Clare's Rebel Badge Blog

Phew, book 2 is available to everyone now so I can mention it! My daughter (good at Science) and I started the Scientist badge at the weekend; I jumped in all gung-ho and "Let's do this now!!", rubbing my hands in glee as we prepared to make salt and sugar crystals, and then test lots of household substances with cabbage water indicator. Daughter was appalled, freaked out slightly and made me take her out for a cuppa and a sandwich so that we could plan the experiments properly and use the scientific method. Gosh. Anyway, once we returned, we measured everything out properly, made notes, and I now have a line of jam jars on my windowsill full of salt and sugar solutions which are failing to form crystals. We bought shot glasses for the indicator experiment and had a gratifying time getting excited when the indicator changed colour! I love this experiment. I also started the Politician badge by helping a friend deliver leaflets as part of his campaign to be the...

                                             This week I have continued to work on Stargazer Badge, by popping out in the evenings and staring at the heavens, trying to differentiate between stars, planets and aeroplanes. The weather is getting chillier at last and has resulted in clearer skies. I find that I do enjoy spending five or ten minutes gazing heavenwards puzzling over which constellation is which! I have also finished sewing all the badges I have claimed onto a new camp blanket. To finish the Event Planner badge I am planning the department Christmas meal at a local pub that isn't doing a Christmas set menu, so have been tasked by a colleague to make it more festive than usual; to this end I am finding Christmas crackers, sparkly bits and may have to organise the dreaded Secret Santa (I am curmudgeonly at this time of year so don't usually tak...

I have decided to try a new approach to blogging about my Rebel exploits as when I read back through some of them I got bored! I will endeavour to write one post a week about what I have been working towards and any badges completed as this may be a better approach. Feedback gratefully accepted! I bought the first volume of Rebel Badge Book in April this year on the recommendation of a friend, and from the minute I opened it I was completely hooked; there were lots of badges that appealed to me so I spent a happy couple of days trying to decide which badge to start with, and then started on a whole bunch of them at once! It hasn't got any better, but I quite like my scattergun approach to completion. Every so often I focus in and see that I need one more clause to complete a particular badge, or one more badge to complete a patch and go all out to achieve that. Charly introduced quarterly badges before I started which have helped focus me too, as well as monthly challenge badges; I...

Clause 7: Create a sequence of at least 4 related photos. I spent a lovely couple of hours in a local National Trust garden, pottering about in the autumn sunshine with a fellow Rebel, taking pictures of some amazing fungi. I have subsequently found and photographed more fungi - such interesting life-forms! Learn about the main functions of a digital camera I read a fascinating article on the website explainthatstuff.com which explained digital cameras really clearly. Read it here . Learn about the main functions of a film camera On the same website as above, there was an article detailing how film cameras worked as well as the history of photography. It was a fascinating read and I was left slightly saddened that we rarely use film cameras now, even though I really like digital photography! Create an exhibition or book of at least 20 photographs I have created an album of my favourite garden flower photos from the last year or so, where I have con...

  To claim this patch I need to earn 5 badges from: Adventurer Adventurer 2 Camper Codebreaker   (April 2022 with some backdating) Explorer Outdoor Cook Stargazer Survivor Water Sports Water Sports 2 Wild Swimmer Patch Claimed:

For this patch, I needed to earn 5 badges from the following: Advanced Crafter Artist Builder   (October 2022) Craft       (August 2022) Critic      (June 2022) Dancer Designer Florist Musician Photographer   (November 2022) Writer     (October 2022) Patch claimed: November 2022 It is highly unlikely that I will attempt the Dancer or Designer badges but the rest should be doable.

To claim this patch I need to earn  6 of the following badges:  Activist Animal Lover   (August 2022) Conscious Consumer Community Service  (September 2022) Emergency Helper Entrepeneur Environmentalist Fundraiser Linguist Rebel Buddy  (June 2022) Sign Language World Traveller Patch Claimed: 

To claim this patch I need to complete 5 badges from this section: Apothecary Diarist Badge   (March 2022, backdated) Fitness Badge (Completed August 2022 but no blog) Good Habits Badge  (August 2022) Mindfulness Reader Badge  (May 2022) Runner Self-Care (Completed 17th September 2022 but no blog post) Patch claimed September 2022

To claim this patch I need to earn 7 of the following badges:  Adulting     (May 2022) Baker        (November 2022) Chef DIY           (August 2022) Event Planner Gardener    (April 2022 with some backdating) Indoor Gardener   (August 2022) Interior Designer   (August 2022) Investor Mechanic (September 2022 but no blog post) Money Saver Patch complete: 5th November 2022 with Baker Badge.

Ok, I started this in an effort to stop buying coffee and cake, so that I would usually have something in the freezer for when cake was a medicinal need!  I love a tray bake, and mostly use Mary Berry's recipes as they're pretty much foolproof. Lemon drizzle rarely gets to the freezer. I did, however, make treacle spice tray bake as it seemed appropriate for autumn walks. And was delicious. It is now frozen. I also made Devonshire Apple Traybake. Bread I saw buttermilk in the shop so had to make soda bread! I made a second batch of savoury Chelsea buns, with a different filling. They looked and smelled marvellous but the neighbours cat got in and ruined the lot. I might have sworn loudly and repeatedly..... Finally I made Olive Bread Rolls, loosely based on a recipe by Paul Hollywood; the dough took ages to prove as it was a cold, damp day and I didn't put the heating on for long. The rolls look great and will hopefully taste delicious fo...