By: Blonde One
We recently had a Ten Tors training walk where the adult leaders had to manage without the Young Leaders. For various reasons they all had other things to occupy them! I still find it hard to believe that anything is more important than Dartmoor but apparently Budapest, the Isles of Scilly and a job interview are actually more important! We have been saying to them for a long time that we couldn’t manage without them and this was our test. Although everyone got home safely, learned lots and had an enjoyable time, we all missed them a lot! Our kit sorting was harder (there was only one tent with the wrong poles), there was not quite as much laughter and the tent/minibus chatter was much, much less interesting. We did manage without them but we all agreed that we don’t ever want to have to manage without them again.
It did make us feel better to hear that most of them were wishing they were with us and thinking of us. They were all keen to hear how the teams got on, how the weather was and all the other details. Little Miss Blonde and Numbers text several times to make sure they didn’t miss out completely.
In order to remind these 2 of what they are missing and make sure they come back, I went foraging for all sorts of Dartmoor bits and pieces. I found various bits of flora on the ground and bagged it all up to send over to them. The parcel I sent included some Easter chocolate treats but they thought that Dartmoor was the better gift!
