Near Death Experience

I had a near death experience over the weekend. It was one of those life changing brown trouser moments that provide clarity and the need to change your underpants. Let me explain.

Picture it; Dom Carver on a camping trip with the outlaws, in Porlock, north Somerset. "Lets go for a drive," Steve, my future brother-in-law, suggested. I wanted to go and watch the football but I got dragged along against my will. "Let's visit the Valley Of The Rocks," said Steve with glee. I hate glee, glee means trouble. Glee is the Devil laughing in your face and stamping on your bollocks for good measure.

Once we had gone past the Rocks (very exciting they were too - big granite shaped rock type.... well, rocks) Steve decided to drive us along a single track coast road overlooking a huge cliff, one lacking a barrier between us and the 200ft drop to the rocks below. Now Steve likes large vehicles. I'm rubbish with anything like this so as far as I'm concerned Steve was driving a tank (think something along the lines of the A-Team van... but bigger). We were fine until we were headed back down and met another tank coming the other way. There was physically no room for us both to pass.

Perhaps I should have mentioned before that I suffer from vertigo, so it is safe to say I wasn't enjoying the trip anyway. Steve pulled over to his side (the one without the barrier and the very long drop) to let the other tank past. I was screaming at this point and, I'm not ashamed to admit, touching cloth. There was literally one inch of mud separating us from a tumble to our deaths. As I looked down out of the window in horror the one inch of mud decided to do exactly what I expected us to do a second later. The tank started to slide over the edge.....

When I awoke I expected to be very squashed at the bottom of the cliff melded with the twisted wreckage of the tank. Instead I awoke to Steve laughing in my face and to find we had actually made it down the track and were now parked on a wide road with no cliff-drops in site.

I learnt three things that day:

1. Never go camping with your other half's family.
2. Always take plenty of clean y-fronts with you.
3. If the football's on then go and bloody watch it.

A lesson well learnt.