On a public camp site, surrounded by classmates and teachers, it did not provide the Ransomian experience that I'd hoped for. On the first morning, we woke with the dawn at 4:30, roused the rest of camp, were taken grudgingly to Coniston Dairy to get us off the site, and were exhausted by midday. We didn't sail, and I don't remember swimming in the lake. But on the third day Eric and I walked the whole way around the lake, a distance of about 18 miles. The campsite was on the west side, and, walking up the east side, we encountered a horde of marching black beetles. A horde is perhaps too grand a term, but if you inspected the road carefully, you could find an inch-long beetle every few yards, all walking in the same direction. The army of beetles stretched for several miles. "If these have been through Coniston, there'll have been chaos", said Eric. "Wow", I said. We had watched too many science fiction shows. No-one noticed.

In the evening we hung the Camping Gaz lantern from our ridge pole and stifled homesickness by talking about blood sucking beetles and made monstrous shadows on the tent wall. Strangely we slept very well.