My Memories Of Sodyba.

It was another early start for me today. I got up at 4.30 and was on the road by 5.30. After some initial fog as I made my way eastwards across Devon to the motorway the weather conditions were perfect. Peter's car is new with all mod cons and is very comfortable to drive. As the roads were almost empty I have to admit to breaking the speed limit at times. Also I carefully counted the exits on every roundabout sign and and didn't go down any wrong roads. So I managed to shave an hour off last week's journey time.

On Sunday mornings there is a very large car boot sale (twice the size of the biggest one down here), about a mile from scout camp so before I call in at camp I have a leisurely stroll around. Today it took me 2 1/2 hrs to go round the sale. I didn't buy that much, a bag of toy cars for my next years' class, a bag, some beads, a hand mirror and some penguin Christmas tree decorations for Vytas' Kate (she likes penguins).
Once I got to Sodyba I found Vytas and Romas helping with the final clear up. It was lovely to see Vytas as I don't see him often. It's not unusual to find others called Vytas at camp but this year the other Vytas was also tall, had a beard and long brown hair in a ponytail , freaky. Romas had actually been camp Commandant and was very tired after doing that job and a lot of the programme organiser's job and fitting in a lot of socialising (partying) as well. I'll wait until I can pull some pictures from facebook to show the things they got up to.


As this might be the last time I visit Sodyba I decided to go for a walk and relive a few memories.


The track from the road is very rutted. I had no problems when I used to drive my landrovers up here but I don't take the chance with Peter's car and leave it in the car park by the house.

I only started coming to camp once the boys were little but I still got to camp in the woods in the Ateitis Camp (family camp). Usually in a tent but for 2 glorious years we had a caravan which was wonderful despite the hard bed. A whole week of only having to make sure the boys had dry and reasonably clean clothes to wear. When they graduated to sleeping in the boys' camp I would get them to give me their dirty clothes each day by including a small packet of sweets (something they didn't get at home) with their clean clothing.

Each evening as darkness fell we would walk down this track to the lauzas (evening camp fire)....

.... set in a natural amphitheatre. As well as songs and jokes the youngsters would also do skits. One year when Romas was 4 , he and his pal Leo did a Jurassic Park based act with lots of roaring and shaking of the bracken. That was the year he decided to be a stand up comic and tell long indecipherable jokes with his dog puppet. And the year he and Leo decided to tell jokes together and came to blows over who was going to say the first line.

This rabbit was feeding on the path today as I walked around. When the boys were doing scouting activities I would go for walks along the many bridleways and over areas of heathland and there would always be many rabbits around even during the daytime.

I have many memories of sitting on the stone steps on hot days nursing a hangover (pre-kids) or watching the youngsters play sports on the grass. The grassy banks make fantastic water slides with polythene sheeting and a hose pipe.

Although Sodyba is now a country club open to anyone it was originally bought by the Lithuanian immigrants and is still run by Lithuanians. A bit of a problem as most Lithuanians believe that they know the best way to do anything. That is probably the reason why the swimming pool in the woods, now totally rebuilt, didn't have a deep end and a shallow end but 2 deep corners diagonally opposite to each other.

My earliest memory of Sodyba is going up on a coach from London from the day with my mother and catching tadpoles at the side of the fishing lake. That was about 45 years ago.

The lake has great rafts of water lilies. I can remember camp closing ceremonies where a sea god was installed on a home made raft and paddled around the lake usually with rather watery consequences.

While I was walking around the lake a Brown Hawker was whizzing about. At nearly 10 cms long it is the biggest of our dragonflies. While I was trying to work out it's patrol route it buzzed up behind me and hovered about 3ft from my face looking at me. It was rather disconcerting.

When I was a youngster I really hated living in London away from any wild spaces and whenever I came to Sodyba I would go for long walks through the woods around the lake.






Not much has changed in the woods apart from the swimming pool now being surrounded by a high wooden fence. (No more midnight swimming.) Also the 'haunted' mill down by the trout river seems to have completely disappeared.

I can imagine that after the war this must have been a haven for the emigres, many of whom would have come from rural backgrounds and were then having to live and work in dismal conditions in the East End of London. They would come for the day or to camp for a weekend or longer and those with more money stayed in the house. Whitsun weekends used to be one long party with marquees set up for people to sleep in. There would be drinking and singing and dancing and more drinking. I went to one of those weekends with some friends from the dance group when I was 15. Say no more.

And now I'm off to bed because I am so tired.