How to Build a Character
Scout Camp, we're told, is character building. And I can certainly vouch for this as my 11-year old's two nights roughing it have imported numerous new virtues into our vicarage: Self-sacrifice : I missed my firstborn after depositing her in the Friday darkness with her sleeping bag and hold-all of Hollister tops. Her empty bed pained me in the mornings and I had, forlornly, to sing solo along to Adele songs on Youtube without her at my side. Humility : as, hastily, I subdued my uncool glee at the reunion upon clocking my daughter's warning scowl. Patience : as I listened with beaming attentiveness to a half-hour, high-speed account of who fancied whom on campus while, armed with a Post-it note of scrawled directions, I wrestled the A10 into submission. Courage : as I squared up to the damp, muddy menace that was her dirty laundry bag. Forbearance : as, all evening, I withstood the howls and recriminations of an adventurer who had achieved one hour's sleep th