Either, Neither, Or and Nor

As promised, here is the first of my writing exercises from The Write Practice. I did this one sat in my car outside college while eating my lunch.  The exercise explains the correct use of Either, Neither, Or and Nor and then suggests a writing practice based on the principles. Fun eh? Have a read of mine and leave me a comment in the comments section below. Maybe even copy and paste, or leave a link to your rendition?

Writing Practice

20 mins

Tell us about a disastrous camping trip. Use either/or or neither/nor to establish how much your main characters would rather be anywhere else.

“ Whose crappy idea was this?”

It had been raining for a full week. We had seen neither sun nor blue skies since we pulled up in front of the club house in our mustard Volvo, laden down with our camping gear on the roof rack like a small mobile mountain. We had faced two choices, we could either turn around and go home, or make the most of it. We chose the latter.

Now, staring at the closed sign on the club house door, we wondered what to do next. Each evening since we arrived, we had huddled together at the bar, with a drink and a plate of chips. We watched the cheesy entertainers vie for giggles and guffaws from the wet, irritated campers. Karaoke, mouse racing (one wondered where they found so many mice), cabaret acts; we had them all. Until tonight. Tonight the windows stood black. All as quiet.

With a collective sigh, we trudged back to the tents to find that one had collapsed, either from the abundance of rain on its roof, or someone kicking out the guy rope in the dark. We couldn't tell which. In any case, neither my husband no I felt like tackling it in the dark, so we huddled into the pup tent with the kids.

“Why did you insist we camp?” hubby said.

“Because I couldn't book either the log cabins or the mobile homes, they were full! We talked about this!”

“Why did we bloody have to come here at all? Neither camping, nor the rain appeals to me at all! Why couldn't we have gone somewhere warm and sunny? Either Spain or Greece would have suited me fine. I could have been basking in the sun and working on my tan.”

“Oh come on babe, you know very well that you like neither flying on a plane nor foreign food. You say it gives you dodgy belly.”

He sighed, and stared blankly through the unzipped tent flap into the cold, wet trees. It was going to be a long cold night. I hoped he would wake in the morning in a better mood.