Surf rat

After we went to Islay I had a weekend at home, then I went off down to Bracknell to go on a course. This was frustrating, because through no more serious effort than following the Twyford plan (i.e. not eating bread), I was down to a svelte 11st3lbs, and climbing well. I'd not tried to get my weight down, but I had been just avoiding bread which does seem to work. So, i'm all light and strong and everything, then I toddle off down to a hotel and undo this good fortune with lard. Ah well, easy come easy go I suppose.

Breakfast in the hotel was £16!!! I know I'm not paying, but £16!! so I felt I had to make the most of it and piled my plate high with various cooked meat products. I love breakfast, its probably one of my favourite meals, but starting the day feeling so full you might be a bit sick is perhaps taking things to excess.

Courses provide lunch. Which is usually congealed egg mayonaise sandwiches and/or sausage rolls. Deathy. This course laid on a full cooked dinner! So lunch was bad as well. Then of course, because I was staying in a hotel, I couldnt cook or anything, and Tea was deathy as well. I basically had three full cooked dinners every day for a week! Like I say, easy on, easy off (hopefully).

Made it to Craggy island on the Wednesday evening and had fun (and pizza). The bouldering is quite a small area, but the setting was good, and unlike before - not everyone was a punter, which was disappointing. I visit these southern climbing walls under two guises, firstly to go climbing, and secondly because you quite often do everything, burn everyone off and get to feel like a hero for all of ten minutes.

The course finished at 1400 on friday, and I drove home. This mundane detail is going somewhere, I promise. I get home at 1800. Its poured with rain the whole way. I unpack the car, throwing my stuff in the porch of our house, and I bundle my wetsuit, board and a sleeping bag back in the boot. I dont even bother with a change of clothes - am going to be living like a rat in the car - i won't need them! The Wifelet is wedged in the passenger seat and at 1930 we set off again. Phew. This time our destination is Bristol. In spite of surface water we make it there for just before 2300 and have a couple of beers. Get to bed at 0100.

She's staying in Brizzle with her friend Frankie. My alarm beep beeps all too early (0600), and I roll out of bed, back into last nights clothes and the car. Which rolls off down the motorway to Devon. Its ten to eight when I am suited up, trotting across the sand with a lump of fibreglass under my arm.

I'd just like to briefly visit the excitement as I crested the hill before Woollacoombe and caught sight of the ocean for the first time that day. Clear long lines stacked back across the surface of the water - it looked so clean! I could barely keep my right foot off the accelerator as I dropped into the town. I wouldnt say it looked huge, but it did look clean.

How wrong I was. The time now said it was 0930, which meant I had been trying to get out for an hour and a half. All I had so far managed was a number of near death experiences and to drink a lot of sea water. At one point I was level with someone riding in, about 20 metres to my right, and as the surfer turned in at the bottom of the wave, he was completely stood up, looking back UP towards the peak, which was at least 2ft over head. Basically, it was bigger and harder than I have ever been out in.

A combination of amateur duck dives and paddling like my life depended on it (felt like it did at times) got me out back. Set after set rolled by whilst I tried to recover. My arms and shoulders felt anhiliated. Finally my time came, and I took my chance... Glancing over my shoulder as I paddled frantically I could feel the water hefting me up, and then I was pitching, no, shooting towards the trough, I was too far forward and had I tried to pop I would have gone in head first and gotten slapped down, which I knew, so I stayed put and shot beachwards at what felt like light speed. But now I had to get back out again.

The problem is, I cant duck that board, so you just have to take everything on the head. Quit at 1130 and went for food. Bought the papers, had a snooze, got back in at Putsborough in the afternoon. This was much better. It was smaller and the tide was on the way in. Easier to get out, and got some good rides.

Slept in the car that night, and got in again at 0800 the next morning. It was good until 0900, and I thought I was really learning, then the wind started and I sacked it home. Well, to Brizzle, then to home. Pooped