by James Bewley

We got up late, well latish, well, in fact if I was at home it would have been early, such is the number of times during the last week that we have got up before seven. It was raining and this provoked a dull mood throughout the camp. We were leaving after so long, well a week actually but the way our hosts had welcomed us and attended to our every need had meant we settled in quickly and became accustomed to their ways.

Our breakfast was scrambled egg, bread and jam. We then set about clearing up the camp and taking the tents down, then a group of about 11, consisting of 4 leaders and the rest scouts, went into a local town - I’m not sure of the name ! We took a public bus as Neil and Dave, the coach drivers were resting to be ready for their overnight ordeal. The bus wasn’t as crammed full of people standing sardine-style as I’d seen on passing buses but the comfort of the seats left a lot to be desired and the heating - well - a cast iron radiator under the seat is neither economical nor pretty. (What does a pretty radiator look like James ?)

In the town we looked at the best bet for decent buys and found a “Spar”-type shop run by grumpy bodies who rabbited on in Slovakian at you expecting a fluent answer, instead they got a shrug of the shoulders and then you tried to hide behind the shelves of food. The mission of the trip was to spend all outstanding money and I found myself leaving the shop with 2 packs of crisps (which were huge), 5 big bars of chocolate and a bottle of Fanta for just over 2 quid!

We returned to the site to find the operation of taking down the tents well underway, then I went down to post some cards in the local village. I returned and started taking our tent down and packing it ready to be put on the coach, then we packed the food before lunch. Lunch was a noodle’ish soup followed by a pasta and chicken dish. We then signed the Slovakian Scouting chronicle and for the rest of the afternoon the packing of the coach continued and time soon passed. Then there was a sort of ceremony where we were presented with books on Slovakia and its heritage and culture. Then we bid good-bye to our friends and then started the next leg of our trip. First we watched “Dad’s Army” which I’d seen before but was still all right, then we watched The Fugitive, which I thought was rather good as I hadn’t seen it before, this lasted about 2 hours and at about 10:30 p.m. we watched “Only Fools and Horses” which I’d also seen before. By this time I was beginning to get tired so I decided I’d better get some sleep.