Dorothy Wordworth's Thong

I should be back in Bangor tomorrow. It will something of a relief given day I had yesterday. I thought I’d found a quiet spot away from my troubles and away from the influence of Grasmere’s tourism board, which has increasingly proved over the last few days how allergic I am to the word ‘twee’. Not many things could have forced The Chipster to drag himself up a mountain but I’d had enough of the Dorothy Wordsworth pin-cushion dolls and novelty play dough poetry kits. I could taken another person spontaneously reading sonnets to me or telling me how they had spent an hour sitting among daffodils and trying to find a rhyme for rheumatism.

I just had to get away.

I chose one of the smaller hills, thinking it would attract less attention, and I soon discovered a secluded spot – I’d call it a dell but I don’t want you clever types leaving comments about fairies – where I thought I’d enjoy the heat of the rare hot afternoon.

I stretched myself out on a tuft of heather and began to enjoy the warm kiss of the sun on my naked body. I must had been lying there nearly an hour, oblivious to the world, when a party of schoolchildren suddenly appeared on the cliff above me. Turns out the spot was one of Alfred Wainright’s favourite bits of the Lake District and is well known to ramblers. There were a few screams as dozens of children began to run down the rocky slope.* The sound of scree slipping merged with the noise of camera phones snapping open. Teachers were shouting at me to get my clothes on but I was already panicking that uncopyrighted footage of my naked body would appear on YouTube. It still might. I grabbed what I could of my clothes and ran off, losing my thong in the process.

So, like I said, tomorrow I’m going home. If any of you should happen to find a bright orange thong on some remote Cumbrian fell, I’d be grateful if you could post it back to me. And if you see any footage of YouTube, I’d appreciate it if you could send me the link.

Wordsworth has a lot to answer for.

* This originally read 'rocky slop', which is clearly ridiculous. In fact, it's an oxymoron and nobody can run down an oxymoron. Thank you Mopsa for spotting this deliberate mistake. I wrote this diary entry in a state of great agitation. If you've never been chased by teenagers in search of valuable video footage for YouTube , you won't understand why I'm such a wreck today.