We Do Adventure

A couple of weeks ago one of my guitar students asked a question. Was it me who made the video of a girl he knew singing? Yes, was the simple answer I gave him. The slightly more complicated answer would have gone something like this. That video was something I filmed while recording them rehearsing a couple of songs for an acoustic performance with Budo, our Novi Most colleague in Jajce. I'd sent it to her in a private message, she'd left her Facebook signed in somewhere public and a friend leaked it online. She had about 1500 views overnight. I think she was happy about this. Either way, it wasn't my fault! His follow up question was obvious. Could I film him? He had sung a song at the same performance and wanted to record it to put on YouTube. The challenge for me was he didn't want to play the guitar, opting to just focus on his singing. This left me needing to learn the song and play while overseeing audio and video recording. We filmed on Wednesday afternoon,...

At one of the summer camps we were part of in July there was a workshop on survival fire starting. It was a popular session, understandably. When young people see the seemingly impossible demonstrated they want in on the action. The guy leading the session had some serious mountain craft credentials to burn – if you'll pardon the pun – and he didn't disappoint. We, however, had one disappointed young person. For some reason he'd missed the workshop and really felt like he'd missed out. So we decided we'd do a bit of firelighting ourselves. Not wanting to stake a claim as some kind of mountain man I did some research on YouTube for some more urban ideas. A shopping trip this afternoon equipped me with enough cans of Coke, chocolate bars, sticks of chewing gum and AA batteries to go around. Yes, all of the above can be a useful part of an improvised fire starting process. Sadly, at this evening's get together the sun was too far gone for us to get the chocol...

Novi Most International, the organisation we volunteer for in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has a challenge it gives its team members. It's called "How Dare We?" To a team that has committed to help work for a better future for young people growing up in this country the challenge is how dare we dream dreams for them we are not dreaming for ourselves. Over the past two years our work in Jajce has allowed us to introduce dozens of young people to experiences they've never had before. It's exciting to make a first trip to the cinema possible, or the first visit to a nearby city, or a first ride up an escalator. But "How Dare We" makes me ask what new experiences I've had recently. I like it. It stops you from standing still. The person who has stopped exploring will likely soon stop encouraging others to do so. So we explore. This January I was in the same boat as the young people we took to a winter camp on Jahorina, one of the Olympic mountains outsi...

This weekend we took a group of young people to Sanski Most, a town about an hour and a half north west of Jajce. As an unplanned part of the trip we ended up visiting Dabarska pećina, a large cave just outside the town. I had a torch and camera on hand to capture the adventure but YouTube has been distinctly uncooperative since returning, flat out refusing to attempt to upload my video! So this post will instead present you with the view from the view from our kitchen window! We went up to the ski centre near Jajce this morning to bid our formal farewells to this season's snow. I climbed up the slope to the point where I could get a clear view of where our house is, not that it was really visible with the naked eye. However, it gave me a strange sense of satisfaction to take the reverse of a photo I've posted far too often on Instagram. (If you want to spot Jajce it's about 3/5 of the way across the photo, looking from left to right, just above the tree line. If you want t...

'It's been two weeks since you blogged' said Rowan yesterday. So, duly shamed, here I am again! After a couple of days of rain, the sun came out this evening. As it has been a similarly unacceptable time since I posted a video on our WeDoAdventure YouTube channel I grabbed the camera while I was driving home to record this short update. Perhaps this is cheating, but it is better than nothing! Sadly, I think I've missed the moment for a couple of good football related posts, although Saturday's Champion's League Final may give me the chance to make ammends.

Today is St George’s Day. For the benefit of our international audience let me clarify, St George is the Patron Saint of England. Ok, so he wasn’t English – and is also Patron Saint of a number of other places – but he is our answer to St Patrick, minus the shamrock and excessive quantities of Guinness! As celebrations go it seems England’s are always muted at best. This morning my brother Tweeted: Happy St George's Day - cue predictable lame TV news coverage of whether or not we should be allowed a bank holiday! That about sums it up. But then I logged into YouTube and noticed I had an above average number of comments. Sensing something must be causing this spike in traffic I started to investigate only to discover the UK homepage had featured a video I made a year ago today. I'll confess feeling a sense of satisfaction that mine was the only video about this auspicious day given that treatment. Now I’ve probably made over 500 online videos so it’s not surprising I can’t remem...