Greetings from a wet and rainy Kent, England – where else does it rain in late June? Now please excuse me whilst I wipe the rain drops from my cleavage, nose and hair. It is true, I am wet. Not in the sense OJ normally likes me wet, but wet I am all the same. So wet in fact that some rather ungracious English gentleman has just described me as a duck, and walked past me quacking, leaving a trail of feathers behind him. I swear, the quacking will haunt me in my sleep. Most disconcerting. I am wet, from the rain – but does that mean I immediately qualify as a duck?

Anyway, I am getting rather spectacularly off the point. I don’t often mention my work for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, but I thought that today it was appropriate. It is a true privilege and experience to be part of the development of young people and to spend my weekends in the countryside of Kent – the original Garden of England, although referred to sum as a dump. When you think, that only 6 years ago I too was completing my Bronze, and now I have completed my Gold (two years since) and I am a supervisor and expedition trainer, the sheer satisfaction that it gives can only be imagined. Both participants and leaders alike learn so much from watching people participate in the Award. I spend my days training them, my weekends supervising them, and at the end there is a culmination of everyone’s hard work, time, teamwork, perseverance and laughter. The respect, the memories and the letters of thanks at the end of a season are fantastic. Groups have such a spectacular experience, they share things that will never be repeated (like the girl who actually did wet herself crying) and they have such fun – one such way is by indulging in volleying songs back and forth group members throughout the weekend – so often at a leader’s expense. Even if incidents are contentious, it never descends into fully fledged violence… I’ve been close to it, but not managed it yet…

So why do I do it then? Both participants and leaders of the Award are to be commended. Each individual expedition means much more of the participant, but the general sense of enabling someone to experience a DofE expedition, seeing a team develop, watching both their success… and their failures, leads to a very humbling, but also gratifying weekend. I do it for the kids – if people didn’t volunteer, then the youth of today wouldn’t be able to get out in the countryside and instead would probably be taking drugs in some seedy internet café in Portugal, full of sweating men. Both sets of supporters are therefore to be commended (and Back home, sometimes people can never understand why I want to spend my weekends in fields, in the rain, waiting endlessly in lay-bys looking for groups of girls, telling people how to pack rucksacks and instructing future generations… but I do it, and I enjoy it. People take great pains to thank us for our efforts and whilst it is not necessary, it is good to be appreciated. Even in today’s society, the spirit of humility, working together and appreciation of the countryside still continues. The Award is a truly unmissable experience and the organisation and enjoyability of it is thanks to so many people.

I’ll be back in my soggy wet field tomorrow. Hopefully seeing about fifty kids get through their practice Bronze expedition, and again next weekend supervising a practice Silver. My last comment before I head off (in need of a glass of wine and shower) is this… why does it always rain on me, is it because…