The Long Way Back to the Lilo

Touring is a funny thing. On one tour we were down in Cornwall and, as usual, nobody had any money.

We turned up in a pub, where Jamie and Martyn started arguing about who had what. Eventually, we managed to scrape together enough for a couple of beers.

Then, for some reason I still don’t understand, Martyn and Jamie decided there were different routes back to the campsite. Martyn convinced me to go one way with him while the other three went the other way. So off we went.

As we got back towards the campsite, we found one big thing in our way: a dual carriageway.

We stopped. We looked. There was no way we could get across that. Naturally, we were just about to run across when a police car turned up.

“What are you guys doing?”

“We’re getting back to the campsite before them.”

“Okay, carry on then. No problem.”

So Martyn and I ran across the dual carriageway to get to the campsite. And yes, we got there before the others did.

That was when Martyn came up with his great idea: we should hide all their clothes.

We went into Jamie’s tent, nicked his Lilo and all his clothes, and hid the lot behind the tent. Then we disappeared into the bushes and waited.

Ten minutes later, the other three turned up. We walked out, pretending we’d only just arrived, with a bit of, “Oh no. You won"

Meanwhile, Jamie had gone into his tent and discovered that all his gear had been stolen. After a little bit of a hissy fit and a breakdown, he decided he needed to relieve himself.

And where did he choose to do it?

Behind the tent. Exactly where we’d hidden his things.

He proceeded to piss all over his own clothes and his Lilo.

This resulted in a big fight between him and Martyn. Bearing in mind that we were on a public campsite, it wasn’t very good. We managed to stop them from piling into somebody else’s tent.

Jamie was a little bit more annoyed that we’d lost the stopper for his Lilo.