Kids, swearing and a Swiss walk

A while ago now, I was a leader on a summer camp in Switzerland. It was a big group, and there was a lot of cooking to be done. Happily, the chalet we stayed in was suitably equiped. The oven was huge, the pans were huge, and there was even a bacon slicer that we used for slicing bread (and no one lost a finger). One evening the oven was full of burgers by the tray load. But there were three vegetarians, so at the other end of the kitchen, there was me with a little camping stove frying three meat-free burgers. Lots of people were milling about helping (or "helping"). One was a girl who was too old to be in the group any longer, but had come with us as a young leader. She gave me a cheeky look and said "I didn't know you could cook!"

Now I thought I could have some fun here, and I assumed that she was familiar with the most famous TV chef of the time and his favourite word, so I said "I'm Gordon Fucking Ramsey."

Her mouth dropped open like a cartoon character, her eyes widened, and I was worried that I'd misjudged the situation and offended her. But she said "I've never heard you swear!"

And there's the thing. People have an idea about what you're like, but they only meet you in certain situations. And the adults at camp only use their full vocabulary when the kids aren't around.

Now the kids also do their best to pretend that they don't know a bunch of words that in fact they use all the time. And it's unusual to catch them out. Later in the week, we walked to a waterfall not far from the village. The Swiss countryside was nice enough, but it took us quite a while to get there. I wanted to take photos of everyone, but that meant I had to get in front of them and look back, so I hurried forwards past the long crocodile of walkers. Just as I came up behind a group of three girls, one of them said to her friends "Where is this fucking waterfall?" and as soon as the words had come out, she realised that I was there and looked really worried. I just smiled and gave her a look.

The waterfall was worth seeing. It came down a big cliff and the river ran off through big boulders. People were sitting on the grass, or taking photos, or climbing on the boulders. At one point I was near the girl who'd spoken, and she was on her own, so I went over and said "There's the fucking waterfall."

#swearing

#Switzerland

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