Continuing the camping theme, in the early 70's I used to have a tent and sleeping bag permanently in the boot for use at weekends and suchlike to go to festivals or just on the piss.
I passed on burners and suchlike as I would eat out. In all honesty eating on the weekends away was going to be a haphazard thing anyway. One particular weekend myself and Richie Maloney headed for Achill Island. We arrived latish on Friday night and secured a patch of grass belonging to the owner of one of the pubs we went into.
As is normal on the West coast of Ireland it rained on Friday night but we were in good spirits, two pints and a game of pool for £1 might have had something to do with that.
Anyway on Saturday it lashed it down all day. We didn't really care as we were in the pub for the whole day and had great craic. We retired at some hour of the morning intent of sleeping it off and heading for home on the Sunday.
That night was a belter, the rain was incessant and the wind began to pick up as we settled down in our sleeping bags. Now numerous pints of the foaming brew are a great remedy for insomnia as we were out like a light in seconds.
I woke up at some hour of the morning and I felt a wet sensation on my exposed head. I opened my eyes cautiously and all I could see was a translucent bit of canvas inches from my face. I went to sit up and found that the frigging tent had collapsed and was lying flat upon us.
I tried to get out of the sleeping bag but the tent was like a straight jacket and the more I struggled the more entangled I got. I tried to kick Richie awake but it isn't easy to do that in a sleeping bag.
I twisted around and located the zip on the opening and managed to open it enough to crawl out like a fecking caterpillar. It was still lashing it down and as I was already drenched it didn't matter too much. I went to the car and dressed with difficulty into dry clothes before I decided to wake Richie.
As I put on my coat and was trudging back to the car I noticed him struggling in the tent. It was a howl. I left him for a while before deciding to go to his assistance. He extricated himself from the sopping canvas and trudged to the car to get into some dry clothes.
He walked back to me and we looked at each other, then looked at the tent, then back to each other and if as by some tacit agreement we walked to the car and began the journey home leaving the tent and any enthusiasm for camping back in that field.
Never been camping since
Priceless.
