ashton under Lyne to be specific) to do the delivery and training for the 6th Ashton Scout group. And it was, well, a disaster. A total utter cockup. The supplier – normally reliable – had sent all the panels and the roof to Dorset instead of to Manchester. Duh! That meant we now had to extend our trip by a few days, drive down to Dorset and then back up to Manchester to do training on a Thursday evening. Mark was not impressed and I wasn’t particularly looking forwards to hours on the boring motorway (not my idea of what a travelling giraffe should be doing). We departed the 6th Ashton and went to see an old friend for the night (Hello Paul).

Sunday saw us on another massive drive. Up the M6 to Penrith to drop off a Ranger bell tent. I always like going up the M6 towards the Lake District, the hills look so pretty, almost like they are a painted backdrop and not real. And then we whizzed across and up the country to a lovely little place called Whittingham to meet up with a Baden Powell Scout Group and deliver their 8m Jurte. This time the panels had turned up so we could do the training on the local school field. The scouts were mostly attentive but the sun was shining and we were on a playing field so we all kind of played This training went very well as several things went wrong. I still don’t understand why things going wrong is good but I did enjoy it when they hoisted a scout out the top to fix a chain fault. They all seemed very enthusiastic about the tent which was wonderful to see and afterwards we all went back to the leader’s lovely house and had a barbeque. In March. Outside. In Northumberland!

the next day saw us facing the long drive to Dorset but I rebelled (I can be quite a bolshie giraffe at times) and reminded Mark quite firmly that he had promised to take me to the border crossing between England and Scotland. So we played hookey for the day instead and did some proper giraffe travelling which involves frequent stops for pictures and seeing things.

First off we headed towards the border and stopped to look out across the National Park. Wow.

It’s quite amazing up there; wild and beautiful with the sort of huge horizon and sky you don’t expect from the UK. I would have liked to run across the fields but the local sheep were giving me evil looks so I decided discretion was the better part of valour and we went to the border crossing instead.

I was expecting something dull and boring – like the signs I always see as we drive down the motorway in Europe; dull boring EU signs. Instead I got a HUGE rock and a man strangling a cat (Mark said they were something called bagpipes and were a traditional Scottish instrument but I’ve heard the cats make the same sort of noise when they’re trodden on so I don’t believe him). I insisted on having my picture taken on both sides of the border to prove I crossed over without the aid of a passport or any form of exotic animal export paperwork (such a naughty giraffe too) and then we went off to another scout camp at Kielder Water. I have reminded him that we haven’t take my picture at any of the other borders yet and that’s no on my agenda – and not the dull EU signs either. I want proper old fashioned border signs to prove I’m a travelling giraffe.

Kiedler Water is huge. It’s a massive special kind of lake called a reservoir which is where they store water for some reason or other. We drove, took pictures and then took in Hawkhirst Scout Activity Centre which was quite amazing. And then we ran out of time and had to head back down south to find a bed for the night at the always welcoming Ash & Sarah’s (with the gorgeous Dorothea of course).

More pics below and part 2 – the return to Manchester coming soon (as soon as I beat my secretary into submission and make him write it up for me, anyway!)