3. To Fat To Fight

Friday, 6th Feb, 2015

With a light wind on your back, cold air on your face. The sun setting over the sea. The sky aglow with the late afternoon winter light. 2', clean and a couple guys in. Beautiful.

2. To Fat To Fight

Monday, 2nd Feb, 2015

I went in the sea today with mixed emotions. Last time I couldn't even get on to the peak on the point but now I'm a bit fitter and this is what I need to focus on.

The waves were relatively small but despite this the paddling took its toll. Wearing winter gear certainly takes it out of you.

1. To Fat To Fight

Nice Daps Them New Shoes

Today I began to fight back....again. Exercise seems to come in fits and starts with me and after 18 months of not running I'm back out. Training and competing in the North Devon Marathon took its toll and took the "fun" out of the run. This and the lack of surfing recently during our trip to Australia spurred my motivation forwards. There is only so much I can blame on the surf or since we have been back, the weather. So it's time to address the weakest point in my surfing, me.

In a little over a month I'll be 43...43! After pondering that for a second I got back to thinking about my surfing. Age, fitness and my surfing ability has got me wondering lately on whether I should surf a board relevant to my body or change my body to suit my board. I went for the latter. I'm not ready to give up, buy a mini-mal and ride Saunton. There's nothing wrong with this but I want to challenge myself even if this ends up having a crap surf.

A few days ago I paddled out to the point. I struggled to paddle around on to the peak. It was an endless paddle against the rip and I always seemed to be just off. Before long I was knackered. Self-humility got me. I turned around and paddled on to the beach. If I wasn't tired enough, I was by the time I got to Downend. With a swell increasing in size I was beat. I caught two waves and got out. I picked up a piece of rubbish on my way up the beach and walked home. Once again I thought to myself I need to sort this out. I need to work on my strength, my stamina, my endurance, my flexibility...my surfing. 

I nearly went to Yoga on Friday but I didn't.

It's amazing how a new pair of shoes can get you motivated to move away from thinking about running to running.  Long may it continue...although it probably won't...

15. Trigg-o-nometry

Tuesday, 6th January, 2015

Yallingup, WA

Three Bears is up the road and I feel like Goldilocks. That wave is backing off. That wave is closing out. Where is that perfect wave?

14. Trigg-o-nometry

Sunday, 21st December, 2014

Hillarys, Perth, WA

# Note to self - check hat for spiders.

This morning Ken had a whooper nesting in his hat, which would not have been half bad if his hat was outside.

Looking for the eponymous red dot, it was then that I learnt that this only appears when aggravated. And so it was with a lengthy bit of twig that I apprehensively cajoled the beast out of its new lair and promptly heard it fall several feet on to the ground into a pile of dry leaves.

In the excitement of all these mysterious events I seem to keep forgetting my camera but then I remember Sontag (#13).

13. Trigg-o-nometry

Saturday, 20th December, 2014

Hillarys, Perth, WA

It's great being on holiday. That is when I do manage to switch off from making pictures or analysing every moment because it might be a future project or relate to an ongoing project. I love it, it keeps my mind focused and allows me to question everything but photography is the kind of vocation that you take anywhere and everywhere, even on vacation, especially on vacation. Although not so much in the snapshot sense, not anymore anyway, or maybe a little bit.

Sontag helped me realise that one.

A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it - by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir. Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs...Most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable that they encounter. Unsure of other responses, they take a picture.

                                                        - Susan Sontag, On Photography (1977)

Anyway, yesterday we visited AQWA. It's an aquarium here in WA.

I could stare at fish for hours, especially in a big tank, with big fish. And when it's exotic, it's even more interesting. Amazing.

With Sontag bubbling away in the back of my mind I did think it was all a bit weird and, like photography, a bit voyeuristic. Maybe not voyeuristic because I'm not sure what the fish and turtle see in returning our gaze.

I imagined a mall, like the one we visited a few days before. Quite a boring experience if I'm honest but watching people can be interesting too, especially the exotic which as de Botton posits is anything away from the norm.

Well in this imaginary mall there was a watery tunnel and in this world the fish have the power, a bit like Planet of the Apes but fishy, and the inhabitants swim around in a circular fashion gawping at the exotic.

"Look mum, there's an Englishman."

"Ohhh, there's a Christian"

"Look...an African"

12. Trigg-o-nometry

Thursday, 18th December, 2014

Hillarys, Perth, WA 

Well I haven't turned into Spider-Man...yet

A few days ago I saw a spider that had been run over, just by the garage door. 

It was BIG..(ish)

I touched it and to my horror I got spiked. As mild panic began to build I realised one of its spiky bits had become lodged in my finger, a spider splinter.

When I figured the toxins were not going to paralyse me in the few seconds that had passed, I did what all blokes do and just ignored it.

Although after an hour or so I did tell Caroline, just in case I went a bit weird. Her mum heard and went straight for the antiseptic, as (nearly) all mums do.

Good old mums.