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Published: August 31st 2007
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The photos tell it all really, but still! And no, it wasn't just a bit windy - it really was a tornado! I have no idea what happened the previous day, I think it was a hanging around/playing games kinda day. Anna had been laughing as she checked the weather report for the UK which had indicated storms, whilst we were sitting in the beautiful sun! The lack of sleep from the coach journey had caught up with me, and I went to bed early, twigging that the "camera flashes" that I was seeing were lighting. As I fell asleep I could hear rain falling on the tent and thought, well camping's not right if it doesn't rain at some point! Think the following picks up:
Here's what I wrote on Facebook a couple of days later: Well, that was probably the scariest night of my life... not last night - crashed out to sleep last night, and thankfully the Spanish habit of banging drums and doing some weird singing which sounds like a war dance/call to prayer at 3/4am was not there....
The night before, I was asleep, bit of rain on the tent woke me, saw the
tent doors billow in and out a couple of times, and then the tent kicked up over my head as a twisting tornado came in... as I sat up my airbed went twirling into the air (very pretty), and I just sat there in my PJs, holding onto the tent not quite sure what to do, as the kitchen tent hit me in the head as it whirled over, and I just missed the dustbin!!
Someone yelled at me, so started grabbing everything we could - was soaked through, but we rescued 90% personal possessions and spent the night "sleeping" in the disco... once we kicked poor snoring man into the corridor! Next morning - no other option but to start the salvage operation - rescued all but 3 tents, and sorted through which food was salvageable... washed all the equipment - amazed none of the tiles hit anyone, or the flying knives and whatever else went through the air. The next door basketball court lost it´s roof and the local bar fell in. We´re amazed none of us was hurt well, aside from my bruised head! Great. They´ve gone to water park today - I need to cook!
So, yes, that was pretty scary. I wasn't even sure what had woken me, but had decided that the best thing was to sleep through it but pulling my eye mask firmly over my eyes and then the sleeping bag over my head, but it was less than 60 seconds later that the tent disappeared over my head, so that plan didn't work! Was all a bit blurred as we tried to rescue what we could, and the campsite owners were great, finding us the disco (which was not ideal, but better than the toilet block, where we'd thought we'd have to take a cubicle each!)... I can't say I really slept at all that night, maybe drifted off for half-hour. Everything felt a bit damp (not sure if my new Down sleeping bag has truly survived!), and there was far too much noise, however quiet people tried to be! By 7.30 we were back up and over to the campsite to see what was salvageable. We picked up some fresh bread (the rest of the campsite seemed to be working as usual, with people looking amazed at the "rip" in someones tent... "you wanna look at our
site", we wanted to say!), and found some food which looked a) suitable for breakfast and b) wasn't ruined by the rain!
The day after the tornado had been supposed to be my day off, but not much hope of that - or for any of the guests were supposed to be going on a trip (me with them!). Instead, all of us mucked in to see what was salvegeable. The Marquee was useless (so from that point on the Campsite allowed us to use the building next to us), and 3 of the sleeping tents were bent/ripped beyond use, as were the kitchen tents, but everything else was put back together, swept out/cleaned, and the 3 spare single tents (thankfully left behind) were up. As Kate and I went through everything in the kitchen (with some help, of course), throwing out any cardboard packaging, people started bringing their possessions back. By 3pm you wouldn't know that there had been a tornado as everything was back up... although the extraordinary number of clothes hanging up to dry may have given a clue (and no, my airbed never re-appeared)... we had planned to use the large box of washing powder
Oak Hall provides for this, but as I carried it across the road the bottom, sat in rain all night, fell through - much to the amusement of Rob - so Spanish washing powder it was! An interesting day - some wanted to go home, but were convinced that surely this couldn't happen again... although as I went to sleep that night, I DID pack my bags - just in case!!
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