“Get down. No! I don’t believe it. Who invented this! I bet they’re laughing now.”

The battle of the camping shower cubicle is underway and Richard is losing.

You can buy pop up shower cubicles online that provide a quick and easy solution to bathroom privacy when camping. They arrive nicely packed away in a small circular bag. Neat and unobtrusive. No one warns you that as soon as the bag is partly opened they take on a life of their own, spring out of their enclosure, click into shape and stand imposingly in your living room. Having admired the design and tested out the places to hang shampoo bottles and other essentials, you check the bag for instructions. Nothing. Not even a diagram or a pidgin English translation. How do you get the now six foot plus tent back into that little round bag? It resists every attempt to twist, fold, push and pull. We battle into the night.

I lie in bed, knowing it is still there, waiting for me. In my fevered sleep I have visions of thousands of these creatures blowing like tumbleweed across the Australian outback. Forever free to roam. Who can tame them? They want to be free.

The shower cubicle becomes part of the family. It stands in the corner of the kitchen, giving us the evil eye as we breakfast in the morning. It greets us with a baleful stare when we return to snack at lunchtime.  Jack, our Labradoodle, refuses to go near it after it lunges drunkenly towards him as he inches past to get to his favourite sleeping spot in the sun. We move it temporarily to the laundry, but can still feel its brooding, dark presence.

“Please Richard, we’ve got to get it back into its bag.”

We wrestle it to the ground. Richard holds it down, while I consult the great modern gurus of YouTube. I flick through the videos. A relaxed American tosses the cubicle into the bag with a flick of his expert wrist. A diminutive Asian lady is submerged in black nylon, but finally twists and turns until the beast is laid to rest. A laconic Aussie gives a step by step demonstration of the dark art.  It begins to make sense.

I shout out instructions to Richard. “Fold! Twist inwards! Push down!”  Miraculously we tame the beast and it nestles once again in its little black bag.  We look at each other.  Will we dare let it out again?  What price cleanliness?

PostScript: I should acknowledge here that we have two exponents of the dark art of shower wrestling in our convoy. We will need to call on their help, I have no doubt. Olive and Christine, we salute you.