10 June 2011 (Friday) - It Rained

 

An uncomfortable night: incredibly cold, and ‘er indoors ^TM and her airbed managed to take up all the space in the tent, leaving very little (i.e. none at all) for “Yours Truly”. And it was a noisy night too – the assorted wildlife was making a terrible din all night long, including heart-rending screaming noises. I have since been assured that these screams were made by rabbits falling prey to foxes. But there were a lot of these screams.

I lay in bed till 7am when the urge to tiddle became too much, and I got up to find the field awash with fog. Very scenic. As I performed my morning ablutions I made polite conversation with passing dog walkers; none of whom seemed at all fazed to find a fat balding man (wearing only shorts) having a strip wash and shave in the middle of a field. There was a minor dilemma as I ran out of shaving gel, and I spent ten minutes wrestling with the gas regulator. And having made myself a cup of coffee I then spent two hours sheltering from the rain whilst waiting for everyone else to get up.

After brekky, Jose arrived just in time to see our washing up getting done, and as the rain slackened off to a medium monsoon I put up our second new gazebo. Having been rather impressed with our first B&Q gazebo we bought yesterday, I’d asked ‘er indoors ^TM to obtain us a second one. CA then arrived with littlun, and we put up Bryan’s tent that she’s brought down. We then swapped insults for a little while. She intended to come down for half an hour, and stayed for four.

Time for lunch, and as the rain slackened off, I moved my chair outside. We sampled my latest home brew “Test ‘Un” and had a cheese roll. And then I dozed off, only to wake an hour later to find I was on my own, sitting in the rain. After the thunderstorm had passed I found a wasp’s nest within a few yards of our camp. That was handy (!) so I set up the wasp trap.

By now the tribes were gathering, and the field was starting to fill up. Terry and Irene were on cookhouse, and did a wonderful job of feeding a dozen of us. I am only too happy to wash up when the dinner is that good. And after a second thunderstorm I realised the Rear Admiral wasn’t about. He’d gone to bed with stomach cramps. Realising there wasn’t much we could do, we set about the beer, periodically asking for updates on his progress.

For some reason we’d been selected as being responsible enough to be trusted with the locking of the gates to the field, and so having chased the doggers out of the car park we locked up. And went back to base for more beer. On arrival at base we turned round and unlocked the gate to let in the late arrivals. By now I was worn out with walking up and down the field, so we rewarded ourselves with port and cheese. And then a second bottle of port and more cheese, finally staggering off to bed at 1am.