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Day 7 Wednesday – 12^th August – Trebon

As usual, when we arose Lorraine and Otto already had the tea urn boiling and a life-saving coffee was consumed as we reminisced about the day before.

We had not really bothered with breakfast all week so after a cold shower we visited the posh chalets to see if they fancied a walk into town.

Annemarie and Karen hired push bikes from the site and caught us up a few hundred yards on the road to town.

The town looked even prettier during the day and after mooching around the shops we had lunch at one of the hotels in the square. Ordering steak and chips I expected to get a parched, thin and stringy piece of meat, but when it came it was excellent-juicy, thick and tender – if soured a little by the miserable waitress whose dislike of us was apparent.

It was most unusual to encounter anything but friendliness in the Czech Republic so maybe we were just being a bit sensitive.

After lunch we strolled to the local market. In fact this was a bit of a grand way of describing a few stalls run by Vietnamese street traders flogging clothes and shoes.

Brendan astonished us all with his remarkable bartering skills, beating the man down from three quid to two-ninety five for a tee-shirt.

We phoned home at a rare phone box. The day before we had resolved to phone our loved ones from Prague, but phone boxes are near non-existent in Czech.

On the way back into camp Anne was lagging behind from the main group. As we entered the entrance to the site a load of chickens ran out to see if we had any food for them, scuttling back under their hedge when they discovered we didn’t. "Watch this" said Steve.

As Anne passed the hedge the chickens silently started following her.

"Watch out, they’re charging …"

With a scream, Anne took off at a gallop, chickens now in hot pursuit. They followed her for some time before turning back, but the laughter continued.

During the afternoon at camp, some of the group had been giving the local kids rides on the bikes to their great delight. We that is to say it apparently started with the kids, then their mums and then their dads. The lads were knackered.

That evening we had a barbecue. It was a traditional affair around the camp fire, cooking sausages on long sticks – or trying to without getting burned.

It is amazing that in any crowd, every single person has a theory for cooking the perfect banger as to which part of the fire to put it and for how long and so on.

A sad batch were produced ranging from raw to cindered, but no-one cared and ate them anyway.

Beer flowed from the barrel and a group of singers turned up with a guitar.

We had been warned that the weather would be changing but didn’t expect it to be so quick. Suddenly, a howling wind blew from the direction of the lake and forked lightning lit the scene. It begun to piss down. Mick, who was in the process of cooking his 9^th sausage or so, was suddenly showered by sparks and cinders from the camp fire.

"ASH…ASH…ASH…", we all shouted.

It all subsided as quickly as it started. We all retired to the posh quarter to witness the firework display.