“What’s all that stuff around your desks?” Asked a colleague in the kitchen as we waited for the kettle to boil.
“We're going camping,” I replied.
The look on his face was quizzical. “On a Tuesday night?
Together?”
“Yep. We're having micro-adventure*.”
Potential for disaster
I love camping but I've never been with my workmates and
never on a school night, heading straight back into the office the next day. It
was either going to be a fun and interesting way to spend a Tuesday night, or a
complete disaster resulting in mass resignations.
Thankfully this wacky plan had not been devised as an
official team bonder, with specific tasks designed to practice skills like
‘leadership’, ‘teamwork’ and ‘covert infiltration’. It was more of an extended
social event, which, amazingly, and perhaps foolishly, the whole team had
signed up to.
The original idea was to wild camp but there is nowhere
‘wild’ a short train ride from London where 8 people can subtly pitch tents and
spend the night. I pictured a bedraggled horde of my bleary eyed colleagues
staggering along in the glare of a tractor’s spotlights, being marshalled back
to train station by an angry farmer at 3 am.
The wilds of Berkshire
We did contact a farmer and ask if we could use his field
but he was worried about the ‘mess’ we might make. So, we found a sweet little
campsite next to a lock on the Thames in the commuter belt haven of Cookham,
Berkshire.
Two of the team had never been camping, so tents were
borrowed and rollmats bought. We joked, at their expense, about foraging for
food and, more alarmingly, gathering wood for sacrificial pyres. I pictured a
Battle Royale or Hunger Games type scenario; a fight to the death in the woods
with whatever weapons we could lay our hands on. In reality, there was little
chance of death. Perhaps there was more chance of alcohol and the campsite’s
proximity to water combining, resulting in a skinny-dipping event and those
mass resignations I previously mentioned.
We piled out of the office at half 5 and onto the tube to
Paddington, where we caught the train to Cookham. Laden as we were with bags
and tents it looked like we were heading off for a month in the Himalayas, not
one night under the stars. We squeezed in with the commuters, who were no doubt
bound for a night of chicken kievs and bad telly, smug in the knowledge that
this was no ordinary Tuesday.
Taking it seriously
0.8 miles is not far, but I regretted not attaching the
shoulder straps to my holdall. The thin handles of the heavy bag dug into me as
we made our way from the station, through the village towards the campsite.
Being one of only two men in the team of eight, there was no way I could lose
face by displaying my discomfort. It was paramount to appear unruffled at all
times and demonstrate the quiet confidence of a seasoned expeditionary. That is
why, along with food, clothes and cider, I had packed a hunting bow, a flare
gun and an inflatable raft. You might think this excessive but if disaster were
to befall us in the form of, say, a gang of wayward youth on the rampage, I
could fend them off with the bow, alert the community to our plight with the
flare gun and then paddle the team to safety, after inflating the raft.
Stranger things have happened and it pays to be prepared.
A watery past
It is at Cookham where the River Thames meets the Chiltern
chalk, causing it to make a sharp turn to the south. Centuries ago this area
would have been a maze of narrow river channels, between wooded, marshy
islands. Chalkstones fell from the sides of the river and barges were sunk so
the first lock was built in 1830 to control the lively interaction between land
and water. Fast forward to the 21st century and thanks to the
Environment Agency, certain locks on the Thames can now be used for camping and
Cookham is one of the most picturesque.
We crossed over a roaring weir, beneath which three men sat
just beyond the tumbling water, keeping a watchful eye on their fishing rods.
The campsite was simple and pleasant in its unfussiness; an expanse of grass
bordered by the lock on one side and a field of cows on the other. I thought of
my bow and wondered how long a whole cow would take to cook on the disposable
barbecue we had brought with us.
Here's to freedom
Tents were pitched, ciders were cracked and we raised a glass to camping on a school night. The sun shone down on our green enclave
next to the Thames and it felt good to have escaped the metropolis for an
evening amongst nature. I pondered which would be the best tree to shin up to
get a good signal on the satellite phone and where would be the most advantageous
spot to position the water filtration system, but I soon became distracted by
shovelling crisps and hummus into my face.
Life in the camp hummed to the natural rhythm and my male
colleague Richard and I soon found ourselves hunched over the disposable barbecue
monitoring the burgers. No words were needed; a low grunt and a jab of the
finger indicated when a piece of meat needed turning and a successful flip and
the resulting sizzle caused a satisfied grunt of approval. This was man work,
as it has always been.
The wine flowed and my hip flask was passed around. We
played that most ancient of camping games; Heads Up on the Iphone. It’s a good
one. You choose a category, famous people for example and, holding the phone on
your forehead, try to guess the name from the clues being shouted at you by
your friends. Guess right and tilt the phone forward to bring up another name.
Great fun until the battery dies. I was dissuaded from firing up my portable
generator due to some ridiculous concern over noise.
Under blue moon...
The cool glow of a full moon cast long shadows through the
trees and the evening mellowed towards bedtime at around midnight. The ladies
retired to their giant, multi-room tents for a night of spacious luxury. As
they settled down I could hear them shouting from one end of their cavernous
abodes to the other. Things like, “Where’s my pillow?” and “I think you left it
downstairs.”
Meanwhile, Richard and I cosied up in our tiny, storm-proof,
two-manner. He was not thrilled when I warned him that I occasionally suffer
from ‘night terrors’, with accompanying thrashing and moaning. He was no doubt
hoping for a little more room to avoid an elbow or knee in the back but I knew
we would have the last laugh if a typhoon were to hit Cookham. We would be safe
and dry while the ladies portable mansions would be wrenched from their pegs
and blown away into a herd of stampeding cows.
Waking up naturally
We rose, groggy, to a beautiful dawn. Low swathes of mist
rolled across the stillness of the fields while a lone heron stood like a
sentry on the edge of the lock. This was a very different waking experience to
the usual squeal of buses’ airbrakes on Dalston Lane in London. Back on the
train with the well-scrubbed commuters and we wore our dishevelment, and aroma,
with pride. We had survived, in fact immensely enjoyed, our micro-adventure and
there was very little chance of any P45s being issued. Unless one of my
colleagues has been so inspired by the experience that they decide to jack in
the nine to five and become a lama farmer in Peru. That remains to be seen.
Recipe for success
This trip was a success because we all get on well as a team
and we have previously spent some time socialising out of work. For work teams
where the dynamic is less easy, this might be the perfect idea of hell. The
term ‘bonding’ has been sadly sterilised by its use in the corporate
environment but it is nevertheless the correct one to describe this experience.
There are of course different levels of seniority within my team and there is
one ‘head of’ but the hierarchy is not a stifling one and the atmosphere in the
office is relaxed. This translated to the campsite where it everyone was
able to enjoy themselves as friends.
*Our micro-adventure was inspired by a talk given by a true adventurer Alastair Humphreys. Read more about his exciting escapades here...http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/
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