The Tent (adventures in camping)
Comments from the author:
In a mad moment of sociability, last week, I offered the Girlie the chance to bring her son Josh (and his mate Nick), over for the weekend.
As I live in a very small house, they would have to camp in the garden. I promised to do a barbeque for them.
As I didn't have a tent, I bought one for them. It was one of those instant, pop-up tents that are designed to be erected single-handedly, in seconds, during a blizzard, high up on Everest (by a blind man suffering from terminal frost-bite!)
Couldn't go wrong, I thought. Thus, I helpfully hid the instructions and let the Girlie, Josh and Nick get on with it - whilst I sat back and pondered the culinary delights of barbequed sausages, oven chips and a nice salad to go with it (my part of the deal!)
It was a bit windy and that, with the three of them shouting contradictory instructions to each other, did make for good entertainment.
I got the camera out, lit another fag and let them get on with it!
Below, are the results of the first hours efforts (if you can call them that!)
To see any of the images at a higher resolution, just click on the thumbnail. To close the larger image, click on the X in the top right-hand corner.
The First Hour
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My only comment here is that... If you give three monkeys enough time (and typewriters), they may well be able to write the first line of a Shakespeare sonnet - just don't rely on them to erect a tent (especially if you are blind, suffering from terminal frost-bite and stuck in a blizzard, half way up Everest!)
The Second Hour
After 1 hour, they seemed to getting on quite well. I really didn't like to point out that they were assembling the tent in the wrong place - but I did so anyway!
Below, you can see how far they've come on. At this point, I was starting to get a little bit worried that the tent wouldn't be ready until the following Saturday!
At this point, I started to consider contingency plans - these included shipping the boys back home, letting the boys (and the Girlie) carry on or... wading in to help them, myself
I lit another fag and sat back to watch the fun!
To see any of the images at a higher resolution, just click on the thumbnail. To close the larger image, click on the X in the top right-hand corner.
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The Third Hour
Well into the 3rd hour, they seemed to making some progress.
I think that this was largely due to the instructions shouted out by Josh's 10 year old friend, Nick - who, as you can see here (from his builder's bum) is sure to become a property or construction magnate (although, if you've ever met Nick - you might think he has a great career ahead of him as a Chat Show host!)
Sorry Nick (for the photo), in years to come, when you are bigger and tougher than me, you can always beat me up! As you can see - I did my bit, and the barbeque was burning away quite nicely.
Resisting the temptation to show them all were they were all going wrong, I lit another fag and sat back to watch the fun!
To see any of the images at a higher resolution, just click on the thumbnail. To close the larger image, click on the X in the top right-hand corner.
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The Fourth Hour (and getting on towards night-time!)
Being the nice generous soul that I am, I did provide toilet facilities for the boys!
It had only take about 180 man-hours to construct a simple tent but... watching it was better than watching an episode of Fawlty Towers!
The Barbeque tasted great (even though I say so myself) - the herb (fresh from my garden) encrusted sausages were delicious! The boys didn't seem to eat that much - I guess that they were tired out from all that order giving!
The Girlie ate well but.. I think that that may have been stress related!
I, of course, ate like a piggie - I think that all that laughing must have worked up a real good appetite!
To see any of the images at a higher resolution, just click on the thumbnail. To close the larger image, click on the X in the top right-hand corner.
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Epilogue
The boys finally went to bed (having watched some totally inappropriate videos for kids of their age - sorry Nick's Mum and Dad but... they've got to learn sometime!)
The Girlie and I lit some candles in the garden and relaxed (we'd also had some baked beans with the barbeque, so there was a slight post-party odour in the air, which we put down to muck-spreading on the fields!)
I must admit to going to bed slightly worried - mainly about the number of bent tent-pegs that I found lying around and also, the bits of vital string (and so forth), that hadn't been used in erecting the tent!
Shouldn't have worried, really - the boys slept well and came in to the house at 8am in the morning - we (the Girlie and I), lied to them (barefaced and without remorse), and told them it was only 6am and they needed to get back to bed!
They (the poor trusting fools), believed us and the Girlie and I had a nice lie in for the next 2 hours!
To hire me for your next kiddies barbeque - give me a call but, first.. make sure Esther Rantzen is on holidays. And please... hide that number for ChildLine!
P.S. - Any young girlies out there who want a bigger image of young Nick's builder's bum - just give me a call - I'll send you a full size image (for a fee!)
