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Tim's family live up on top of a hill. We were at their house one evening and there was a particularly bad storm rolling around the valley. We stood in the garden and watched the storm for quite a long time as it moved closer and then moved away and then out of the valley.

It was a big storm the likes of which we hadn't seen for some time. You could see forks of lightning striking the ground and trees etc.

It was quite late once the storm had passed so Tim and I decided to walk Hugo the dog. We took him down into the town and across a playing field. It wasn't until we got several miles from home that we realised that the storm was on its way back into the valley. At first we could just hear a rumble of thunder in the distance but it soon started to rain, and it rained hard.

We were both concerned that we were a bit prone and exposed in the middle of this big playing field. Time to run for cover! We ran back to the town, the lightning was getting closer all the time. Counting the time between the lightning and the thunder we tried to work out how far away it was, we soon realised that it was almost on top of us.

Running up through the town, Hugo struggling to keep up, I began to become alarmed at the fact that my hair was standing on end at that I had this tingling sensation. Tim said that he was having the same experience. We had heard that this is the sensation that someone experiences just before they get struck by lightning!

Time to pick up the dog and run flat out for home!

On the way home we had to cross the road bridge that goes over the railway line. The storm was right on top of us at this point and we were soaked through.

As we reached the middle of the bridge there was suddenly a massive flash of light and a huge bang. This was followed by the sound of sirens and alarms then all the street lights went off, along with the traffic lights and all of the power in the town.

The lightning had struck the power cables on the railway line just below us. It was so close to where we were standing that we felt the heat on our faces and the percussion of the thunder along with it.

Partially blinded and deafened we ran back to Tim's parent's house in what must have been close to a 4 minute mile. We almost had to change our underwear!

We won't go walking in the rain for a while.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): Did we really do that?, Crazy, Stupid]

Another particularly stupid holiday event:

Tim and I went on holiday just after Christmas one year and stayed in a hotel in somewhere on the south coast. We thought that staying in a big hotel for New Year would be fun and that there would be a lively atmosphere. We were really wrong!

As is the way when you get bored you start to find ways to amuse yourself. We were staying in a newly refurbished room in the hotel that had lots of new lighting and suspended ceilings.

We thought that it would be really funny to rewire the lights in the room. Tim, being a qualified electrician, spent the best part of a day altering the wiring so that once he was finished the light switches functioned rather differently!

Switching the bathroom light on turned on the bedside lights, the bedside light switched on the TV and the bathroom light. The main room light switch turned on the light in the bathroom, etc.

We thought this was very funny, and thought that the next guests would be very confused, and the hotel would blame the people that just refurbished the room.

It was a pretty stupid idea, but at the time we figured it was the hotels fault for being so dull around Christmas. Looking back I’m so glad that the hotel didn’t come after us! The hotel isn’t there any more.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): Did we really do that?, Pranks, Crazy, Stupid, Practical Jokes]

This is quite a long story so I've broken it down in to a few parts. I cannot emphasise enough that doing what we did is a REALLY bad idea, no one should consider doing anything like this!

Tim and I used to be in the Air Cadet Corps and as part of that we got to take part in all sorts of fun activities like flying, shooting and abseiling. We were particularly fond of the abseiling.

Shortly after I passed my driving test Tim and I decided to go on holiday together in Kent. My family had a mobile home in Hythe and we arranged to go there for a weekend.

Close to the site where the mobile home was kept there was a very large 'hill', I'm not sure how high it was but it was huge. I was telling Tim all about how there had been a recent landslide and that parts of the hill had collapsed exposing rock faces beneath. Between us we came up with the idea that we could climb up the hill and abseil down the cliff faces.

There was one minor problem with this idea however: Neither of us owned and abseiling or climbing gear, nor did we have the money to buy any!

As we were both design and technology students at school we came up with a solution which was to make our own abseiling gear. For the next week of technology 'lessons' we set about making a figure 8 and a karabiner. Both of these were made by bending an aluminium bar into the appropriate shape. The figure 8 was a bit too weak to take our weight so we reinforced it with a brass plate and some screws! The karabiner was made in much the same way but we used a large bolt in order to open and close it.

Quite proud of our creations we then had to find ourselves some suitable rope and a harness. At first Tim found an old seat belt that he proposed that we use for the harness but this idea was rejected as we thought it was too much work to modify it. I then came up with the idea of using a leather trouser belt because I thought it would be really strong and that it could be easily adjusted.

Tim rummaged through his dads garage at home and managed to find several lengths of blue nylon rope. None of the lengths was particularly long but we thought that they would be enough. Although the rope was quite thin we both judged it to be adequate to take our weight, after all, we were becoming experts. Or so we thought.

We were both very proud of our DIY abseiling gear!

I'm not sure what happened to our abseiling gear. I'd love to take a photo of it to demonstrate just how dangerous it was, we were both totally mad to even contemplate using it, but we did!

What happened when we tried to use it is another story...

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): Did we really do that?, Pranks, Crazy, Stupid, Practical Jokes]

Welcome to the new site!

To find out about the site and why it has been built pease have a look at the ABOUT page.

Some stories about the crazy things we got up to all those years ago will soon follow!

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): Did we really do that?, Pranks, Crazy, Stupid, Practical Jokes]