I did warn you they would get messy...

Recently (well, recent enough...) it was halloween!


You know, that time of year when sprogs dress up, asks for sweets and the challenge for scout leaders everywhere is to throw a party. My rule of thumb with this: the messier they leave the better.


But before I share with you my recipe for a messy child, I'll share with you some photos of the pumpkins that we got them to carve.

Recipe for a Messy Child


Ingredients:
Sprog                                   x many
Costume                              x one per Sprog
Apples                                 x numerous
Water                                   x bucket loads
Marshmallows                    x more than a mouth full
Flour                                    x a bouquet
Doughnuts                          x enough to choke a giant
Treacle/Golden Syrup      x enough to grease a small monkey



Method:

• Inspect sprog in costume, it may be necessary to remove articles for movement/breathing proposes
• Float apples in buckets of water
• Insert sprogs head
• String up doughnuts on a rope so they all dangle freely. Coat doughnuts in treacle/syrup
• Hang doughnuts above sprogs heads and let them apply treacle and syrup to face/hair/body/costume as they attempt to consume them.
• Once all sprogs are damp and coated in treacle/syrup, bring out marshmallows on a plate covered in a large heaped pile of flour.
• Insert sprogs head, flour should stick rather successfully to water and treacle mixture

We finished off the night with a game of Fluffy Bunnies. If you don't know what that is, you take turns putting a marshmallow in your mouth and saying 'fluffy bunnies'. You are not allowed to chew or swallow at any point or you're out. Needless to say, this was played round a bin for them to eventually throw up into.


What's a halloween party without a game that includes vomiting?


They all loved it really, chasing each other round and putting treacle and flour in each others faces, drooling down their tops while trying not to spit up marshmallows. Of course when their parents showed up and saw how messy they were it was 'horrible'...


I've since learned (from one of the parents) that it took one of the sprogs several days to remove all the treacle/flour.... SUCCESS!!

Horror Filled Silence

Okay.... so let me explain why things have been so quiet here recently.



Tumbleweed...

Put simply, it's because I havn't been at scouts for AGES.
My last post said that I was missing one week so that I could go visit my newly born niece.

But the two weeks after that I was ill with Gastroenteritis (believe me when I say that it's really not fun!) What the scouts actually got up to while I was curled up in my bed I'm not entirely sure.

At the tail end of my illness there was a Jamboree Unit training camp, which of course I missed the vast majority of. I had decided that I would be sensible and stay at home that weekend to make sure that I recovered, but I did pop out to visit the happy campers.

Which, if you have been clever and worked out the dates, brings us up to this last Friday. At which I was also not at scouts. I know, totally slacking huh. But I had a good reason, honest. One of my best mates was throwing a surprise party in order to pop the question to his girlfriend.

No, not "will you pass the salt?"

...

You know, that one that involves expensive rings... and ball and chains?

Yeah that's the one.

Thank goodness she said yes, cause I was under instruction to wrestle the sharp knifes away from the mother-in-law-to-be if she had said no, and I really didn't want to have to take her on.

At least this time I actually knew what the scouts were up to, in fact even tho I wasn't there I had provided a load of equipment for it. We sent an email out a couple of days before our Friday meeting saying that each patrol was going to be making a horror movie and they could bring whatever they wanted in the way of props/costumes etc.

From what I hear they did a really good job (I've yet to see the films... I'm looking forward to that, especially given that some of them involve singing and dancing to Thriller!)

The storylines were: A schoolgirl visiting a Transylvanian castle and getting turned into a vampire and one that I think is particularly inventive... a statue outside a house that would kill trick or treaters as they waited for their sweets (until it gets slain of course, but the hero does die in the process of killing the monster).

That's basically how we are marking Halloween this year, next week is half term so we aren't meeting up (yes, yet another week of no scouts for me!)

Of course, the images belong to whoever they belong to and arn't mine!

BOOM *evil laugh*

wha ha ha ha <=evil laughter

Welcome mere mortals.... to network...

The plan for our Halloween/Guy Fawkes night had been to invite the older Explorers down to join us so that they could get to know us. Due to the invitation going out late, my own fault, we only got two (GIs sister and one of her friends). But hey, its better than none!

We started off the night by carving melons, which is so much easier to hollow out than pumpkins (or the traditional turnips that I had to carve when I was a scout- talk about your spoon bending, Uri Geller had nothing on us). Buffy and I made a decent attempt, but it was Gav and Lornas 'lovechild' Ernest that stole the show.

Ernest shortly after being 'delivered', thankfully there was a nurse on hand

*news flash* Ernest, after spending over a week in intensive care in Lornas fridge has sadly kicked the bucket (or at least the bin). It is also recorded that altho he was given visitation rights, the father never saw young Ernest again after his birth... some say Ernest died of a broken heart (he certainly had a gooey centre anyway)

Aww look... sharing

ok... maybe there is such a thing as sharing too much

We played some more of the traditional halloween games... hanging doughnuts, marshmallows in flour, fluffy bunnies etc before we had a surprise visit. Cabbage, Steve and Pual all came down to present us with our Rabbit Run trophey; newly engraved with COLDnet 2009

And now that the scouts in the other hall had finally left it was time for the fireworks, which generally doesn't need much commentery other than

BANG

ooooo

aaaa

....sparkly!!