There is a supposedly true riddle that goes something like this:
“how did a man in scuba diving kit get found lying unburnt in the middle of the scorched remains of a forest fire?”
You wonder how this could happen?
Well something like that surely couldn’t happen to anyone in our family, surely…
On a recent holiday, with the brother-in-law, Andy, and his family. we were in a lovely cottage near the sea. A short 10 minute walk out of the back of the house down a country path and voila.
As the sea was at times a bit chilly we all had wetsuits, just to make it a bit more bearable.
On this afternoon we were all eager to get to the sea as “the surf was up”. Tom, the nephew, was very keen to get to the beach and this time had got changed in double quick time.
Tom is a bit impetuous, and ran straight out the back door without waiting for the rest of us. Luckily The wife was alert and followed him. She shout to us to bring all things with us and join them at the beach. And off they went.
We slowly got ready and gathered all the kit together. Which is a fair amount of stuff for 8 people to be at the beach all afternoon.
Left the house, went down the back gate, into the edge of the forest that leads to the beach. A short way into the forest we turned left at the junction of the path and in a couple of minutes were at the beach.
We couldn’t initially find Tom or The Wife but assumed they must be in the waves. So we plonked our stuff down in the “usual” place and got on with beach stuff.
After 20 minutes or so we started to wonder where the two had got to. We had scoured the beach but couldn’t see them anywhere.
Through out the afternoon we still didn’t catch sight of them and started to get a bit worried. We asked the life guards if they had rescued anyone or heard of anyone being saved that afternoon – nope.
The afternoon was drawing to a close, and with still no sign of the dynamic duo we decided to wander home just in case they had gone home without finding us at the beach.
We got home but there was no one about. And they had been gone for a couple hours.
Finally, after 3 hours they came trudging through the garden. Tom was looking fairly rough, and still in his wetsuit. The wife just looked glad to be back.
“What happen?” we asked
“ugh” the wife grunted
“I need a drink, of water”.
After The wife was suitably refreshed she explained where they had been.
“Tom just ran off down the path, you know how he is”
We all nodded in agreement.
The Wife explained that she hadn’t really taken any notice of the route to the beach and just usually followed everyone else. And this time just followed Tom as he looked like he knew the route.
Except this time it seemed to be taking a lot longer to get to the beach.
“Tom wouldn’t stop running ahead”
“and we didn’t have any water”
“and he wouldn’t undo his wetsuit. He was clearly getting very hot”
“after a while he just fell over”
“he just passed out. I think with the heat and exhaustion.”
“it was a nightmare. We didn’t have any water, and were completely lost in the middle of the forest”.
“he manged to walk after a while, but we carried on going in the same direction as we should have finally come to the sea at some point.”
“After ages we stopped again as Tom was very tired and finally agreed to open his wetsuit”. “we were sitting down when some people walked by.
The Wife asked them the way to the beach “and they just looked at me in a weird way”.
I did mention that they were in the middle of a forest in wetsuits. This didn’t seem to help.
The people did give them some water, and said that the path led to a town that The Wife did not recognise. Cunningly they suggested that perhaps they should go back the way they came…
The Wife duly retraced their steps. And 3 hours later emerged from the forest into the back garden.
Tom had taken the right fork in the path and not the left.
Who knows what those walkers must have thought on seeing the two of them in wetsuits 5 km from the beach looking extremely dishevelled.