Sunday 20th September, 2015

A while ago, when I was just 10 years old, we went on a family holiday, sailing in the Caribbean.  The turquoise seas and white sand beaches were just as we had been told, however, this paradise was not all pink flamingos and  fresh coconuts. We anchored off the shore of an idyllic looking island and took a dinghy to the beach for a picnic. My friend Tom and I then decided to go exploring. We climbed up a short cliff face and headed into the depths of the island. We scrambled over more rocks and followed a trail into the shrubby wood. After about an hour we saw that it was nearing 6 and decided we should head back as it very quickly gets very dark in the Caribbean at Easter. I turned to where I thought we had come from and Tom thought we had come from somewhere completely differently. We finally came to an agreement but our uncertainty had caused us to become anxious and we frantically tore through the encaging undergrowth. We finally got to the sea but we were at the top of a steep cliff with the waves crashing aggressively on the rocky shore. We didn’t recognise any of the land and so realised we were at the wrong side of the island. The sun was getting very low now and we were worried. With tears in our eyes we headed back to the centre, screaming for anyone to help us. Finally we heard the voices of our fathers looking for us and immediately ran towards them. We failed to notice the steep gradient of the dirt slope however and I tripped and began to slide down it. I reached out to grab hold of anything that would stop me falling and gripped on to what I presumed would be a tree. However I cried out in agony as I stopped falling and looked at my hand which was full of cactus spines. Our fathers found us and took as back to the boat. As I lay on my back, covered in dirt and with tears streaming down my cheeks, with my Mummy picking cactus spines out of my hands, paradise was the furthest thought from my mind.