“Not exactly the Ritz,” Con suggested as we surveyed our lodgings for the next few days.
“Could be worse and its not like we’ll be in here much is it?”
“Guess not, which side?”
“Right,” well at least I won’t have Con clambering over me to go to the loo in the middle of the night.

To be fair its not that bad, quite spacious really, a couple of cheap airbeds were already inflated and in place for us. On Mum’s advice I had a fitted sheet which I pulled over the bouncy bed then I released my sleeping bag – ta da, instant sleep zone! I sat crosslegged on top and found my Handy.

“Dad?”
“Ah, my runaway daughter.”
“I haven’t run away.”
“So you got there okay kiddo? I take it you’re at the campsite?”
“Yes to both, we’ve been here about fifteen minutes.”
“Everything alright?”
Even though he couldn’t see it I shrugged, “so far.”
“So what’re you doing now?”
“Think we’re going to the lake for a bit after we’ve unpacked.”
“Just be safe okay, you’ve already had the lecture so I won’t repeat myself.”
“Yes Dad, look gotta go, ring tomorrow, Tschuss!”
“Bye Gab.”
 
I went out into the central ‘room’ to wait for the others, plonking myself in one of just two camp chairs. I surveyed the rest of our accommodation while I waited, several beer crates, a huge cool box, a two burner stove and a big gas bottle, a washing bowl holding a load of plastic crockery and – well not a lot else to be honest. I guess there’s camping and camping.

“What’re you two up to?”
“Coming,” Nen advised before appearing in a bikini.
“Really?”
“We’re going to the lake right?” she mentioned.
“Whatever, Con, you coming?”
“Right there, shit!”

A moment later my BFF emerged from our cocoon.

“Not you too,” I groaned.
“Some of us don’t already have boyfriends.”
“But like we’ve been here, what, twenty minutes?”
“Your point?” Nena asked.
It’s an unwinnable point of course, “come on then, lets go look at the water.”
 
The lake wasn’t even two minutes walk away from the tent, the girl camp was however at the far end from us so we set off around the water. Scenic idyll? Nah, I reckon it started out as a gravel pit or quarry or something like that, a few spindly trees decorated the sparse grass offering a little shade from the yellow thing in the sky. It took us almost ten minutes to reach the others as we took the longer, shadier route around the back side of the water.

“Heya guys!” Pia greeted.
“Flippin’ hot,” I suggested.
“No lads?” Con pouted.

Not just no lads, the site was strangely quiet.

“Why Connie Thesing, anyone would think you are man hungry,” Anna grinned.
“There are some lads, think they went fishing or something, they’ll be here later I’m sure,” Brid told us as we found spots on the tired turf.
“So how were the trains?” Pia enquired.
 
We hung out, played in the water – I did change into a cossie and generally relaxed.

My stomach growled, “so what do we do about food?”
“We can get pizza from the restaurant,“ Heidi suggested.

Oh yeah, I forgot, Anna’s college friends. Well Heidi comes from down towards Cochem and Donna lives in Koblenz, they seem friendly enough, maybe not Angel material but we’ll see how the week goes!

“I don’t feel like cooking anyhow,” Pia stated.
“Me either,” Anna agreed.
“Well that’s settled then,” Steff put in.
“We should go get cleaned up then before the showers get too busy,” Anna suggested.

The sun was still high in the sky but a check of my timepiece claimed it to be almost seven, seven! Where did the day go? No wonder I’m hungry.

We gathered our stuff and made our way, the shorter way, back to our tent where the reality of nine teenage girls sharing a space no bigger than our lounge at home hit like a whirlwind! For the next half hour or so there was a stream of bodies to and from the ablutions, each returning with wet towels and swim wear which soon decorated a couple of makeshift clothes lines as well as the tents guy lines. It was nearly eight before our gaggle made our way the short distance around to the restaurant.

Of course to call it a restaurant is perhaps being a bit generous, there isn’t table service as such, order and pay at the counter and the menu runs to pizza and a limited range of other fast food. To be fair, most campsite ‘restaurants’ are similar, oh occasionally you get one with higher pretentions but it is after all mainly used by lazy campers. If you want à la carte you go to a proper restaurant but if you’ve got three kids and a low budget the on site facility will offer a quick fix.

Each of us put in five euros which got us four assorted forty centimetre pizzas and a round of soft drinks.

“What’re we doing tomorrow?” Steff asked.
“The lake,” Bridg suggested.
“We’ve done that for two days,” Donna observed.
“We could do the tourist bit,” Pia put in, “isn’t there a castle of some sort?”
“Boring,” Brid complained.
“You don’t have to come,” Nen pointed out.
“How about we go into town and take it from there?” I offered.
“She’s not just a pretty face is she?” Heidi stated.
“i did tell you,” Anna replied.
“Hey, I’m here guys.”
“And we wouldn’t have it any other way,” Con giggled.
“Incoming,” Pia warned as our food started to arrive.
 
