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After weapon training, Corporal Eddie Hunter gave us our marching orders, literally, as he showed us around the base.

As a former Girls Venture Corps Air Cadet, I didn't have trouble staying in step, it was just the rest of them doing it wrong (honest!).

We were shown where the sleeping quarters were for new recruits and where the passing out parade was held and, by then, had worked up an appetite for lunch.

As we lined up in the canteen memories of school came flooding back. Anyone for chocolate pudding?

After lunch it was time to test our leadership, team-building and problem solving skills in a series of command tasks.

We were split up into two teams of six and given two tasks to complete. The first was putting up a tent. Easy I thought.

That was until we were told three of us would be blindfolded and they were the ones who would be putting it together. With the help (or hindrance) of the sighted three. And guess who was blindfolded.

Great. I'm hardly the most practical person when I can see, but trying to put a tent together in the pitch dark.

"Hmmm," I thought. "This may take some time."

It didn't help that none of us could remember each others names so commands like "You move forward" brought hilarious results. One poor lad walked straight into a pole. Someone else thought it was funny to lead me into the middle of a field and leave me there. Hilarious. I'd get my revenge.

After five minutes fumbling. The blindfolds came off. The results? Let's put it this way, I wouldn't have wanted to have slept under it on a cold winter's night.

The second task went a lot more smoothly. We had to get the whole team from one side of an imaginary minefield to the other using two planks of wood, two barrels and a box without touching the floor, picking up supplies stranded on another box on the way.

We huddled around, came up with a strategy and 12 minutes later we'd finished. Maybe they could make soldiers out of us after all.

But, the best part of the day was yet to come.

It was our camouflage lesson. For big kids who love getting dirty I thoroughly recommend it.

Lance Corporal Marsh told us that to stop the enemy from spotting us we had to change our shape, silhouette, colour, and eliminate the shine from our skin.

We'd do it by covering ourselves in make-up. Well I'm good at that.

The cam cream was hardly Estee Lauder - we only had the choice of mud brown, sludgy khaki or Kermit the frog green, but it certainly did the trick.

My plans of showing my artistic side with a lovely dark green and brown design went out of the window when photographer Paul Franks insisted my face was smeared in pale green for the photos. I felt like Jim Carey in the Mask.

Next job was to change our shape by cramming our webbing (where you carry your kit) our epaulettes, and straps across our hat with as much grass as we could find.

After a few minutes I looked like The Straw Bear!

Then came the fun part. We had to crawl from one end of the forest to the other on our bellies without Lance Corporal Marsh seeing us.

I think I would have managed it if Paul hadn't have been following me. His big camera and flash were a bit of a give-away.

Before we knew it was time to pack up and head for the assault course. Piece of cake I thought.

After all even old grannies used to manage the one on the Krypton Factor.

That was before I saw the Skyscraper - a 12ft high wall we had to clamber over, the cargo net, a giant climbing frame with a huge scramble net on the other side, and don't even mention the rope bridge. "Yikes," I thought. "Tarzan, I ain't."

"Er, isn't it time we left?" I asked Paul. He wasn't so easily swayed. After 15 minutes running and stretching, our time came.

Suddenly I remembered why I hadn't joined up before. Leave me to paint my nails any day rather than breaking them clambering through the dirt.

But to the other wannabe soldiers it was the highlight of their day.

None of them could wait to get stuck in and put their strength and agility to the test.

The most scary part for me was having to walk across a plank who-knows-how-many-feet up and then climb down the cargo net, but somehow I managed it.

Compared to the others I felt like a bit of a wuss, but then I don't want to join the Army.

As we headed back to the changing rooms, the others couldn't stop grinning. They'd had their first taste of the Army and I think they liked it.

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