Duke of Edinburgh CV enhancement award

My daughter Kodakina has just come back from a week's "working in conservation" holiday with an organization called the BTCV. She worked clearing woodland of unwanted growth (eg brambles) and had a jolly good time. I was very proud of her as she had to get quite far away by train, all on her own, which involved crossing London on the underground in the rush hour with the biggest rucksack in the world, and spend the week with a group of strangers, accommodation was the village hall.

She has just got her GCSE results which, thank goodness, were good enough for her to go on to study her chosen course, the International Baccalaureat, at the local state- funded sixth form college, not private you understand. She got an A star for art (that's my girl), by the way, and the rest were all As and Bs (that's for you, Elizabeth, and thank you for asking).

Anyway, to get to the point of this post ........... Although K. had a lovely holiday, she did have to contend with a lot of negative and stroppy seventeen year olds (she is sixteen), who were only on the holiday to gain points for the gold award section of the Duke of Edinburgh's scheme. These young people plainly were not participating on the week away for the "right reasons". They were astonished that anyone would want to devote a week to the good cause of conservation of the environment - they were only doing it for the certificate.