By: Blonde Two

I am back home now after helping Blonde One with this year’s Bronze DofE expedition. Over twenty happy (but very sweaty) youngsters successfully completed their expedition despite very hot conditions.

Blonde One always does a sensible thing during expeditions; she writes a list of things that would be good to do next year. For example, she might note that a particular track is full of nettles in July, or that there is shade/shelter available for a checkpoint at a certain location. That way she makes sure that expeditions improve year on year.

But Blonde One doesn’t need to always do things differently; in fact she does so many things right that I found it hard to choose which ones to tell you about. I settled on three because three is almost as good a number as two!

1. Blonde One plans very carefully. For example, you would think that being a leader monitoring four teams on different routes would be tricky; but thanks to Blonde One’s excellent planning, as well as route cards, medical details and team names, I had a very lovely map on which each route and checkpoint timing was carefully colour-coded. It made it very easy and much more fun following the teams.

2. Blonde One really cares for the young people in her care. You can tell that this is true because this expedition was voluntarily and ably supported by two of our former young leaders (now young men and most excellent citizens) and two of our existing young leaders. It was a real pleasure to work with all of them again.

3. Blonde One loves what she does. This one is simple really; DofE is hard (the youngsters would say ‘solid’) and sometimes thankless work. Blonde One does it on top of another ‘solid’ and sometimes thankless full time job. Despite this, and even when she is at her tiredest, Blonde One’s love for what she is doing is what keeps her going. (Well it is either that or the soggy tents!)

Maybe I should write this list out for her and stick in on her wall for next year!