Flaming Phalanges

As you all know I was recently at the World Scout Jamboree as an Assistant Unit Leader, and, as promised, I took my diary with me to jot down all the little stories and details.


Oh the best laid plans of mice and men... if only my writing hand hadn't caught on fire.


Yes, you read that correctly. Caught. On. Fire.

Not me, yes. Not exactly what happened, yes. Cool picture none the less, hell yes.

It was our first day on the Jamboree site in Sweden, we were still setting everything up, including the kitchen. The way that our chosen system worked meant that the patrol that I looked after was on duty and had to cook dinner.

We were making dinner, on our brand new stoves, in our brand new mess tent surrounded by packages and boxes hiding all manner of things, like those handy things called fire blankets. Everything was going smoothly until I hear one of the kids say "Oh look, it's on fire"

That, for the record, is a sentence that can send shivers down any leaders back.

I quickly turn round and not only has the kitchen roll that was beside the stove gotten so hot that it spontaneously combusted, but it was in said kids hands. Everything following this happened in a matter of seconds. I ran over, I think I stupidly tried to blow on it (I know, I know, but this was like a second after seeing it) realised that I needed to get it out of her hands and out of the mess tent.

So I grabbed it and ran.

And then stomped all over it.

And then released that in the past 3-5 seconds from seeing fire to stomping it that I had burnt my hand...   not my best moment I will admit.

We got to treating it straight away. I was pouring cold water over it while Elaine (our first aider extraordinaire) was prepping the burn kit, and as soon as that was on I was on my way to the first aid facility. A first aid centre which was embarrassingly still setting up, that's how early in the Jamboree this happened!

I did try to write that night, a lot had happened that day after all... we'd gotten to Sweden, to the actual Jamboree itself after 2 years of work... but it just hurt too much to write with my burnt hand and if I had tried with my left it would look like a 5 year olds scrawl and a single word would probably take up half a page.

So all my Jamboree stories are going to be just that, stories. Unlike the 3Nations posts (going day by day) I'll be doing some random little stories from time to time. If you don't like it then you can blame the flaming kitchen roll...

And if you still don't get what "Flaming Phalanges" are... then this little clip from Bones might help

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!!