1967

I really like this photo.

I found it last night when I was at my aunt's house. my aunt died in the summer and as her next of kin I am the sole executer of her will so I have organised the sale of her house amongst many other things as you do in these circumstances.

I was there last night with the boss of a specialist house clearance company (the new owners move in on monday). he was explaining to me how as much of the contents are recycled and that he would give me some money for the victorian writing desk (I would have liked to have taken home but I know it would only have gone in my garage and probably never have been used) as well as other bits and pieces. none of which is relevant as I am carrying out my late aunts wishes to the letter. all the money from the sale of the house is going to the charities and organisations she believed in. she never married and had no children.

I noticed the photo on the floor in her front room as thing were being moved it must have fallen out of an album and never been put back.

I recognised it straight away as the girl in the centre is my older sister and the little boy on the right is me (aged 6). I think it was taken in summer 1967 at lancing beach, west sussex. I remember the day it was taken and the fact that I had bought the plastic ring I am holding with money I had saved. it was blue and had boats on it.

it is a happy photo.

summer2?

thought I best post again as the weather has improved almost proper sunshine today.

summer1?

thought I should post this. it is the view from my front room this afternoon. almost the third full day of cornwall august summer fog, (& rain)

summer?

I remember writing something similiar last august, as the weather becomes even more wet and cold in cornwall. we/I have such a short memory so I thought I would post a couple ofpicture taken just last week in between the rain showers we seem to have every day each august. certainly over the last three years down here.

(pictures taken on my phone)

haven't found the time

it is a lame excuse I know, but the week or so that I have been back from france has seemed like a hugely busy time. even though it should have been one of the easier weeks of my working life as it is a sort of wind-down week. not the case I had to make sure that a huge amount of money was spent on good kit. in the form of some serious macbook pro's and a couple of sony hd camera's.
anyway back to reality I have to get some stuff done but at least I should have sometime to do this.

summer?

I hadn't really intended to post today but I got back home cornwall from sussex (& brighton) today and checked through some of the pictures I had taken whilst fleeting from cornwall to the midlands (fri) birmingham airport down to west sussex (sat) for lunch, then spent a day in brighton (sun). brighton is a great place a place I have spent lots of time in the past, my younger sister lives just outside brighton the rottingdean side. was in her garden yesterday afternoon when I took this picture on my mobile. as you can see it is a summer scene without the summer if that makes sense. between showers and a strong wind her son was playing in their garden I just thought this little picture. summed up the summer well this (august) weekend just passed, so well.

a short long day >>

it has been a funny day. a day that I had purposely set aside to do very little. yesterday was a busy (even an emotional day) as a couple of people I have worked with for many years left for pastures new. it was also the day when I managed to get myself a new (additional) role in creative and media education. all I really did today was play with my new blackberry (delivered this morning) so far it is an improvement on my previous blackberry (now given to my eldest son). trouble is now that I am even more easily contacted which is a good thing for the most part except for those annoying calls from amongst others the alliance & leicester (that's a whole different story) but their customer service personal are not my favourite people at the moment. I watched the tour de france on the TV. tomorrow I am off to the beach things are not bad at the moment, just re-grouping a bit.

as another moan I am really fed up with the way apple have dealt with the non-working battery for my less than six month old macbook. it seems that through the couple of different agents involved in sourcing a whole bunch of apple computers at work are all blaming each other and refusing to accept responsibility for the 'care' so in short I have just gone ahead and ordered and paid for a new battery direct, in the hope that I will get it refunded. such a shame that a great piece of very necessary kit currently can only be used plugged in to the mains. oh well there are plenty of more important things to get worried about than a battery. I am rather tired and rambling a bit too much i'll stop.

not sure why? been thinking gliders?

