Swimming
Went camping in the woods for a weekend with about 40 members of the local Air training corps in the start of spring in the late nineties. It had been something my mother had pushed me into 'It will build character sonny' type of thing.

Anyway as I wasn't fussed about the whole event, at the start of the camp myself and a mate dawdled along at the end of the column of trampers for the whole day and were so far behind that when we hit the campsite clearing for the night there was on this small slope of gorse covered ground free.

As it was getting dark we slapped out tent down on this land and rushed to join everyone else already sitting around the camp fire.

That night we discovered the joys of putting your tent on top of gorse and for the first hour in the dark (forgot to pack a torch) with a sock over my hand trying to rip out as much of the offending spiky stuff as possible.

After sleeping for a few hours I awoke to find than during the night because I was twisting and turning so much, and that we had positioned our tent's opening at the bottom of the slope, I had slowly wriggled my way out of the tent and combined with all the spring mildew on the ground, had slid down the hill and now had my feet plonked into the stream that ran through the campsite.

Spent the next day tramping along with my sleeping bag draped around my shoulders like some sad superman type cape, trying to dry the bloody thing.

Character building she called it.
(Fudds Ghost, Fri 29 Dec 2006, 20:25, Reply)