Camping and Steam Engines
As with the last two summers, I planned to spend the odd night in the tent in the garden. It’s cheaper than a proper holiday and if I get bored or cold or want to check my email, I can. Actually no, a cheap holiday is not the reason. The idea was that when the sky is clear and I want to look at it in comfort, I thought it would be nice to be lying in a warm sleeping bag and just go to sleep when I’m ready, without moving. The idea of my head sticking out of a tent has only worked out once, when on a group of us camped out to see the Perseids.
Last night after the quiz (we came second, one point behind the winners who guessed the silly connection correctly) I looked at the sky and couldn’t see much but it was warm and the tent has been up for weeks, I decided to spend the night in the tent. I slept amazingly well, considering it wasn’t that comfortable and got up later than I usually do. I could hear birds splashing about in the bird bath (upturned plastic garden table), birds in the trees, beer kegs being knocked about in a nearby pub and I felt very relaxed. It certainly wasn’t cold, though the ground was a bit hard.
One of our quiz team Chris, who doesn’t usually come, made it last night and was talking about his plan to buy a scale steam locomotive which is big enough to ride behind in a big enough garden. Unfortunately he doesn’t have such a garden at present so we were talking about setting up in mine. I have a long concrete path (some of it overgrown, but redeemable) going the length of the garden and mostly it’s fairly flat until you get near the far end. I think it’s getting on for 100 feet, so you could have a decent run down past the veg patch and raspberries to the compost help. I think that would be great fun.
September 24th, 2009 at 10.05 am
Congratulations on coming second with your quiz team!
How frustrating though to be just one point behind the winners.
Those connection rounds are really difficult aren’t they as they can be quite obscure subjects and if you don’t get enough of the answers right you have no chance of getting the conncetion.
What an exciting idea to have a ride on steam loco in your garden! Do you think it’s likely to happen or is it just a pipe dream for Chris?
September 24th, 2009 at 2.39 pm
Thanks. Yes I find it frustrating that a team which doesn’t know as much as we do gets six points for spotting a connection!
What connects: Dutch Elm Disease, Baseball, Night of the Long Knives and Ice Cube?
(And we only had the first one right, which scuppered our chances)
The steam engine in the garden could happen. He’s decided to buy it and I’m going with him to collect it. I agreed he could keep the passenger carriage in my garden. If he gets some track, it’s not unlikely.