QotD

[msconduct]

14. Tell about a time you slept outdoors.

I camped at one point for months, not because I like it but because it was the cheapest way to travel. The most striking night of all of them was the night my ex-husband and I spent in Hammerfest. It's in the Arctic Circle and we were there as part of a tour through Russia, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. The weather was pretty cold - sometimes below zero C. At this point in the tour a lot of the other participants had wimped out and were renting cabins to sleep in, but we along with a few other people were determined to keep camping.

The weather that evening was decidedly dodgy. Then it developed into a full-blown rainstorm. The wind was roaring so loudly that we had no hope of sleeping whatsoever. During the night we had to throw on our rain gear and jump out to help another couple whose tent had completely blown away. (At least that was easier than it could have been as it was light all night.) At one point a local cat demanded loudly to be let in the tent and spent the rest of the night curled up on me.

What a memory. It was absolutely brilliant.

Comments

[msconduct]

Argh, that sounds awful too. I'm much better with insects than I used to be when I was younger - in 2019 I went to a wonderful insect zoo on Vancouver Island where you could hold all the insects and that was great. I even held a tarantula, something I couldn't have contemplated when I was younger. (Their feet are soft and furry!) But I dtill do have a problem with things that move quickly. We have a native cockroach in NZ which doesn't get into food or anything, so I've tried to make my peace with the occasional one coming inside, but it's still a bit of a struggle.