Work this week was exhausting, stimulating and depressing in equal measure. We needed a change of scenery. So on Wednesday along with several hundred partially mobile greying sexagenarians we headed for The Apollo in Shaftesbury Avenue to see Fawlty Towers. The stage show was hilarious to those of us in this specific demographic. A few bewildered Japanese tourists sat stone faced until the interval and then left, presumably heading straight to Heathrow to make their escape from this lunacy.
The set was uncannily accurate. The combination of three familiar episodes worked really well, and the acting, or rather extraordinary impersonation, was remarkable.
Polly, Basil, his little Pirahna Fish, Manuel, The Major, and the Germans were all there.
It was hard not to feel transported back to those wonderful days, when language was unguarded, and comedy allowed for the parody of a racist comment to reveal the ignorance of the racist. Acceptable has changed. We have genuinely changed. We are multicultural and inclusive. After all we've had tapas twice this week and hardly slapped a waiter on the head. But I will make no apology for missing the comedy of our childhoods.
The summer, a rather loose term this year, is upon us.
We said on Friday that we bloody love England when it's warm and sunny. Seeds were sown for one of the most spectacularly uncomfortable nights of our lives.
So we woke Saturday morning with the weather promising great things. Perhaps a whiff of Friday night over indulgence briefly clouded our judgement. What are we going to do tonight? Let's go camping.
Don't start that, oh they are missing Nessa soppy stuff. This was a spontaneous and, as it turned out, down right ridiculous suggestion. Anyway within 90 minutes we were in the car with a few essentials on our way to the New Forest.
Arriving at our chosen site, in the heart of the forest we were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful surroundings. Our popup two man tent looked fit for the job, and the few camping items we salvaged from Nessa days were up and running in minutes. Too smooth to be true you say? Yes, so straight to the inflatable mattress saga. We accidentally brought the wrong one. The BIG one. I shall let the following photos demonstrate the issue.
At this point it was so firmly wedged in the door that I couldn't get at the valve to let it down.
We began to wonder if camping was really for us.
Eventually we managed to deflate it sufficiently to squeeze it in through the tent door but obviously by then it was really far too soft for use as a bed. We considered the drive back to Datchet, but by now pride was in play.
The partially torn door zip added to the woes. Even if we could have fully fitted the mattress into the tent, which we couldn't, we would still be unable to shut ourselves in.
Our lack of planning also included that we hadn't even thought where former van dog Reg would sleep.
Ingenuity is not dead. Two dozen pegs from nearby Tescos and our picnic blanket formed a makeshift door to conceal the front end of the mattress. You would hardly notice.
It did prove possible to squeeze through the tiny gap of doorway left between the mattress and the ceiling. Whilst it would be wrong to say it was elegant, we did both manage to get into the tent.
Once inside we were briefly able to see the funny side.
The partially deflated softness of the mattress was gradually worsened by a slow puncture. By midnight we were suffocatingly pressed together in the centre of the collapsing mattress with Reggie on top of us. Thank the lord for anaesthetic quantities of red wine and Sleepeaze tablets. We woke at 7am and by 9am we were back home in Datchet having a fry up.
Tonight we have resolved never to go camping again.
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