I am not really sure why, perhaps it is because the last 3 days have been very busy. even with a little tension as well as emotion for me. but today as I sat down and relaxed I remembered a day in the early summer some 30 years ago when I was at the beach on a very sunny day, not more than a mile from where I now live. playing as a teenager with a model glider from a company based in bend, oregon, USA. I can't remember the name of the manufacturer (I would be more than happy if someone could add a comment if they know of a model plane maker from there). any way I managed to get the smallish glider in to a rising thermal, just with a lucky throw. the glider then circled above the beach with a probably more than a hundred people watching. it stayed airborne for more than 20 minutes before it disappeared out to sea never to be seen again. I remember in my glorious naivety thinking that I must have broken a world record. I even asked strangers to give me written statements to witness that they had seen it happen! I then sent all the information to the company fully expecting them to get back to me with some kind of reward or prize, well they never did. yes I really was that naive. any way it is funny how things disappear from ones thoughts only to return at the strangest times.

the pictures have no relation to the story. I just liked them!!

safely back >> I have to go away to realise how lucky I am?

we had a great few weeks in france, driving more than 2000 miles. we went chasing the surf and found some good waves south of biarritz, as well as thunderstorms and unusual conditions for the time of year. as the french coast, like the californian coast is experiencing some strange weather conditions. california suffering the coldest summer on record and south west france not fairing much better as well as having some strange tidal conditions, said to be caused by climate change probably because people like me are driving 2000 miles just to go surfing!! at least it is better than flying to bali as far as carbon footprint.


I thought I would put this picture in taken yesterday after surfing very near where we live in cornwall & wonder why we travel so far looking for something that is on our door step. all that said I would move to the basque area of france if I had the chance!

surfing >> conditions and contests

some of you will know that I have been involved in surfing for years and years first as a lifeguard then for a short time a competitor, more recently a contest judge, as well as a surf writer for Go2 magazine and the owner of surf98.

so one way or another I have be around the surf scene in the UK for more than 35 years. we have just had a really good weekend (for summer) as you can see from the first couple of photos, but today monday (last picture) the rip curl boardmasters contest started, a 5-star contest for both men and women and the surf went to mush. I always want to apologise to the visiting surfers who come to compete as we do get great waves just not very often in august. but if you read the rip curl contest website it seems as though the waves are fine.

that is summer in cornwall not the most constant surf, that is why we are off to france in a couple of days.

picture credits (moby & 'the wilkin')

back to what you know >> george greenough

it wasn't going to be long before I returned to my love of the ocean and surfing and whilst looking for something else I found a few pictures that I had to share the first one especially. even though I grew up on the south coast of england I have a few photos of me as a 12/13 year old looking like one of my all time surfing hero's george greenough. I was born a few years later than him but with out knowing I seemed to have had a similar interests and dress sense, until I decided to be david bowie for a year or so.


the man who did more for surfing in general not just kneeboard surfing which he is most usually only credited with. his designs for smaller surf boards along with revolutionary attention to the detailing of the skeg (fin) broke new ground in the late 60's and 70's and to this day the hydrodynamics of a pretty much all surfboards in some way have been influenced by george's designs. the site I was looking at was california surf museum.

be sure that I will return to mr. greenough as his influence is firmly embedded, in both my surfing and design life.

today >> just one of those days

I am not going to bore you with my stuff today. only to say the picture above was taken tonight from my front garden. that was a good bit of the day, so how can I possibly complain!

dijon mustard >> toilets

my earliest memory of dijon was as an eight old child driving with my family through france on the way to a wedding in switzerland in a white vw camper (left) it was 1969.

dijon was the place that for the first time I saw squating toilets, (or turkish toilets as the french call them) still popular in many areas of france, indeed across the world just not on the UK. you needed to squat on two foot shaped raised areas and complete your toilet functions into a hole. at eight in a different country I was bemused I thought I had walked in to a strange sort of shower, my mother explained and I had no trouble with the idea or their use ever since.
the experience has always made me think well of dijon as it was also that I had some what was loosely called french mustard perhaps a strange thing for an eight year old to be trying I don't think so.
I will search out dijon mustard where ever I am. luckily for me my father in law lives just south of dijon so if I can't get my favourite mustard he will bring me some on his regular visits to us. this year I will be able to buy it from the makers as we plan to visit in the summer holidays.

every year for the past five I have been part of a group of teachers who take forty, year nine students to the ardeche river and the mediterranean for a nine day water sports trip as part of their activity week within term time.
every year so far at some point I have had to explain to a handful of students what the 'strange holes' in the toilet block floor are. I think it is odd that the current generation are still as surprised by them as I was in 1969.

I still love dijon mustard though, so perhaps things don't change!