Day 25. 80,115 words.

We had a pretty uneventful fifth day of holidays. It was – astonishingly – overcast and cool, so we didn’t bother going to the beach. Instead, on Wump’s and Toop’s insistence, we went to the local indoor pool.

All in all it was a bit of a pain in the butt because Toop refused to set foot in water that was so cold (it was heated, but not Finland pool heated), and Wump wasn’t having a good day, so after an hour or so we went home.

We hit the Brewhouse for lunch, which was nice (and Yuri’s sister Olivia, after ordering a hamburger with no bun due to her dietary needs, introduced us to the term glutard by way of explaining why she was such a pain at restaurants), and then Mrs. Hatboy, Wump, Toop, Tinny and I paid a visit to the Mammoth Cave in the afternoon.

This is always a treat – we went with Wump last time and she’d loved it so much she’d gone around it twice, but she couldn’t remember that. Well worth a look if you’re in the region. We did a lot of caving when I was a kid, including exploration of unmapped and off-the-tourist-trail caves. At least one of which, I’m told, we got utterly lost in and would probably have died and never been found, since nobody knew we were in there and of course there were no mobile phones or GPS (even if they would work that deep underground). I don’t remember being worried, because I was a tiny moron who thought adults knew what the fuck they were doing.

Anyway, Mammoth Cave is pretty much paved, lit, and has stairs and an audio tour on MP3. Great fun, and the fossilised megafauna are neat.

Then, as was becoming traditional, it was home for naps and eating and more naps.