Definition of Boiling

"Boil: verb: To change from a liquid to a gaseous state, porducing bubbles of gas that rise to the surface of the liquid, agitating it as they rise."

Its a fairly simple concept, boiling water... everyone knows what boiling water is...

...

don't they...?


ahhh, this could be a problem.

You see this week, we ventured away from the scout hall to the local campsite, where the scouts were presented with three matches, some tin foil and a tea bag and told to make me a cuppa. They all had to work individually, what with there being a prize for the first to present me with a brew.

Once over the fact that they weren't being given any pots/kettles/bottles they quickly set about picking out their spots and getting some fire. In their haste very few (if any) actually got enough wood ready before trying to use their matches, especially kindling.

This of course resulted in ALL of them needing more matches, and the vast majority needing help from the leaders to light the fire. This may seam like a set back, but thats what we were there for... to teach them how to light a fire!

The tinfoil creations that they produced were rather special if I say so myself... some of them were almost works of art! One or two were thin and leaked, but most were thick, about the thickness of a sausage, which just blocked out all the heat. Mind, I took a 40m roll of tin foil... and it was nearly finished at the end, and that was oly cause Minty took the foresight to hide the rest of it from the kids!

There was one in particular that was rather fantastic, it was magical. While on the fire the water was in it, when moved off the fire... the water all disappeared into the cracks and folds of the extremely thick tinfoil creation. Turning and tilting it slowly would reveal some of the 'tea'.

But the part that worried me was the fact we asked them if they had got the water boiling (like your supposed to with a cup of tea), and they would say that it had... but it would turn out that it had just got warm enough to start to steam.

Apparantly, in a scouts eyes, in a race to boil water... THAT is boiling!!