…the leaders of an adventure company who run all kinds of activities like hang gliding, para gliging and bungy jumping, so at least our hangovers are productive this time. After some serious bacon and eggs we set out in the rain in search of some serious adventure (that is, we eye the price list warily, carefully select the cheapest thing available and even then finger our credit cards with the guilty expression of someone frittering away grandma’s pension money).

It turns out to be a half-day canyoning in the Alps. What be canyoning? you ask. Turns out it’s just like white-water rafting, only without the raft (hence the multitude of scrapes and bruises at the end of the day).

We’re suited up from neck to toe in wetsuits, wetsuit jackets, bright blue wind-cheater thingamajigs and finally life jackets. The helmets are so tight I worry my brain cells (what’s left of them) might start oozing out of my ears, and all have names scrawled acorss them in texta which we’re told is to help the photographer compile individual folios, but really I think it’s just so they can laugh at us. All the extra-large helmets read things like Sunflower and Daisy, and the small ones Tiger and Tank, that sort of thing.

So, with my comrades Starfish, God, Cock, Player, Single and Osama (appropriately, I was Princess), I spent the day launching myself head first into waterfalls, abseiling down cliffs and generally being the coldest I have ever been in my life.