I had so much fun planning my Sparkle & Ice 2021 At Home that I’ve decided everyone should do their own at-home camp weekend at least once during these dire times when we can’t go and camp for real. Take a weekend out of your real life, when you don’t have to worry about responsibilities or work or chores and go off to camp without going anywhere.
Make yourself a programme of activities – literally. I make a big table in Excel with the times down the side and the days along the top and then draw in boxes for everything but a list on a scrap of paper will do the job. You don’t have to stick religiously to your programme but it’ll give you an idea of what’s going on at your camp and what you’re going to do next. Fill in every hour from dawn until bedtime! Make sure you come home tired out from having non-stop fun!
The camp part
For me, the sleeping in my tent outside in winter was the key part of my Sparkle & Ice weekend. If you feel a desire to spend a winter’s night outside in a tent (or even a bivvy if you’re really tough), then do. But you could also build a fort out of blankets and chairs and boxes in the living room or kitchen, bring your bedding down to the sofa or into the (empty!) bath or you could even go glamping by spending the night in the comfiest bed you have handy – your own.
Themes
Every Guide camp I’ve ever been on has had a theme. You base everything around it, from the names of the camp patrols and their tents, to the camp names of the leaders to the food, the activities, the badges, the logbook page. When I did the licence camp with my own Guides, the first time we’d ever camped without a “proper” grown-up, the girls requested a Disney theme which we narrowed down to Alice in Wonderland, so we ordered some china teapot-shaped plates from Baker Ross to paint, we made ludicrous hats, we played croquet, our patrols were the Cheshire Cats and the Mad Hatters and the leaders were Alice, the Red Queen and the White Rabbit.
Come up with a theme and once you’ve done that, you can find some activities to fit it. A mix of crafts and outdoors activities are good and as you’re planning this for yourself and not for a couple of dozen children, you really can do whatever you want. My theme was “sparkle and ice” so everything was wintery. Also, for the last four years this has been a nationally organised camp with the same theme so I attempted to reproduce what they did using the more limited resources and space I have at home, so my planning was relatively easy. If you’re just planning your own camp with no traditions attached, you’re free to do anything.
Activities
Especially in winter, crafts you can do inside are perfect for your at-home camp. Obviously Pinterest is a good source of ideas. I had a look at Hobbycraft to see what they had in the way of ready-made craft packs and I also had some ideas from stuff we’ve previously done at Brownies around Christmas. This is a great opportunity to try something entirely new – you’re at camp, you’re having fun, you don’t need to make this your next side hustle, you can just try macrame for the fun of it being a camp activity. Make it as intricate and fiddly as you like or as simple and relaxing as you like. This is your camp, just for you.
Food activities are fun – make it, then eat it! I had melting snowman biscuits on my reserve list for my winter themed activities (spread icing over a biscuit, stick a white marshmallow to it and then decorate as if the snowman has melted) and we’ve done rainbow fruit skewers at Brownies before. Try making sweets – I have an excellent rocky road recipe and my sister likes to make coconut ice around Christmas.
Camps always have some outdoor activities. They’re a bit limited during the pandemic – I can’t go off to Go Ape for a tree-top adventure activity or run a fencing lesson (I have a bag of swords but my potential pupils would refuse point-blank) or do crate-stacking – but there’s still stuff to do. A walk in the woods, a paddle in the river, an amble along the shore looking in rock pools, going to a park and spending a while trying to identify birdsong. You know, all that outdoors stuff that you haven’t got round to, that you don’t have time for – put an hour or two into your programme this weekend for giving it a go.
Food
Not that you need an excuse to eat whatever you want, but if ever there was a time to eat something stodgy and warming and delicious, your camp weekend is that time. If you have a camping stove, you could take it outside and cook over it. Cook something that fits your theme – this often means cooking something that works for 30+ people on two gas rings and giving it a new name when we’re on camp for real but when you haven’t got 20 kids to worry about, you can take your time planning your themed menu if you so desire.
If you’re not so much into themes, good camp foods are pasta or jacket potatoes or curries with plenty of rice. Don’t forget the hot chocolate before bed. In the morning, you’ll want to resupply with energy so it’s a great day for a fry-up or a pile of eggy bread or a big floury bap full of sliced sausages. Sparkle & Ice always has tomato soup for elevenses on Saturday and then a bag of sandwiches (cheese or ham, tuna or jam, goes the song as you walk into the marquee), a packet of crisps, a flapjack and a piece of fruit and then something with pasta for dinner.
Afterwards
Sometime on the second day (or later, depending on how long you want your camp to last), pack up the tent or the bedding or the glamping pod, take off the damp clothes you’ve been doing your outdoors activities in, throw all the dirty stuff in the washing machine and enjoy being home, even though you haven’t got anywhere. Sparkle & Ice gives you a packed lunch to eat on the way home so I’ll do another sandwich/crisps/juice bag (only without the bag).
Finish off your camp with a nice hot bath to warm up, whether you need to warm up or not, and to get clean after spending a night at camp.