By: Blonde Two
There is one thing in our Blonde outdoor life that really annoys me and that is a damp pair of pants! It can take tough rain to get through trouser layers that consist of thermals, trousers and over-trousers, but Dartmoor rain is the toughest that there is and was definitely up to the job this weekend.
It took us so long to help out kids with wet kit on Saturday night that the Two Blondes didn’t find themselves huddling in their rain battered tent, cooking their tea until 10.30. We were a miserable pair and I was particularly grumpy about the fact that I was going to have to take my knickers off. I would like to point out here that neither taking my knickers off nor putting them on is usually an issue for me, but when you have to do it in a squashed, cold tent next to your (luckily very, very good) friend, it all becomes a bit more complicated.
A bit of discretion via the medium of a sleeping bag helped but didn’t ease the horror of an already cold bottom on a slightly damp and grassy groundsheet. I didn’t bother with new pants after all the hassle the old ones had given me and slipped into a very attractive pair of men’s long-johns. It was chilly in the night and I put some walking trousers on as well. When I got home today, I realised that I had been so busy that I had neglected the lack-of-pant issue and not worn any all day. How radical am I!
Commando!
Commando Blonde sounds good I think!
The Outward Bound Mountain School was tough. I found myself running what the Americans call the hundred yards dash with a twisted ankle. Each morning round about dawn we went to the pier, jumped into the lake (this was the Lake District, mind; the water’s always colder there) and had to bring back a large stone from the lake bottom. But the worst bit only happened once.
We set up camp in the pouring rain, collected wood for a fire, cooked in a desultory fashion, changed into our dry clothes, crawled into our sleeping bags, and slept the sleep of the just.
But the next morning… Ah yes, we took off our dry clothes and put our wet ones back on again! In my opinion donning wet clothes is about as non-instinctive a human activity as cutting your throat with a fish knife. The body shrinks, the body contracts – it’s like travelling all the way back to defenceless infanthood. The clothes are stiff with wetness, you’d swear you’d never ever worn them before. There were no Blondes to badger us into acceptance; where were you both when I needed you most? Unborn, is the answer. This all happened in 1954.
If you all took a stone from the bottom of the lake every day, did it get deeper each time?
Bronze Ten Tors 196-something (you can’t expect me to give away all my secrets) shoes soaking (yes, I walked in pussers’ shoes, they being much lighter weight than my Olympic boots & well used to marching, and no-one checked in those days,) socks soaking, trousers soaking below the knee. Why bother getting undressed? Crawl under blankets fully dressed, sleep like a log – all dry by morning. For about 5 minutes. Those were the days.
Oh wow! I have my first baby robin of the year in the garden, just outside my window!
Girls are tough now but I think they made them even tougher then!