It’s a Sunday and we’re running away from a big birthday party at a pub to do some training for the 1st Needham Market Scouts. 
I have to say that it was quite a drive and we ended up in the depths of Suffolk meeting and greeting a bunch of very nice scouts who had a huge field with lovely green grass – I wanted to run and roll all over it but Inga said I had to behave – spoilsport. Instead she made me sit quietly and behave myself while they unloaded the car and Mark started the training. So dull. I wanted to run and play and get to know the scouts!
Not only were these scouts very good at learning how to put up the Jurte but they also didn’t need to be taught many of the knots – we like scout groups that are practical. But I was still bored. All that lovely grass was tempting me, calling my name in a seductive manner – “Gina, Gina, come and roll on me..” To distract me the 1st Needham Scouts bought out a friend for me to talk to – a very laid back caterpillar with an amazing colourful body – he even put me to shame! Once we’d been introduced, Inga still wouldn’t let me play on the grass and 
insisted that I behave like a demure Giraffe and not like a trollop – I still don’t know what a trollop is but I’m pretty certain it isn’t a compliment (unless you come from Essex but I don’t understand that comment either!). Luckily she got distracted by the training session and left us alone – so we escaped and had fun on the grass. HA HA HA I got away from Inga and played! Nyeh nyeh!
Inga wasn’t going to be amused but the sun was shining and I had a new friend to play with on the grass so I didn’t really care. I should have been paying attention to the training too – that is one of my very important jobs – but sometimes a Giraffe just has to kick back and let her hair down and enjoy the sunshine and the colourful company that comes along. Once we’d tired of playing we settled back, cuddled up and traded stories – like you do. He did ask me very nicely not to tell you much about him and his adventures as, as he says in his own words “We caterpillars, even the colourful ones, lead quiet lives in the main and shun the spotlight of fame as we find it so tiresome to constantly deal with a multitude of fans.” I can see where he’s coming from as not everyone is cut out for a life of travelling, blogging and the constant adoration from their fans worldwide like me. 
It’s a pity really as he has been to some fascinating places in his time and it has done nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for getting out and about and seeing the world (as you should do too – feel free to send me pics if you do, too!). We lazed around the entire afternoon while they finished training and had a barbeque. Eventually though we had to go and everything was packed away so we could drive back to the birthday campsite. I was sad to leave my new friends (especially one of them) but that’s the lot of a Giraffe on the road. Inga made some dark comments about multi-coloured babies and Giraffe’s with lots of legs. I think the sun may have affected her as I have no idea what she was talking about.
Anyway, more from me later. I think it’s time for a snooze while I’m chauffeured back to our tent. Can’t wait to tell teddy all about my new friend!
(Note. This event took place at the start of May 2011 but didn’t get written up. So far there have been no developments from Gina’s liaison with the caterpillar but it takes 14 months and they don’t show so we may have to wait until July next year to find out!)
where they were setting up for some strange event called Maelstrom (almost certainly one of those odd role-playing things Mark likes so much) and did some very rapid training. Luckily they are pretty switched on folks so didn’t need a great deal of assistance. As they’re planning to use it for a lot of events this year i have no doubt they’ll be pretty good by the time I see them again at Drachenfest in July. We got away as quickly as we could cos I was excited to get to our next appointment with The Folk Trail to deliver an 
The porch we had delivered, and even modified there and then so it was even more useful, was to both provide shelter for the front of the bell tent that they were using and a space for Cara to sleep if she was too muddy or smelly to be in the tent. Quite mean of them really; we animals deserve our luxury’s for putting up with you lot!
too. The people walking the Folk Trail were lovely and I hoped we’d be able to see them again before they finished and maybe even walk a few miles with them but it ultimately turned out not to be as we just ended up too busy this season to squeeze another visit in. Breakfast was served and everyone said their goodbyes while tents and gear were broken down and quickly packed away. I waved them goodbye as they headed off on the next leg of their journey from Glastonbury to Emborough. We then had to pack ourselves back in the car for our next long round trip – Glastonbury to Birmingham to Peterborough. Phew, we really rack up the miles when we’re in the country these days.
I was a tad dubious but it was somewhere new so I wasn’t going to stay at home. We headed off down the autobahn (that’s German for motorway, I’m finally starting to go native!) in the car with everything we were supposed to need packed into a trailer and hung out at a service station for a while waiting for more people to show up so we could go in convoy – safety in numbers, obviously. Eventually Alex and his friends turned up in a a cloud of steam (well almost) and after one of the engines had cooled down enough we drove slowly into Cologne and found the Conference centre. It’s huge! Enormous! And, when you’re going in the back entrance, quite hard to fins out where you’re going. So we got lost and had to go back and start again. We found ourselves in a strange encampment out the back of the main conference halls and near the music stage, opposite the food stalls and without a blade of grass to be seen anywhere – it was all concrete; so how were they going to put up a tent to use as a stand? Alex was fine, he had those funny Viking style tents that you put together with a mallet and lots of cursing but we had bought a 
and, for once, the brainless wombat – as he will henceforth be known – remembered to take quite a few pictures. Normally they all work so hard that they forget and end an event with nothing to use for marketing or, even worse, my blog! Humans! Love ‘em to bits, but really, there are limits even for a mild mannered not temperamental at all giraffe like me!
In West Coker. Which is near Yeovil and only a short drive from Marks’ home ground of Blandford in Dorset. Quite why they decided to do a delivery and training in the winter I do not know – and I’m not impressed. We Giraffe’s don’t really like cold, damp weather. We made it to the scout hut vaguely on time (google maps let us down a bit or maybe it was Mark’s driving…I’m starting to think that a Sat Nav might be a good investment. Hint Hint) to be greeted by a nice turnout of scouts and leaders. It’s always a good sign when lots of people turn up to learn how to erect a Jurte. We met West Coker at the Gilwell Scout Reunion earlier in the year and they’re lovely people. The normal way the training goes is to show a few people but that’s because quite often there’s only a few people. Inga took charge of the scouts (she likes bossing teenagers about!) and soon had them hard at work learning how to erect the tent. The scout leaders took this opportunity to have a cup of tea and offer words of encouragement from the sidelines which seemed to involve quite a bit of laughing. With so many scouts at hand the roof could be set up and pulled out in all directions at once which was a novelty to see. One moment it was on the floor, the next it was in the air and being pegged down. Fantastic
The next bit was to lash the centre poles and, as you can see, that was no challenge to these scouts! Good to see scouts who know how to lash poles together properly and don’t need teaching. With the lashing done Mark explained how to finish the roof while Inga had her tea. Within a few minutes the cap was on, and the legs were pushed in – and then back out again. The lashing was too high! A quick re-lash and the roof was up and sitting pretty (not as pretty as me, obviously, but not bad for a tent). The sides went on which turned out to be the worst bit of the tent for the scouts but they’ll no doubt learn and get better with practice. The finished tent got the seal of approval from everyone which meant it then had to come down and get packed away neatly. Folding practice! the side panels are easy (remember that the buttons always go on the inside when you fold the panel) and the scouts quickly grasped folding the roof so it slipped back into its bag. And then it all went into the store to wait for its first proper outing!
