Gatwick Express Train Surfing?

I have just been seriously freaked out, when the Gatwick Express zoomed past Earlswood station about thirty minutes ago I heard someone shouting 'Help! Help! Help!', I looked up and down the train, but as it was traveling so quickly it was impossible to be sure no-one was clinging on for dear life, desperately regretting their decision to copy those train surfing vids on YouTube...next stop the Station Mistress, who also had heard something very odd (and getting clarification she wasn't hearing things trotted off to ring it in)...

I just hope it was either a collective hallucination or some bedraggled wreck falls, largely unhurt, off the back of the train when it pulls in at East Croydon or London Victoria (and isn't now laying broken in a ditch only to be reported missing by worried family later on today)...what a scary start to the day though... <:0

Inside Outside Widemouth Bay (la la la!)

"Everybody's gone surfin', Surfin' Widemouth Bay"...(sure you can guess the tune)... ;)

So anyway (ahem), we spent much of the rest of the break on the beach (when the weather was nice, of course), shot these on September the 1st when the surf changed from "2-3 foot messy" to "12-15 foot clean" *overnight*...Would have been a bit scared to go out, even if I hadn't had a broken finger...

...people kept on getting swept out miles by the rip (on their boards) and just had to wait it out, the waves were so big they would vanish for 10 seconds at a time in the swell(!)...

...and the coast guard wasn't still for much of the day either, I think they used it as a training day (they were mucking about in the surf virtually constantly)...not bad work if you can get it... ;)

(btw - sorry for erratic posting atm, really busy...)

Cornwall update - Widemouth Bay and the Raven Surf School

And so to the 27th...and to the beach at Widemouth bay for a 2-3ft messy day (surf-wise), couldn't get into the water myself thanks to the finger, not that it would have been worth it, but still got a few nice snaps (even mit handicap)...

- most notable event of the day was right at the start (unfortunately), and this is after *years* of frequenting Widemouth bay, is the very peculiar behaviour of the young lady left in charge of the Raven surf school van (http://www.ravensurf.co.uk) who asked (hilariously) if we would move our camper and car in case they needed to move their van, this was petty, and funny for the following reasons -

• We *hadn't* blocked them in
• She was immediately aggressive and nervous, to the point that she really looked embarassed by what she was saying (Why? Was she instructed by someone to be objectionable? She was certainly very uncomfortable...)
• We spoke to the parking guy (as advised by her when we expressed our disbelief) and he said "As far as I'm concerned you can park whereever you like, they don't own the car park, you have as much right to be here as they do"...
• They have been there day-after-day doing several hour long late afternoon surf lessons forever and never needed to urgently move before...(and this was early in the morning with a largely empty car park)...
• The minute we moved (and I *told* her - "Sure, we'll move if you insist, but I suspect you'll be saying this to people all day, won't you love..?") a stream of further cars then materialised exactly where we were parked...
• In the end we left well before them *anyway*

Looks like taking up a career in surfing didn't manage to chill her out...perhaps an anger management course is in order, or a change of career, she obviously isn't suited to the lifestyle...(silly bunny ;)

Would you *really* like your introduction to the world of surfing to be from a flapping worrier, or a chilled out surf dude?

...and anyway, as I said, the surf was lame, quite how you could justify a surfing training session when there basically wasn't any is a bit of a mystery...you can see how packed the beach was...Anyway, nuff said I guess...

- I had a little paddle, water was absolutely freezing -

- and on it's way out when I was down there...strong coastal wind though, check out the "sea mist" in the background...(Private joke) ;)