DofE: dirt, determination and depression

Just 10 minutes ago, I walked through the door, caked in mud, having returned from my dreaded DofE expedition. For all those who have been in England for the past two days, it wouldn't have escaped your notice that it was CHUCKING it down out there. We all got ABSOLUTELY SOAKED! For about an hour today, it actually stopped raining (yes I know, I couldn't believe it either) and I saw the sun. I swear that was the best moment of my life (until I arrived home). My weekend camping was....lets just say, eventful. On several occasions we had to stop and seek safety and protection (I can't quite say dry - because it was far from it) under some tarpaulin. There were 7 of us, the tarpaulin barely covered 6 of us. So, guess who had to ditch their bag, leaving it out in the rain to get completely drenched, and had to sit right on the edge under the tarpaulin, with only their sandwiches and the front of their head protecting from the rain. Yes, you guessed it - me. That night I had real difficulty feeling my fingers, I knew I had brought some handwarmers, but I couldn't undo the zip to my bag to get them out (because my hands were so cold). The following morning, I made pancakes for the group, and I helped to wash up -despite having lost the feeling in my fingers for over 12 hours. We then set out on our 11km walk at around 10am. We were making excellent progress until....we got lost.

It was on this little, last minute, unintentional detour of ours, that I managed to fall in a river. Yes, I fell into a river. I got completely drenched from the knee down, and wasn't at all happy for the rest of the day. When we finally got to the farm where we were to be picked up, I found my dad waiting there patiently for me, only to discover that we had to make an apparently compulsory visit to the lambing shed, before we had a debriefing and washed up our trangias. So, when I thought it was all over, I then had to spend another 2 hours out in the rain, knowing that when I got back to the car, my dad was going to be in one hell of a mood with me for making him wait.

So one lesson from this story I have just shared with you: NEVER go camping.