What was your most embarrassing moment?

Many years ago, in the Isle of Wight, MIL and I were both desperate for a wee. We were at Whitecliff Bay, and there were some low bushes at the side of the path, nobody around, so we decided that would do. I went first, after I`d done the deed, I realised that if I`d stepped backwards I`d have been a gonner, the bushes were right on the edge of a very high cliff! MIL was a lot more careful!

Once when I was peeing behind a hedge I made the mistake of taking one step too many towards the hedge, and disappeared feet first into a ditch full of nettles.

The loos at a local railway station have lights that are on a PIR detector and come on automatically. The problem is that you're out of sight of the detector when you're in the cubicle, so you end up trying to wipe your arse in the pitch dark.

In a less lavatorial vein, a GFs son once walked into the bedroom whilst his mum and I were, erm,......enjoying each other.

My embarrassing loo experience wasn't so pleasant. In the dim and distant past when I was young, I desperately needed the loo as we left the pub. The doors had been locked behind us so I thought I would just hop over the 3ft wall at the end of the car park. Bad move. The wall was 3ft on my side but there was an 8ft drop on the other side straight into a bed of nettles. I had to suffer the ignominy of being dragged back up the wall by a hysterical band of so called friends and seeing the other car drivers creased with laughter. I was covered in nettle stings and scrapes from the wall ........and still needed the loo!!

Oh! We had one like that in Brussels just before Christmas. That is a nice idea.

Just remembered, there was another lavatory of note in the Alpenclub Schleiresse (sp?) Bavaria, about 1 hour by train from Munich. After one flushed, the whole seat spun around to pass under a disinfectant section! Very disconcerting on first encounter!

Good point jings but I expect that the answer would be that it is down to cost.

It sounds really nice. Why aren't all lavs like that?

That one was cunningly disguised, jingl Didn't look like a bidet at all, just a normal loo!

Loved the bidet in the hospital after DS was born. Never had warm air though.

Not 'arf Lona!

Did you feel 'refreshed' Ana?

I'm surprised that I'm not still ensconced in a lavatory that I entered in North Devon District Hospital on April 30th 1989, the day after I gave birth to DS2.

It looked like an ordinary lavatory, except for a small discreet label that said "Closimat" (Sounds like something from Wallace and Grommet).

I entered, walking a tad like John Wayne after a day in the saddle, (that'll teach me not to insist that I wanted no stitches at any price, ended up with my lady bits swollen out of all proportion, with my knickers on I looked like one of those models for mens underwear in the Freemans catalogue)

Anyway, I assumed the position, had a wee and pressed what I thought was the flushing mechanism. What joy ! Warm water gently swooshing around my tender area. Then, when the water stopped, ecstasy! Lovely warm air softly blowing across the relevant parts. I sat there and enjoyed the delightful sensation.

And I sat there.
And I sat there.
And I sat there a bit longer.

Having been in that position for some time, and starting to go a bit numb where I was making contact with the seat, I shifted position slightly.

And that, Ladies was when I realised that as long as your buttocks were firmly planted on the seat, the Closimat would keep on blowing warm air at you!

How did I manage to set off the automatic flush in Tesco's Ladies' Toilets the other day while I was still sitting on the loo?

(you had to pull it up - who would have thought of that? )

If you were in a public lav in another country where you didn't speak or understand the language, and there was a little drum shaped knob on the back of the cistern. obviously the flush thingie, would you know what to do with it? I pushed down, and I turned it. Nothing. Had to stick my head out of the door and call for DD to help. With a queue of young Swedish ladies waiting impatiently for me to vacate. Luckily DD was still at the washbasins or I would have had to have asked one of them! Why am I so thick easily confused?

I have just remembered the "collapsing shed" episode.............. I wonder what the party host told his parents, and if they claimed on the insurance.............................

We were in the Costwolds and having a lovely walk. but I was desperate for a widdle. Took ages to find a few bushes that would suitably hide me from the footpath- it dived behind, checked around and did what I had to do. As I got up I heard cars behind me- I had not noticed the main road was right behind the low hedge about 20 metres from the bushes!

"On the subject of CCTV cameras"

One day when I was out on the bike I stopped for a pee behind the bushes. It wasn't until I had finished that I noticed that a camera put there to catch fly tippers had caught me tipping out the contents of my flies.

mamacaz funny! I am sure he is on CCTV somewhere. Something similar happened to a colleague of mine when we were away for a weekend "team building" event - he was caught wandering in the hotel corridors naked. He claimed that he suffered from sleepwalking ... we all thought he had been kicked out of someone's bedroom! The truth never did come out.

On the subject of CCTV cameras - it never occurred to me that they may be in lifts, so I would often dive in under my clothes to reorganise - e.g. pull down a shirt that had ridden up or similar. Until I learnt in the office that two people were having an affair - when I asked "How did that come out?" was told (by the HR manager) "Oh, there are cameras in the lift""

Put on the spot, I can't think of mine. Strange how they all come back to haunt me in the middle of the night though, if I can't sleep.

My younger son has many though - his biggest to date was getting stuck naked outside his hotel room in the middle of the night last year, having mistaken the bathroom door and the exit door. He spent half an hour wandering around naked, trying to find a way of alerting someone on reception of his predicament without being seen. He finally realised that there was an alert button in a lift, thank goodness. A straight-faced employee brought him a key card so he could get back in, but DS got the distinct impression in the morning that everyone knew about it, including his colleagues (it was a works conference, and until then, not many people knew who he was!). We have often wondered if the staff had seen him roaming around on CCTV!

Thanks Katek I guess it did have a funny side. I was much more wary of dogs after that experience. Well done with the improvised bell.

So many.....outside a cafe in Buxton, about to go in with (now ex) husband and very young children. Husband was dithering as usual whilst I shepherded four children through the door. As husband dodged customers who were leaving, he jumped to one side to avoid a stroller and managed to put his foot into the metal and wood display board parked outside, then in a panic dragged the clanging thing through the doorway whilst leaping around like John Cleese trying to shake it off. I stood there with a look of horror on my face whilst two young waitresses tried to extract him from it, convulsed with laughter.

Another.....just got engaged and off to the airport on holiday. My fiancé dropped his hand luggage on the escalater and followed it back down, landing in a heap at the bottom. I left him there and found a corner to hide in whilst he did the walk of shame in front of puzzled airport staff.

One of mine (there are many) happened several years ago when I was stage managing a production of Cinderella and also running the sound effects. We got to the stroke of midnight and I had cued up the wrong effect so no chimes at midnight as she ran off. Improvising madly I adopted my best sepulchral voice and said 'boing' 12 times. The audience were in fits.....took me a long time to live that one down.

Falconbird.....I am crying with laughter! It must have been an alarming experience but there was just something in the way you wrote it.

At the dawn of tumble dryers I went to work with a pair of highly static knickers clinging for grim death to an acrylic cardigan I had quickly dried before I left home. The boys in the office had a ball! I never lived it down.