my outdoor type

There's a song by mid-nineties band The Lemonheads called I lied about being the outdoor type.

I identify with it wholly.

To be fair, though, I didn't know I was lying. I just thought I was exaggerating a little. When T. and I went on our first real date - a picnic in the country - I oohed and aahed over the little red and white toadstools.

Because I do like Nature. As a concept.

That is, I love driving through it, looking at it and sitting on a rug in it. I like drinking tea from a thermos in it.

I do not like walking through it for extended periods of time, especially on unpaved tracks. I do not like the bottom of my freshly-washed jeans being soaked with mud. I do not like having to climb over slippery, mouldy logs. I do not like slipping over on fungus-covered bark, or having to beat my way through dark, wet, stringy, disgusting undergrowth.

Unfortunately, this is what outdoor excursions with T. invariably become.

This morning I made the foolish mistake of thinking to myself: Hey, it's Easter Saturday. Let's make like the tourists and do a walk then have Devonshire Tea.

I had a pleasant granny-walk in mind. Quiet. Gentle. Harmless. Enjoyable.

And that's how it began. As you can see above.

However, it didn't take long for me to be suckered into one of T's inevitable shortcuts, a frightening journey into the dark interior of the forest that involved all of the above things, and more.

It was like the bottom of the ocean in there.

It was like the Blair Witch Project.

It was creepy and wrong.

And when finally, after an hour or so, we found our miraculous way out of that wet purgatory, T. turned to me and said:

Remember how you love my adventurous spirit?

Lucky for him, I almost could.

That's how relieved I was.