I’ve had worse pizza, I’ve had better too, it was certainly not as good as what we get in Maschoß but it was eatable. There wasn’t more than a bit of crust left by the time the locusts had done so it worked on that level but I really, really don’t want to eat fast food all week. Hmm, that's something else for tomorrow.

It was only just starting to get dark when we returned to our accommodation.
“What do we do now?” I queried.
“Now we party,” Donna enthused.

Well I guess that’s what we came for, we soon had music cranked up, bottles of beer opened and well, you know, dancing and stuff. It didn’t last that long, there’s a site curfew at ten, enforced by the site manager so the music had to go. Of course that put quite a dampener on things and I decided to call it a day and headed to my bed leaving heavy conversation on the merits of some singer or other to my drinking buddies.
 
As I lay on my bouncy mattress I realised something, I didn’t ask Dad about the test results earlier. How could I forget about that? Well its too late to ring again now and knowing tonight won’t change things will it?
 
“What are you doing?” Con enquired when she came into our ‘bedroom’.
I waggled my airbed a bit, “trying to let some air out of this thing.”
“What for?”
“You tried sleeping on one of these?”
“Try,” I suggested, “aha, gotcha!”

I eased out the stopper and let what seemed like a lot of air escape.

The problem with air beds, mattresses, whatever, is that everyone pumps them up rigid, or at least fairly hard. Of course they end up like a trampoline then, you bounce all over and usually end up on the floor half way through the night – especially if you weigh less than a sparrow fart like me. The solution is to get enough air in to keep you off the floor but not much more – it works more like a huge single pocket mattress, all the support without the bounce.

It took me a couple of goes to get it where I wanted but there was at least a chance I’d get some reasonable shut eye.

Of course there’s no real privacy in a tent, okay line of sight maybe but you can hear everything, not just in our canvas home but next doors telly, bawling kids a few pitches away, traffic out on the bypass – well you get the idea. So of course I couldn’t get to sleep, I’m used to the almost total silence of my eyrie or at least double glazed hotel rooms. Eventually more localized sounds disappeared and the more background stuff faded enough for me to slip into a light slumber.
 
The other thing with being in a tent is that you get woken up with the birds, in other words almost as soon as the sun peeks over the horizon. I lay there listening to several assorted snores from my tent mates and even at this hour, traffic on the autobahn less than ten kilometres away. Eventually though my bladder got the better of me, I reluctantly exited my sleeping bag, found my fleece, added my flip flops and set off for bathroom nirvana.

“Thought I heard someone get up,” Anna advised between yawns when I got back.
“Needed a wee, what do we do about Frühstuck?”
“Cereal under the table, milk and juice in the cool box.”
“Coffee?”
“There’s instant or the shop opens at seven thirty.”
I looked at my wrist watch, a bit after six, I sighed, “looks like instant.”
 
Over the next hour or so bodies emerged from their slumber points, bodies wearing PJ’s, five, night dress, one, T shirt and pants, one and bra and nickers, two. Isn’t it strange how people will happily parade around in their underwear or bed wear on a campsite in front of total strangers? I mean, you wouldn’t walk around the streets at home in your nightie, would you?

“Here you go,” Steff plonked a big paper cup into my hand, “it might not be Bond quality but its better than that instant.”
I sniffed at the cup, hmm smells okay at least, “cheers, the best you can say about that stuff is that its wet.”
“Yeah, we couldn’t fit the Gaggia in the bus.”
 
Bodies were still eating and getting ready for the day thirty minutes later so I found my Handy and wandered off to one of the lakeside picnic tables.

“Bond.”
“Morning Mum.”
“You’re up early, not homesick?”
“Its half eight,” I pointed out.
“So to what do we owe this call?”
“Erm, I forgot to ask about the test yesterday.”
“Let me get your Dad,” she told me, her tone having become instantly more sober.

That doesn’t sound good.

“Er okay,” I allowed.
It was maybe only thirty seconds later but felt like an hour befort Dad came on the line, “heya kiddo.”
“Heya, so the tests?”
“Not great news kiddo, the B failed too.”

I sat in silence, after everything is this how my cycling career ends?

“Gab, you there, you alright?”
“Uh huh.”
“Did you hear what I said? They’re doing some extra tests but they need a base sample from you so I’ll come down later.”
“Extra tests?”
“The lab is concerned that the sample is showing such high levels, they reckon it would still be in your system.”
“What about the samples from the Nationals?”
“Good point.”
“And Doctor Fischer only did my last check up a few weeks ago,” I enthused, maybe we can prove the samples aren’t mine or something!

 
Maddy Bell © 19.01.2018