Robin

I really love that we have robins in the garden and was only disappointed I didn't see any young in the Spring. They're curious birds and come quite close when I'm outside and watch me as much as I watch them. They are my favourite bird and my fall back blip subject (along with the squirrels), when I've not been out doing exciting things.

It's a 'stay at home and catch up' sort of week with BrownIe and Scout meetings thrown in. Yesterday I ran a fun disability awareness session for the girls. Amongst other things they had to imagine how they'd get ready for school if blind; feeling objects smelling bottles and listening to familiar sounds to try and identify them. They also really enjoyed a deaf person's version of 'Brown Owll Says...'

Tonight I brought an old guiding friend and first aid trainer to Scouts to teach them life support including CPR (lucky to borrow 8 Girlguiding resuscitation Annie's) and controlling bleeding. There are more and more occasions where it's proving useful to have a foot in both camps, sharing equipment, ideas and especially training.

Some of the boys started off being silly but they came on board as the evening progressed, with everyone broadly getting the hang of it.

Interestingly, when the brownies (girls aged 7-10) had a similar evening, they were captivated and 100% attentive. Scouts (girls and boys aged 10-13) are harder to engage and have much shorter attention spans. I like the mixed sex environment but I think I prefered working with Explorers (aged 14-18) in the summer as I enjoyed talking with them and they responded way better to instruction. Scouts are definitely more challenging!