Can I get away with this?

Has it really been more than 4 months since I was last on about this? Doesn't time fly.

Anyway, its happening now. Remember I said CL1.1 and I have taken up a new hobby?

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/got-a-new-hobby.68310/

Well, our club organises an annual summer camping expedition, and we're going on it. Its not quite the plan I originally had but he asked if we could go on it, and it just makes more sense I guess. I must be mad. Not only will I be giving up my comfy bed for a night, but having slept on a hard floor all night with flies crawling into my lugs, it will be up at dawn to cook some sausages, beans and flies on a tiny stove, before actually doing actual physical training for a few hours

 

Good luck Clueless, sooner you than me!

I'm sure you'll have a great time with the youngsters.

 

I'm only taking the larger of the two youngsters. I did ask wife if she wanted to come along and bring CL1.2 but she declined my gracious invitation for some reason.

 

Wise lady! I was thinking that perhaps there would be other youngsters there as well as Clueless Junior.

 

Get all your kids (& OH) away on camping hols before they develop expensive tastes or the former become stroppy teenagers. I've found children can make more friends on campsites than on many other forms of holiday

 

Well folks, we've been camping. We survived. More details to follow when I've put everything away and actually had a proper wash. I'm looking forward to coming out of my own bathroom, in the buff, safe in the knowledge that there is NOT a massive queue of people waiting outside the door in the dressing gowns with towels in hand.

 

Here goes.

Set off yesterday lunch time, got there around 3PM. Plenty of time to get pitched up, have a little explore of the site, get something to eat, and then get changed into our posh suits (our uniforms for our new martial arts hobby).

6PM. Training commences. In the field. Jolly good fun but hard work. This finished by just after 7PM due to a bit of rainfall. So CL1.1 and I changed into our civvies and went to the park for a while. Skin is waterproof. No good fearing rain if you live in Britain.

About 8PM we were invited to join the organisers for a beer (well obviously 1.1 couldn't have a beer, but he could have a juice). We were going to, but the weather turned into actual weather, so we headed back to the tent, I did some emergency botchwork to try to deal with the puddle forming on the roof that was threatening to squash the tent (I had to adjust the poles to make it wonky so that the puddle would pour off), then we just decided to stay in. I laid awake for quite a while worrying that flash flooding might create an actual emergency for us, but tiredness and the realisation that there were a couple of hundred people and several dogs in the same field, so someone would surely raise an alert if a proper problem developed, so following 1.1's lead, I went to sleep. We were snug as bugs in rugs despite the rain absolutely battering the tent with a deafening roar.

This morning, woke up to find the little outer room of the tent flooded, but the sleeping quarters had held out. No big deal for us, just a few things soaked but nothing major for us. Some of our comrades had come off a bit worse. Our next door neighbours had had to abandon one of their several bedrooms (their tent was enormous) due to a torrent of water coming in.

Up and about, some leisure time at the park, but mostly training time. It was brilliant. It was stuff we're not allowed to do in the normal class because in normal class we have to follow a syllabus. We got to play with actual weapons, kick some pads about a bit, and practice falling down with smashing. All good fun.

One of the many highlights, and this is why adults are justified in fearing kids, was a psuedo-medieval style battle we had. All us grown ups had to take up (padded) shields, and form a defensive human wall to protect a rubber man (yes, a life sized man made of rubber). All the kids had to charge us, attempt to break our defensive, and knack the rubber man. There's me, in the line, thinking I'm going to watch out for the bigger kids, the teenagers, especially the heavy ones. They'll achieve quite a lot of momentum. I'll be ready. Then came the moment, hordes of kids of all ages charging our line like little psychos. I braced for impact, got my head down, and boom. The first big kid hit. He failed to get through at that point. But then.... chaos... confusion... disarray... I found myself falling sideways as other adults in our line lost their footing. I regained my composure... I tried to hold it, their were arms and legs flying everywhere... I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was our line had been breached. By how many, I knew not. Every time I wobbled, or my comrades wobbled, we'd quickly reform the line, and we kept doing so, until came the point where we realised that there was nobody left in front of us. Our defence had failed. We looked round, and poor Rubber Bob was getting leathered by pack of rabid 5 to 16 year olds. Tremendous fun, and thankfully Rubber Bob is made of rubber so I'm sure he didn't mind.

So, camping, storms, physical training, weapons, and fun all round pretty much sums it up.

Oh, and now I am aching all over.

 

Sound brilliant Clueless
Little Clue will have this happy memory to draw on, forever.
Glad you both enjoyed it.

 

Have you now learnt the trick necessity of always stuffing sleeping bags/clothes into plastic bin bags when left in tents during torrential rain, just in case there's some seepage whilst you're out during the day and there's nothing worse than getting into a wet sleeping bag. If it happens during the night when you're asleep at least you have the pleasure of getting out of a wet bag in the morning.

 

Why did I think of my failed marriage then

 

So will you be doing this again Clueless, or is it once bitten twice shy!

 

Definitely do it again.