At last, the North of England had a day of sunshine! It was late July, the air was warm and there was no wind. It seemed like Andrea had spent all of Spring and Summer to date complaining about the incessant rain and how everything was soaked. And now, on the first dry, warm, sunny day, she decided to go down to the river and get wet. Oh, the irony! But she didn't want to get wet too quickly these things had to be savoured. So, she chose a new pair of Horze waterproof faux-leather riding tights and a tight fitting Manie-de-Voir T-shirt, which she wore underneath her Caperlan chest waders.

After some wading and splashing she sat on a sequence of progressively deeper submerged rocks, as she goaded the water to trickle into the front of her waders. And it obliged. She was right in the middle of getting wet slowly when she inadvertently stepped off an underwater ledge and found herself swimming in the cool water. The wading belt prevented the chest waders from filling immediately, but after 10 minutes of swimming around in them, she could hear the water sloshing in the boots. It was time for a change.

She stripped out of the chest waders, emptied the water from them, and took a pair of Aigle rubber riding boots from her backpack. She pushed her soaking-socked feet into them and stepped out into the river. Columns of bubbles rose from the tight-fitting boot tops as they slowly flooded. She swam and splashed and had a fabulous time in the refreshing water and the warm sunshine. But before she packed-up her kit and headed for home, she couldn't resist crouching down in the river and scooping a couple of gallons of cool water into the front of her waterproof riding tights! It ballooned around her knees and spurted out of her boot tops with each step. Now she was ready to walk home.