What's the etiquette? Scouts camping in garden

with that much land available… I doubt they will appear at your gate… :wink:

sounds idyllic

Indeed, and there are even a few concrete picnic tables and benches, a water tap in the middle and a bbq place. The camping car area has an emptying point as well as another mains water point. No charge for any of it but everything is switched off between October and May. :astonished: :rofl:

Apart from the basketball court with a hard jogging track running round it. They don’t switch that off. :wink:

We have seen scouts from time to time. They always look pretty organised. Some came to the house once, asking politely if they could refill their water bottles. But I don’t think I would have let them camp if they had asked.

They can be camp anywhere with their big black frocks, ooh mrs.

That said not all scouts are that religiously organised, my daughters didn’t have anything to do with priests.

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ah ah… didn’t proofread my sentence and the translator (on my French mobile) thought this was more relevant… sparkling, sprinkling, twisted or sprain… what word should I use? Sprinkling sounds the most fun so that’s probably why the translator picked it up… and it’s so close to twisted, isn’t it :rofl: :rofl:

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Better that than an alternative, but perhaps France was not as bad as UK/Ireland for pederast priests.

Twisted or sprained normally.

But now they have badges for compiling spread sheets and coding what do you expect?

Dont forget the Scout Association have their own insurance and thats where around 50% of their outgoings are funding cases.

And girl guides? They are Scouts now, its all down to equality

I just saw six scouts coming from St Bonnet de Joux. They may be heading my way.

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your reputation for cooking precedes you Jane! :plate_with_cutlery:

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I was actually surprised that the scouts in France do this stay in strangers households being French parents being so overprotective normally with everything walking to having winter jackets in spring

You have obviously never been to Britain.

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I have actually been on scouting jamboree in England as a teenager and my scout troop in Sweden had several English troops as friends coming over we always made fun of the English because there lack of experience surviving in the forest we camped all year round in Sweden as kid’s even in 30 minus

When I walked the Chemin Saint Jacques I arrived in one village only to find the hotel had shut for the duration. The maire came to meet me and said okay, you can borrow my office for the night, so I have slept under the gaze of the President and Marianne keeping me safe :slight_smile:
A couple of other places I was hosted by individuals who live on the route and enjoy taking in pilgrims. One had his entire toilet covered in postcards he’d been sent by pilgrims when they got home - all over the world.

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By the way if I remember correctly Scouts come in various versions - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and laic. There are even Scouts Musulmans de France.

I have just been to see a 2019 documentary film called Déplacer les Montagnes about the migrants arriving in the mountains around Briançon, which rather puts a few well nourished scouts into perspective. Just awed by the efforts local people have made to help them, and save them. The antics of the State in chasing them down are evocative of the 1940’s, and truly appalling.

People should help people (including scouts) first, and consult their lawyers second…

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My boarding school had its own Scout troupe and I was a member for several years but left in my final year. The Scoutmaster was the physics and rugby teacher and he announced a trip to Norway but they were one short of the 6 required. So I applied and became an honorary Scout again for the duration.

He had an Austin Cambridge pick-up truck with a covered frame over the open back (what is called a ‘tilt’ in the transport industry). 2 of us rode in the cab with him and the remaining 4 on side benches in the back. It was during summer holidays and we sailed from the NE to Stavangar I think and then roamed all the way up the west coast to cross the Arctic Circle to arrive at Bodo. Then back down again so far before splitting east to Oslo, then SW back to the ferry.

The highlights of the trip, apart from the delightfully friendly girls we met? On an unsealed country road, passing one of the numerous graders which maintained it, the shoulder gave way and we slid into the ditch. No damage and no injuries we were soon on our way after being pulled out by that grader driver, who obviously kept a chain for that very purpose. :roll_eyes:

Losing the lens from my little Brownie camera at the Arctic Circle marker, which didn’t stop it taking pictures nevertheless. :laughing:
And sleep walking for the only time in my life (as far as I know :thinking:) in our first floor Oslo Youth Hostel room. I woke up wondering why the ground was so far below me and realised that I was standing on the outside window sill. :astonished:

I also remember being surprised at the clear view of the screen on our visit to an Oslo cinema. No smoke. :rofl:

What a wonderful trip Spardo!

I certainly was, but funny what you forget and what you remember. We must have had one very big tent but I don’t recall any difficulty getting it up and down every night and morning, even though we were regularly on the move. And what has stuck in my mind all these years? The advert in the cinema for Brylcream, the go to head plaster for any budding matinee idol of the day. It was spelt the same way but pronounced Broolcrem. :roll_eyes: :rofl:

But the girls, always the girls, so beautiful and so friendly, in a 1950s sort of way (the 60s were just around the corner but hadn’t arrived yet :grinning:) and we found to our delight that always being in Scout uniform was no bar to brief and enchanted encounters under the stars (the weather was always good and the nights clear). Perfect for my 16 year old raging hormones. :roll_eyes:

But I have a shameful confession (no, not that :roll_eyes:). I had a penfriend, I remember her name to this day, we had been writing for months and exchanged photos. She had a face of breathtaking beauty and soft blond curls. She lived in Andalsnes, which was on our route, indeed a stopover, so we met and and spent some time together along with one of my friends and his penpal. But she was tall, very tall, painfully thin and with a pronounced hunched over stoop. Not helped by constantly looking down at people like me I suppose. :roll_eyes:

We were friendly enough but, I never wrote to her again. :disappointed:
She must have felt the same though, for she never wrote again either. :rofl:

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This happened to us in the middle of Salisbury plain… a troup of scouts from germany turned up at the door asking if they could camp in our field? We of course let them do it and supplied bacon and eggs in the morning. Its a very odd thing to get your head around (it was for me) but we thought it was probably normal procedure for the german’s. Not sure if it encourages self reliance or enterprise though. Surely if they are not paying you and you haven’t entered into a contract then you don’t have any liability. That rests with their organisation. Having run Duke of Edinburgh expeds it puzzles me why they are looking to stay in gardens and not looking for somewhere a bit more wild.