Clare's Rebel Badge Blog

I completed my Bronze Maverick Award this month - very exciting, and I feel I should share my adventure with you.  My Community For this I ran a Warhammer Club after school for Secondary School students with an interest in the hobby. I have been doing this for some years with a fellow Rebel, but this year decided that the club needed to be more structured and the kids needed to be given a focus and more responsibility. To this end we created the 'Council of Doom' for the older students so that they had a say in how the club was run, and took responsibility for teaching new and less experienced students about the joys of Warhammer. This worked well until they had to go to revision classes instead. However, younger students took up the mantle of responsibility and organised our resources cupboard to a degree I am incapable of, and continued building our 'Age of Sigmar' army in readiness for the Armies on Parade competition in the autumn. I also started volunteering for my...

It's A Wonderful Life I had never watched this movie before, and as it was on in December I thought I would view it for my Christmas Challenge Badge. This is a gentle tragi-comedy from 1947, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The acting was pretty good as was the scenery, and I had forgotten how atmospheric black and white film was. James Stewart made a great lead as George Bailey, and was backed up well by Donna Reed as his wife, Mary. George was a building society owner in a small American town, whose nemesis was the rich and cantankerous banker Mr Potter; Potter made George's life difficult at every turn, eventually threatening to ruin him and causing him to seriously consider suicide. Obviously at this point, George was saved by his guardian angel, Clarence, and made to see what a difference he made to everyone's lives.  All ended well with the townspeople saving George from ruin. Lovely, and not a bit cheesy! Odette Biographical drama from 1950 about Odette Sansom, a French w...

I believe that private gardens and public spaces should be havens for wildlife, as well as being pleasant for humans, with imperfect lawns containing patches of long grass and wildflowers, weeds in the borders and between the cracks in the patio. So many gardens are sterile and clean, perhaps for convenience; I understand this - people are busy and don't want their kids or pets getting muddy and making a mess, don't necessarily have the skills to maintain a garden or think that these skills are not for them or something they could not learn. I realise that this is a gross generalisation, but one that I experience often with friends and colleagues. I decided to investigate what wildlife and plants I actually had in my small town garden (c. 85m2), and to then research ways in which I could improve the habitats therein to encourage more wildlife of all shapes and sizes, and to provide a wider range of plants. So far I have noted nearly 140 flowering plants as well as trees and sh...

Craft Part 2 has begun! Having discovered a small hole in my favourite grotty cardigan I decided to make it bigger, edged it using eyelet hole stitching and added petals and leaves with fishbone stitch. I am quite pleased with it! I am also rather startled by the amount of positive comments I have received for it, my favourite being 'Miss, you've got a flower on your bum!', as well as by the number of people who said they would have no idea how to do it. I guess I still naively think that everybody learns to sew in childhood - I should know better! I have completed Detective Badge so have made a slideshow full of information about my favourite detective, Albert Campion, whom I have loved since a teenager after seeing Peter Davison portray him in a BBC series. I have since read all the original books by Margery Allingham many times. I made a slideshow rather than a scrapbook as I am trying to declutter the house and am not fond of scrapbooks really. I have discov...

I believe that private gardens and public spaces should be havens for wildlife, as well as being pleasant for humans, with imperfect lawns containing patches of long grass and wildflowers, weeds in the borders and between the cracks in the patio. So many gardens are sterile and clean, perhaps for convenience; I understand this - people are busy and don't want their kids or pets getting muddy and making a mess, don't necessarily have the skills to maintain a garden or think that these skills are not for them or something they could not learn. I realise that this is a gross generalisation! I trained as a horticulturalist and landscaper many years ago, so have the confidence and skills to grow my garden and know why some things work and others don't. I have been fascinated by nature for most of my life, and still get excited when I see spiders or slow worms, or snakes, or frogs or eagles! I'm rather fond of ants and woodlice too, but slugs are my horticultural nemesis. How...

As you may have guessed from my subtle title, I gained Ultimate Rebel status this week by finishing some Wild Rebel badges; I finished Palaeontologist a few weeks ago, and this week finished Nature Lover and Observer. Neither were too much of a stretch as they encompassed many things I already do. I highly recommend sitting in the window of a coffee shop for an hour and actively watch the world go by; it's fascinating what and who you see. I went for a slow nature walk as it was too cold to sit in the squirrel hide for long, and saw several bird species, a horse being taken for a stroll (I got to pat it and I am usually scared of horses, so yay to me!), lots of lichen and fungi and a glorious variety of ivy leaves. There were lots of early spring flowers emerging, and to top everything off I saw a red squirrel scampering up and down a tree and along a path. We only have red squirrels here and I always get excited when I see one. I feel I have lost my Rebel mojo a bit in...

I have updated the merit badge section on my Rebel Camp Blanket, and am now dithering about the layout of the challenge badges - I may keep dithering for a while! I finished January's Exercise Every Day challenge, and am now having a go at February's Love Challenge; I am not keen on February - it is my least favourite month - so this is particularly challenging, but I got the badge in the subscription so now I have to earn it! I made some heart-shaped shortbread biscuits for work, which went down well, and knitted a very dark rose. I made a Galentine's card for a chum, and wrote myself a love letter - hard to do! I also sat and researched the origins of the heart symbol and the history of St Valentine, both interesting tasks. I just have to continue treating myself and then I am finished! I have been working through 'Coding for Beginners' for my Maverick Challenge and boy was it a challenge! It has been a bit of a slog in all honesty, but I have finally ...