Michelle Dry's Children's Books

A word of advice:
Never drop your knickers in a muddy puddle and stroll across a campsite with a smile/grimace on your face.

It was an accident but not that kind of accident… Instead an innocent visit to a shower block on one of the more prestigious campsites unfolded into an unsuspecting embarrassment.

Since England is renowned for inclement weather, why would anyone be surprised when a beautifully sunny day quickly transformed into a torrential down pour combined with 60 mile an hour winds?

I had waited in my van for a gap in the clouds and legged it to the shower cubicle. There I luxuriated in the use of a hot shower instead of using a 12v shower, a kettle and a fold out bucket. The delight of hot water flowing with power to actually remove soap suds from the body and shampoo from one’s hair can be compared to the first time a person eats chocolate after abstaining for a month. Ohhhh what a joy.

Wearing fresh knickers and clean clothes, I gathered up my showery belongings and headed across the site. The divine comics in charge of the weather precisely coordinated the wind to pick up and a wall of rain charged towards me.

I was wearing flip-flops and realised that I had to leg it… sooo did precisely that. Running on water-logged ground is not something I would advise… especially across the mud rather than around it. Although the natural instinct was to take a direct route based on the physics of the speed of the wall of rain and the distance to the van. A couple of skids across the mud later, and while I was off-balance I threw my pyjamas and knickers in the air. The pyjamas came off unscathed but the knickers sploshed down in a particularly muddularily gloomy puddle. Without a thought I grabbed them and grimaced as I launched back into a flip flop running manoeuvre and skidded once more.

This one skid-tacular manoeuvre was more like doing a mud slide because there was a slope involved. Anyway, in an attempt to maintain my balance I waved my arms, released my muddy knickers into the air at speed. They were then diverted by a 60 mile an hour gust onto the screen of a luxury mobile home…

FfS…
My flip-flop skid came to an end when my bottom touched down. The rain beat down and I was soaked.  With a sigh, I pulled myself together and glanced over at the mobile home. Could I get my knickers back without detection? Should I abandon them completely?

I then had the image of people knocking on vans to determine who was the owner of the soiled knickers ‘dumped’ on the luxury mobile home owners screen.

Well stealthily removing muddy knickers from someone’s windscreen is a challenge. What made it worse was there was a muddy knicker shaped impression left behind. Should I knock on the door and apologise? How do you explain such a sequence of events? It was beyond me. Had anyone seen? Could I escape with my muddy-knickers un-detected? Was there CCTV? All the while it pelted down… The muddy knicker impression would be washed away…

I took a deep breath and headed back to the van and placed the muddy knickers in the wash bag and changed my clothes. I glanced out of my tinted windows to see the luxury van owners in their wet weather gear pause by the van and glance at the windscreen. The muddy knicker impression remained. The couple appeared confused but not too bothered… They used their windscreen wipers to smear the knicker mud across the screen. I felt bad because they were forced to face my unintentional skid mark…

I could have apologised but instead I have written this… If you are the owner of a beautiful luxury mobile home with the shape of muddy knickers splattered on your windscreen – then I am really sorry. It was an accident. This is a huge explanation but I am sure you will understand why I didn’t come over and tell you what happened in person (plus it was pouring down). It was an a divine-comedy-coordinated accident and my advice to anyone is never drop your knickers in a muddy puddle, particularly on a windy day.

Michelle Dry books can be found on Amazon.