Waves!

Unfortunately they were waves of nausea. Warning to regular readers: this post is entirely off-topic. Many apologies.

But they were the only waves around as I struggled to Paddington on Sunday morning with a strenuous hangover, to get the train with Claire and her friends. Who organises a birthday walk the morning after a boozy birthday dinner? Yes. Claire Bennett.

But it was worth it, for the charming walk from Henley on Thames to Shiplake, via lots of fields and a nice pub, in the company of several of her friends. Though even a charming walk can feel like a forced march when you've got a hangover.

East is East and West is West

And I know which one I like the best.

After East Runton I drove east around the Norfolk Coast, which was enlightening. If North Norfolk is Chelsea on Sea, this is Dagenham on Sea. Lots of run-down, beaten-up prefab huts masquerading as seaside villas.

Lots of potential surfing beaches, but not in the conditions I saw them. But I did go via California: I was expecting sunshine, palm trees and crooning beach boys. Instead I found this:

Tempting though it might be to say I've surfed in California, it wasn't quite tempting enough, so I headed on to Lowestoft, a fairly charmless, semi-industrial port with a pier and a nice beach. Its main attraction was that it's the most easterly point in Britain, and therefore somewhere I wanted to surf.

This part of East Anglia bills itself as The Sunrise Coast. When I woke up on Friday, it would have had trouble calling itself The Horizon Coast. I suspect The Drizzle Coast isn't going to bring in the punters.
The forecast was for strong on-shore wind and waist-high slop. And sure enough, that's what I got. Plus rain.
You know it's not ideal when the kite-surfers are out.

Still, I did what I had to do. What can I tell you? It was rubbish. But fun rubbish, for some reason. Perhaps because conditions were so appalling. After 40 minutes catching whitewash and having cold water (5º, apparently) flushed down my back, I got out and headed for civilisation for a few days.

But not before one of my tyres decided it had had enough. Fortunately it didn't take me with it, and instead it let me down gently.

And we're back. At last.

Christmas came and went. Ditto New Year. Ditto Twelfth Night. Ditto Saint Hilary's Feast! And what did I do? Cough, mostly. And lounge around the house, enjoying mod. cons. like walls and hot water. But there's only so much coughing and lounging you can do before insanity beckons. Or in this case, North Norfolk.

"North Norfolk?" you cry. "Didn't you do that before Christmas?"

Well, yes, but some misplaced sense of obligation convinced me that I hadn't done it very thoroughly. Sitting in Cromer in the snow for three days doesn't count as thoroughly.

So I drove up to East Runton last night, and surfed it this morning:
Considering I've been idling around eating Christmas cake for four weeks, it was quite a good session. Chest high, peeling nicely, and a few reasonably long rides. Not very powerful, but this is Norfolk, so you don't really expect power. If only it wasn't so cold! There wasn't a breath of wind, but even so, every time you hit the water, it's a real slap in the face.

But it was very nice to be back in a van and back on a board.

Excuses, excuses

I'm still malingering, far from the sea, kept from the waves by a combination of snow, a hacking cough and lack of swell. And indolence.

Normal service will resume shortly.

In the meantime, here are some photos of last week's snow.

"I find Cromer excellent for writing, surf better"

It was the tea bag that did it. I woke up on Monday morning in a van that resembled an industrial cold storage unit. The windows were coated in a thick layer of ice, the water cannister had chunks of ice floating around in it, even the duvet felt a little crispy. But the worse thing was the used tea bag in the sink. When I prised it off the draining board, it was like a rock.

To cap it all, the swell had virtually disappeared.
So I bowed to the inevitable, and headed for warmth, comfort and civilisation. But not before a hairy drive home. The VW really isn't designed for winter. No heating, very damp and a tendency to slip around on ice like a snake on skates. As the snow continued to fall, I thought I might have to pull over and wait until morning - though given the van has been my home for four months, it's not quite the same as being stranded. Just being forced to camp somewhere that has too much snow and no waves. In the end, I made it to within half a mile of my destination, which was good enough.

I fear I may have to return to Norfolk, having only surfed in Cromer, which I grew to like. Unlike Winston Churchill.
"I'm not enjoying myself very much" - a young Winston Churchill, c. 1885.

Oscar Wilde was closer to the mark, though he was still three letters out. "I find Cromer excellent for writing, surf better" is what he meant to say.So the van is temporarily a van, not a home - at least until after Christmas. I'm already missing the freedom. But not the sub-zero temperatures.

Happy Christmas! Let's hope there are decent waves in the New Year.

Too cold to surf, surely?

Ice on the inside of the van, people wrapped up like Muscovites, parents walking past pulling sleds, Radio Norfolk in snow news overdrive... only a madman would surf in these conditions.
But I know you would all have been disappointed if I hadn't. So of course, I did.

Looking forward to Christmas. Hopefully my feet will have thawed by then.

Thou by the Indian Ganges side

shouldst rubies find.

I by the tide of Humber will complain.

And mostly I'll complain about the weather. It's vile.
It's redefining vile.

For reasons I can't quite explain, I left lovely Yorkshire this morning (again) despite the promise of big, clean, off-shore waves over the weekend, and drove down to Norfolk, which promises a howling, blown-out mess until Sunday. And from Monday, unsurfable mush. Ever the optimist, I'm hoping there might be a slim window of opportunity between the two, and I can grab a quick surf then flee the fickle, freezing fingers of the North Sea in time for Christmas.

The good news: snow is unlikely to settle here tonight.
The bad news: only because the wind howling off the sea is too strong.

Before I left Scarborough, I managed a couple more sessions. I met up with Morgan again and we surfed a big, fat wave in Scarborough North Bay on Wednesday. It was a bit frustrating - lots of water, but it was too fat and not really standing up. Caught a few ok waves, but there was a lot of paddling through endless white water.
We went to have a look at Cayton Bay. It looked ok, but not quite worth getting into a cold wet wetsuit for, so we decided against it. It's so much easier to make these difficult decisions by committee.
This is Morgan illustrating a) Cayton Bay b) the low quality weather and c) the low quality waves.

Morgan went home to nurse his cold, and I went into the surf shop where Josh, the surf-youth on duty, was sufficiently enthusiastic about surfing in general and surfing in Yorkshire in particular to make me rethink. I went back to have another look. It looked a bit better (or I was a bit warmer after being in the surf shop) so I jogged off through the drizzle to get changed. (Sorry, Morgan!)

It was OK, though not a patch on Monday and by the end the wind had started blowing on shore, which was not ideal. Plus I stumbled upon the rip just as my shoulders realised that two sessions in the same day in cold water is not written into their contract. I was happy to drag myself up the sand as the light started to fade.

Today I made my way South. Filey was blown out. Bridlington was blown out. How about Skegness? Everyone had told me it was a dump, but I decided to take a look anyway. It was blown out. And a dump. I suspect I'll never go there again. Here is the only nice view of a very nasty town.
After that Lincolnshire was lovely.

And then I reached Norfolk and the weather kicked in. It's still vile.