Life and Times Part xiv

Having successfully survived another year at school a holiday was quite clearly deserved. Tom agreed. We had by now got used to the highlife after our trip to Florida and were looking forward to a few weeks in a luxury hotel for a bit of rest and relaxation. A tropical beach? A five star condo? A big bed and room service? Wrong, wrong and wrong, our parents in their wisdom thought we should go camping with our cousins in Italy. I immediately contacted Ben, Robert and Fred and they were equally appaulled with the idea of 2 weeks on a camp bed in the middle of nowhere. However, after much debate we could contrive no plan that would dissuade the adults from this lunacy.

Dad liked to drive, he liked to drive fast, somewhat recklessly, definitely aggressively and he abhorred pitstops. His idea of fun was an 8 hour non-stop, hell for leather dash across various countries. He was a sick man. We arrived well ahead of our cousins but were suffering from starvation,dehydration, severe cramp and a sore bum. Not a good start! The tent was actually more like a small house with 2 bedrooms and a living area. The beds were horrendous but if we ran around enough exhaustion would at least provide a few hours sleep. The campsite, located on a terraced hillside with wonderful views, turned out to have all mod cons: tennis courts, swimming pool, restaurants etc - things were looking up.

Terracing does have a serious flaw. If it rains the banks on which the tents are pitched are liable to collapse. It started to rain, it rained harder, then harder, then it turned monsoonish (i have only ever seen rain like this in Thailand). We went to bed. We awoke to find that the terraces had indeed collapsed and a few feet of mud was swirling through our cousins tent, we were lucky and had only a foot or so, others were less fortunate and had lost their tent but as i remember no one was seriously hurt. This provided much hilarity for us and a lot of consternation for the adults. We were loathe to say "i told you so" but did anyway, after all - we had.

This disaster, although i do remember enjoying the fiasco, had one major benefit. We never went on another camping holiday, in fact it was to be another 25 years later before i camped again and that was only because i was trekking round Torres del Paine in Chile with a crazy Irishman and all the refuges were full.

The drive home was equally sadistic. School seemed a welcome prospect. Then again...........

P.S The photo has nothing to do with anything. Pre guinness, pre hair loss!