"If you had an 8th day, what would you do with it?"

The minute I heard the slogan I felt compelled to find out more about the venture behind it, 8th Day UK.

What is it all about? Is the slogan just marketing hype or is there any substance?

"8th Day UK is a members club aimed at young men and women, who, quite simply, want more. More adventure, more excitement, more sport, more fun," states the website. The company organises adventure sports, team sports and social events in London on weekday evenings, as well as weekend activity breaks around the UK.

It had never occurred to me that I needed more adventure, excitement, sport or fun. But it did seem to me that joining 8th Day UK would be a good way of trying out different activities before booking expensive activity holidays abroad.

Caveat emptor, as they say. Let the buyer beware. It would be an expensive mistake to book a week's horse riding in Arizona to find out that I'm terrified of getting into the saddle.

Non-members can go along to one activity or event before deciding whether they want to join 8th Day UK. So I perused the options, paid my money and looked forward to an evening inline skating in London's Hyde Park.

8th Day UK sent me a confirmation e-mail the day before - with a contingency plan, should it rain. And I duly turned up at the rendezvous by the fountain on the Tuesday evening.

As luck would have it, this was one of the brightest evenings of the summer. So we 'whizzed' off into the sunset around the Serpentine lake, 'perfecting' our technique and admiring the experts, who zoomed past us.

I had a great time. And with the weather, I could almost have been on an activity holiday in southern Europe.

OK. So I was a bit slow. But nobody seemed to mind. And I'm sure I was the only one not to fall over.

The rest of the group all seemed to know each other, but couldn't have been more friendly to me. There was a real sense of belonging. After the skating, they all adjourned to the pub for 'refreshments'.

I tried to steer the conversation to other things, but everyone was adamant about discussing forthcoming activities and events, who said what on the message board, and who was going on the next weekend away.

With such smooth organisation by 8th Day UK, there's nothing to concentrate on but the gossip.

Substance? Definitely. The only downside being that if we're doing exciting activities all week long in the UK, Londoners like me will be little inclined to take an activity holiday abroad.