We then spent most of the day walking on sand dunes, being told that these natural structures were becoming eroded because people were walking on them. Is it me, or does that seem a tad ironic?
Anyway, to top this poor day off, the guide’s dog, or ‘bitch’, as we affectionately called her, decided to go on a scrounging trip, and went off to stick her head into all of our hard work; our sandwiches. This didn’t exactly make us feel any hungrier, and the bitch ate most of lunch.
The only good thing about the trip was that we did get to see some very fine green hills, all very picturesque. The land was devoid of trees, the grass was lush and full of vitality (until we stomped all over it), and the breeze was light. It was very romantic, until it was considered that the entire party was comprised of boys. The sand was fine and white, with a surprising lack of rubbish. It made me think of the beaches in Southend, full of shopping trolleys, and less savoury items. We were also amused when we the guide told us a story, which to cut it short, was set in the time of Napoleon’s invasion of Britain. A couple of ships went round the coast to go through the ‘back door’, but gave up when in the distance saw many red-clad people. Thinking them to be Redcoat soldiers, they surrendered; in fact, they were Welsh women washing clothes wearing the traditional dress. However, I privately think that had they known that they were Welsh women, they would have given up doubly quick, for their ‘facial features for the strong hearted’ is renowned, and I experienced some first-hand (yuk!).
Day three: I was wrong, yesterday was like paradise compared to today. We were taken to the middle of nowhere, and then taken down an unstable cliff, which we were assured would take our weight, even when some of it crumbled underfoot. There was only one good thing about today’s outing; it was extremely cold, and very windy. I, however, was comfortably warm and padded out, and the rest of my friends, not having a considerate mum, didn’t have any cold weather clothes. I laughed gleefully at their stupidity, and charged them extortionate rent prices for good old Auntie Minnie’s jumper. Serves them right too!
We spent the day looking for whelks and crabs and suchlike, using plastic tubes stuck together, which was a piece of scientific equipment called a quadrat. Thankfully, I managed to scramble up some rocks, and was able to escape from the bitch’s daily scavenge. I then spent the little free time back at the field centre where we were currently habituating (incidentally, the field centre was a 17th Century country manor, as opposed to the modern, high-tech facility we all were expecting) playing in their entertainment room. They had placed arcade machines in the so-called entertainment room that I had last seen in museums of great antiquity.
Day four: I now question the point of going on this trip, other than the fact that the teachers wish to torture us for some unknown reason. Today was not exactly fun, because we spent most of it on a rocky crag of a beach, and though we had been assured by our guide that Wellington boots would not be required, many people managed to slip into murky rock pools of unknown depths. To further compound his idiotic advice, he himself had decided upon wearing the boots. It was also extremely hot, not unlike a sauna, and the people I had yesterday duped into renting my jumper now lent me their shorts and t-shirts at prices that made the crown jewels cheap. The very site we were on was also an army manoeuvres area, and there was prohibited entry. Our guide cheerfully assured us the army never really used the area much at all, despite the numerous spent bullet casings we found, and the tanks we saw in the distance.
Day five: Today was a little different, because instead of moving around like tourists, we would get to choose where we wanted to perform our private investigations. What they didn’t tell us was that we would not actually choose where we would work, so we ended up all in the minibuses, arriving at beaches looking like tourists.
Today was again a rather hot day, and my not inconsiderable stash of money was fast diminishing. I myself had chosen the exciting project of measuring seaweed. Many, many times (in fact, it was about 131 times). The fact that the particular seaweed I wanted to measure grew on steep sea-cliff faces had not occurred to me, and I spent about two hours clinging onto a cliff face, with the sea pounding and roaring underneath me. It was not much dissimilar to the film ‘Cliffhanger’, except the main star had a set of safety ropes and such like, and I didn’t. ‘Its very safe, I assure you’, was all the guide would say. This is strange, because any other normal person would have thrown me a rope and hauled me up already.
Day six: The final day of fieldwork before we left, and I again had to measure the seaweed, but this time on a much safer, inland sea-cliff. The only danger was stepping into very dirty rock pools, which I did on several occasions. I was not a very happy person after that. The clothes that I had rented from people were now slightly wet from rock pools and some funny guys throwing seaweed about. I suppose I had got my own back on the extortionate prices, as by the time they got home the next day, the seawater should be festering and smelling like a cesspit (incidentally, I don’t have smelly body odour). However, my mood lightened when the class fool managed to slip whilst skipping from rock to rock, and fell into the largest rock pool there was, eventually emerging like the Beast from the Black Lagoon. A rather delightful scene, might I add. Of course, everyone laughed at this person’s misfortune, and this was all that was said to him the rest of the day, to remind him of his foolishness. However, the fool, with whom I unfortunately had to share a room, along with three others decided that on the last day they would have a shaving foam fight. Without me. Afterwards I proceeded to use coarse language (which cannot be reproduced here) on them, as they had covered my suitcase in the stuff, and in their fun, had managed to fall on it, causing irreparable damage to my case. Damn them!
All in all, a fair week spent in a backwater region of Britain (if you exclude the foam fight and subsequent damage to my property). I suppose we don’t all get what we want.
