Campingninja Blog

The summer camping season was over and it was time to find a new camping friend, preferably one who didn’t mind the cold and was keen on winter camping.  So I made the decision to go in search of my winter camping princess online, in the dangerous world of internet dating.

I’d marketed myself as a camping ninja who loves camping, who is at home in the outdoors (but not a cave-ninja)… a prince in fact, a camping ninja prince!  Great at cooking a variety of dishes with space raiders and with the moves like Jagger.

Once my matchmaker profile was set up, the interest flooded in.  An unusual mix of 60 year olds pretending to be only half their years, and supposed celebrity lookalikes who simply, were not, all seemed to have a soft spot for a camping ninja.  Fortunately amid the madness, there was one hidden gem - a potential camping princess and eagerly, we arranged a date for Saturday night. 

What to wear?  I panicked.  I wanted to look dazzling, suave like James Bond even, so I went shopping online to buy a new ninja suit.  It didn’t take long before I found one that caught my eye.  It was a nice looking suit, but the description was a little ambiguous.  Smart yet casual, slim fit yet slouch, and classic yet modern.  Hmmm….  Surely it was either one or the other?!

Nevertheless, I clicked to add it to my basket.  Select size, it prompted.  I was half expecting options of small yet large, or medium yet extra-large, but amazingly there was only one size – one size fits all, although perhaps that was worse somehow.

Saturday evening arrived and I rocked up in my one size fits all, smart yet casual, classic yet… (you know the score) new suit.  Miraculously it was a perfect fit and was suitable to wear on any occasion and to any venue.  Maybe the best way to describe it was as a good egg of suits.

My date looked simply quite stunning.  Her sparkly dress was amazing.  So sparkly even, that when it caught the light it made twinkles in my eyes.  Mesmerized, I told her she looked ‘beautiful yet understated, informal yet business like, perfect yet… perfect yet… yet… no yet’.  There was no yet, she looked perfect and that was it, end of.  In hindsight perhaps it wasn’t the best chat up line but it seemed to do the trick.  We passed through the revolving doors and into the swanky restaurant where the waiter escorted us to our seats.    
  
We discussed all things camping and non-camping related as we ate.  Oddly enough, her main preoccupation was focussing on the great gerbil versus hamster debate.  Obviously this was a very interesting subject to anyone, but for me, camping was and will always be where it’s at.  However in spite of her slight camping aversion, the evening seemed to be going very well.

Our desserts arrived.  Then she pulled out a piece of paper from her bag - a list of questions that she would fire away at me.  If I passed these, then and only then, would I be allowed to invite her on another date.  It was very formal, like being on mastermind and the onslaught of questions began.  Number 1: had I ever gone away on a camping trip and forgotten to bring my girlfriend along?  ‘I can categorically state that the answer is no’, I replied.  Although strictly speaking, it was a complete lie.  For there had been 3… no, 4 times in the last year alone that I had left my girlfriend back at home by mistake.  I got the feeling that wasn’t the answer she would want to hear though, so I kept that one schtum.

Number 2: would I share my last space raider?  How did she know I liked space raiders?!  The answer to that one was definitely no!  ‘Of course’, I replied through gritted teeth though.  I remembered I had written about my love of space raiders on my matchmaker profile.  She liked them a lot too.  At first I thought it was a good thing that we had something so much in common, but then I realised that she was only interested in me for one thing – not to share camping together, but for my space raiders! 

I suspected that tonight would be the last time we would see each other.  I signalled to the waiter to get the bill, hailed a taxi for my date, and then walked back home by myself, stopping off at a late night shop along the way to pick up a packet of space raiders all of my own, before meandering along the high street, pausing at the windows of all the camping and outdoors shops.  Camping for one was way better than camping with a space raiders vampire, I decided!

Nothing could stop the Camping Ninja today, I thought to myself as I left the house in an exceptionally, exceptional good work day mood.   Although, as you can probably imagine, it was only a matter of time until the inevitable happened and a good day turned bad.

As a young ninja I was always taught that there were good monsters and bad monsters.  Some monsters were indeed very scary, and some, like the monster that lived whistling away inside the camping kettle, were not bad monsters at all and were simply a fear to be overcome.  As was the monster that would jump out of the caravan cupboard in an exploding fashion, viciously growling away trying to scare the living daylights out of me, who was in fact just one of my ninja cousins playing games.  But in all my days, until this very day today, I had never met a froth monster before.  That was until I arrived at the home of the froth monsters on my journey into work.

I was trying hard to keep my cool in the monster land and then I saw one hiding in the cup belonging to the lady standing next to me!

Although the monster had me on edge, I felt it part of my ninja duty to intervene and protect the lady from the frothy, beguiling monster.  So without hesitation, I flung the cup and the cowering froth monster onto the floor. 

‘’My coffee!’’ the lady shouted angrily at me.  Coffee?...  The shrouding monster dispersed into a puddle on the floor.  It looked like coffee.  Smelt like coffee.  And oh… it did seem that it was coffee. 

Whoops I thought, as I looked down at the frothy cappuccino lying all over the coffee shop floor, realising what I had actually just done.  The froth monster was not a real monster after all.  And to make matters worse, I had inadvertently managed to insult these friendly monsters in their own home – the universally renowned home of the froth monsters. 

I bought the lady another cup of coffee and scuttled away into the shop next door, not hanging around to wait and see if I’d be barred for life from the home of the froth monsters.  My exceptionally, exceptional good day had not got off to such a good start as I expected and it was only 8:29am.  Oh no.  I had a feeling it was going to be one of those monstrously frothy days.

Rugby world cup fever had taken hold at the train station this morning.  There was a full platform of people queuing up when the Haka began.  A New Zealand rugby team inspired booty shake on the platform edge to put fear into all the other commuters, before the mad rush through the train doors and competitive fighting to get a seat that would ensue. 

There is a fine line between imagination and reality, and at this early hour in the morning, I had to rub my eyes to check that this was what was really happening.  And yes it was.  Everyone around me was dancing and chanting the Haka.  It was much weirder than any kind of mirage and yet strangely, and almost unbelievably, it appeared to be the truth.

I wondered if so much aggression this early in the morning was really necessary, but from the angry facial expressions of the masses of people lining the platform, there was going to be some serious elbow jabbing going on once the train doors opened.  It seemed that this Monday morning, everyone was desperate to get a window seat. 

I didn’t join in with the rugby Haka madness, as for a start, I wasn’t really sure of the actual words and I had a totally different tune buzzing through my head, for when I woke up this morning, three little birds were sat on my doorstep.  So I had a good feeling that every little thing was going to be alright today. 

And it was.  You see it turns out that when you’re a ninja, even the people who do the Haka don’t want to mess with you, so there was a window seat all of my own waiting for me when I boarded the train.  Little did they know that I’m just a friendly Camping Ninja and not someone more fearsome.

Besides, there was too much busyness going on for my liking so I sat down in my seat serenely and gazed out of the window across the passing fields, day dreaming of my next camping trip…