International Day – Britannia Rules GV!
Happy International Day from Gwynn Valley! Yesterday at camp we celebrated our staff and campers that hail from the United Kingdom. Our Welsh, Scottish, and English staff have put together a very exciting day filled with witty performances, Elton John classics playing from the Pavilion, and tasty morsels served in the Dining Hall!
We started off the day with a very Scottish morning! As campers lined up by the Lake for breakfast, our brave UK staff took to canoes to put on a skit about Nessy (the cryptid of Loch Ness fame). Prior to tucking in, we were treated to two Scottish traditions: the staff danced the Gay Gordons and a local physician, Dr. Ora Wells, played the bagpipes whilst fully kitted (read: kilted) out! On the menu for the morning we enjoyed tattie scones (a potato scone), sausage, brown sauce (think something tart that is akin to A1 steak sauce or Worcestershire), scrambled eggs, and baked beans. Thankfully, our Scottish staff decided not to offer up another national dish this summer: haggis!
We had the opportunity to get a little tongue-tied at lunch as Aneirin attempted to teach us a few Welsh words. We learned that “dwin catu chdi” is a way to tell those close to you that “I love you.” And to ask someone “do you want a hug” all you have to say in Welsh is “tisho cwtsh”. Mary Gwynn’s name has clear Welsh roots, and so it felt particularly appropriate to have a wonderful Welsh meal of cawl stew, sourdough bread, green beans, and salad for lunch!
Our Program Leaders offered some festive sign-up options for campers this afternoon! Several UK staff offered touch rugby in sports. I’m sure many campers enjoyed the opportunity to learn the rules to a new game! Our Mill made privateers out of our campers with corn cob boat making (avast me mateys). And at Blacksmithing campers got to live out their dreams of attending Hogwarts by making their very own magic wands.
Our last meal of the day was English tea. Before we started the meal we got to meet several famous English folks. The late Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles introduced the procession of Daniel Craig, Princess Diana, Sherlock Holmes, Gordon Ramsey, Ed Sheeran, Tyson Fury, and so many more! Many of us were hoping that we would have a UEFA European Championship to be celebrating on UK day. We offered watching the final against Spain as a sign-up earlier in the week. We know that football will be coming home soon, lads! For dinner, we had a delicious spread of bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potatoes), a cobb salad, gravy, peas, and salad. And to top it all off: for dessert we had Sticky Toffee Pudding with a creme anglaise!
We finished up our evening with the UK staff putting on “The Great British Sing Off“ (a take on The Great British Bake Off). We ended up having our evening program in the Dining Hall due to some rain and thunderstorms that passed through during and shortly after dinner. It wouldn’t be a UK day without a little UK weather! We got to see lip-synced performances by many storied bands and singers from Britain’s past. Newer stars like One Direction and Adele as well as older classics like Elton John and The Beatles all made an appearance! The Dining Hall was filled with campers singing along to classic chunes!
P.S. – We are very excited to announce that since our last blog post we have had 10 piglets born down at the Farm! Be watching this space for what names we end up giving to them.
