As I sit here ruminatively rolling a 12g pouch of Golden Virginia into 160 teeny fags because it cost £15.69, a thought has born it's way into my addled mind, viz - you can always tell persons of hardy natural instincts by two things; they keep their nails well trimmed and they own at least one item of satorial fayre manufactured by Berghaus. Neither of which apply to me - I am a martyr for cheap stick ons and all my clothes come from Wallis, though to be absolutely accurate I do also possess a fake Barbour, but I've never worn it so it doesn't count.
I have never been much of a one for The Outdoors. When I was 14, I foolishly enrolled on an outward bound residential course at school because I thought it would open my eyes to all that guff spouted by the Romantic poets on whom I was quite keen. I should've know better. Those chaps were all notriously sexually perverse, raging laudenham addicts and had an alarming habit of dropping dead with consumption when it was most inconvenient. Byron may well have swum the Bosphorous or whatever but he also slept with his sister, so rigourous engagement with the Natural World should not necessarily be held up as key to moral integrity.
On that fateful voyage to the aptly named 'Coven', I was asked to ascend and then abseil down a cliff face, canoe down some white water and deliberately capsize at then end of the rapids. It was a given that we would read maps to find a tin of minced beef and another mysteriously labelled 'new potatoes' which we then had to cook in a raging gale in a wood with a defective Primus stove which promptly blew up. Quite unreasonably I thought, we were also expected to dress appropriately, have a neat tent and brush our hair. None of which quite frankly I could be arsed with. A ra-ra skirt and 'Frankie says Relax' T shirt are not effective roughing it kit for Staffordshire in March and can cause quite a scene when your fat arse is jammed into a crevice on your rock ascent and someone has to come and shove you through it.
Anyhoo, enough of my childhood traumas. Suffice to say, when I reached the ignoble age of 16, I was at the very back of the queue for Army recruitment day and have happily stayed in the warm ever since. Which is not to say that I don't respect the strenuous in others, more that I think over the years it has become abundantly clear that I'm a lover not a fighter.
This was born out today when I overcame my innate fear of the Gas Cooker and decided to prepare a Proper Sunday Dinner for the Heir and The Spare. Back in the land of marmite I abide 100% by the adage that the best way to survive single parenthood is to a) earn a lot of money and b) throw it at any minor problem. This is why I spent £700 going to Butlins last Christmas and then got horribly addicted - I just couldn't be bothered to do the cooking and washing up required by Christmas Dinner. My children cannot quite assimilate the sight of me peeling spuds, they are much more used to me peering myopically at a menu and muttering that I've bought the wrong glasses. They have over the years developed quite sophisticated palletes; Chinese, Thai, Balti, Finger Lickin' chicken, the Savoy Grill, you name it they've had it. So the novelty of me actually cooking like a proper mom caused them much hilarity and excitement.
Naturally it went horribly wrong because for days now I have known that the Gas cannister outside the back door has been pretty much empty. I ordered another which was promptly delivered and for four days I have been glaring at it suspiciously everytime I have a fag. Two days ago knowing that this was a punt I was ultimately destined to loose, I went out in the rain and howling gale to master the task of swapping one cannister for the other. After 30 minutes of going at it with a teaspoon, choice anglo-saxon phrases filling the air (not to mention a rather worrying smell of gas, given that I was smoking at the time), I gave up and took to my bed and yet another tale of manly Everest-based derring-do on my nice Kindle. This made me feel better and by proxy competent. 'Oh yes! I could have the heart to stand at 26.000 feet without Oxygen, my major organs eating themselves as I make that final push for the summit,' (might turn up the heating a notch and refill the hot water bottle),'
Suffice to say, the cannister did not get changed and at 6pm tonight with every imaginable veg simmering on the hob and a load of mutton chops grilling away - poof! No gas. I put my wellies on, grabbed my kindle reading light and a small photo of Bear and ventured into the back garden. Much shouting and swearing. I came back in, locked myself in the lavvy and cursed the false sense of security all those caravan holidays in Skegness had given me.
'Can we go to the Narrows and have some nuggets?' came the plaintive cry from the kitchen. 'No! dagnammit, I WILL tame the wilderness!' I yelled back from the lav, 'And anyway that lot cost me £87.46 and I've been preparing it for 6 hours. WE WILL HAVE A PROPER TEA!!!!!'
I went out again with renewed vigour and the multi tool from the Esso garage but to no avail. Ultimately I was rescued by the Doyens of Food Tech and D&T. Rough men who came in the night to defend my chops. Wearing parkas. With hoods. Bear would have done it in the nud, with a broken back using only the power of his mind whilst eating a live octopus which he had caught using his gentitals as bait. Cos that's how he rolls.
However, what I love about Bear is that after his work was done, he would have sat down and had a Pina Colada and done some praying. I feel affinity with this, its recognisable behaviour for one such as I, even though frankly a Pina Colada is a bit gay and I would have a margherita.
But let's face it, it doesn't matter how many episodes of Born Survivor I watch thinking 'this information may come in handy in the South Atlantic', or how many books I read about facing Gaia down with a baseball bat and a steady gaze, I will never cope with frontier living.
As the men left, one sympathetically muttered, 'You'll get there...'
I ruddy doubt it and I definately wouldn't put cold hard cash on the counter of William Hill in the hope of such eventualities.
Now excuse me, I'm off to my warm bed and the Kindle edition of 'Facing Up' -Bear's account of how he climed Everest in an iron lung when he was 12.
Borah out.
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