Mayday

May 1st wasn’t exactly a dainty dancing upon a dewy lawn start to the day – dawn was long gone by the time I crunched across gravel chips and oil-rainbowed tarmac to the mud foot-printed floor of the barely functional – and paperless – loo. Overnight, this had been declared ‘Ladies only’ thus depriving us of the clean ones in the newer, unisex Belgian-style block, presumably because someone’s sensibilities had been upset due to an inability to avert eyes from urinals.

May’s eve had threatened bunkhouse hell – greeted by a vista of flat-squab grubby pillows on rucked blue, crumbed and crumpled towelling sheets stretched unfitting over close packed bunk beds in a dingy and depressing gloomy room I went into instant, paralysed shut-down, as I tried to marshal sufficient resources to face two nights within. Impossible, but no other option since the tiny town had “no tourists, no beds” and I agreed to try one night in a lighter but larger – twenty-four bed room, with the promise of sufficient alcohol to ensure sleep.

It then got worse: rumour had it that the man I most disliked in the whole of the BSAOC – a loud-mouthed thieving letch, a ginger-bearded close-to-paedophile - had bagged the bunk opposite mine – I acquired a hammer and a lighter for his beard, should he be his usual obnoxious self - and obtained a couple of promises of tent space if required in the middle of the night.

In the event, this last rumour was unfounded, the half dozen who did use the room were alcohol-defyingly considerate and I slept long and sound, hence despite the aforementioned drawbacks, May’s dawn I considered a good one.