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'Thanks, but I'm already sharing the tent with another man.'
'Even better. Threesome!' he laughed.
'I think I'd better sleep with one eye open tonight with you just across the road.'
'You'd better believe it,' he said with a wink.
When it was dark we started to put up the tent. I am rubbish at putting up tents. Even
in daylight. There is only one person in the world worse at putting up tents than me, and
unfortunately he happened to be in the pub car park with me. In darkness, we were com-
pletely incompetent.
Ben and I came very close to strangling each other during the tent's erection. Let me re-
phrase that, as it sounds like a sadomasochistic version of
Brokeback Mountain
. We came
very close to strangling each other during the course of putting up the tent. There, that's
better.
'What are you doing?' screamed Ben.
'I'm putting pegs in. What does it look like?'
'Don't bother pegging the inner bit. Just peg the flysheet.'
'But then the flysheet and the inner will touch and we'll get wet.'
'Bollocks. That's an urban myth.'
'No it's not! It's a fact. I've been in plenty of tents that have leaked.'
'That's because you're so shit at putting them up.'
'Why are you being so miserly with the pegs?'
'There's no point in using pegs for the sake of it.'
'Ok,'Isaid,andthenpeggedtheinnertentanyway,whilsthewasstrugglingtoundothe
zip.
Afterabout45minutes,wehadmuddledthetentintosomeformofbasicshelter.Thank-
fully there was no wind, and rain seemed unlikely. I had tried to attach the guy ropes just
in case, but Ben had snatched them away saying, 'there's no way are we having guy ropes.
Guy ropes are for gays. They should be called gay ropes.'
I will never get bored of the excitement of climbing into a tent. It is one of those mo-
ments that bring about extreme feelings of excitement and nostalgia. In the pitch black, we
fumbled our sleeping bags, duvet and possessions into some sort of order and lay down to
go to sleep.
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