Lately.

What you been up to lately? Well the past week I was a councillor and shoulder to cry on for a good mate whose fiancée left him in his prime, tough job for anyone but as a good friend and bloody nice bloke somehow I came up with some positives and a few words of wisdom to try and get him out of the god almighty depths of insanity and the ‘meaning of life’ thoughts he found himself asking.
Then I decided I wanted to get some quality waves and hopefully get barrelled so looked into going on a little surf mission to the North East, then it was Scotland then finally Ireland. All of which never came to fruition due the uncompromising ways of mother nature so I ended up randomly going to a party in London which a friend very kindly got me tickets too. After being slightly socially inappropriate to strangers and being a loose cannon I decided to use my phone and be inappropriate on social networking sites, realising the errors of my ways I then threw my phone at the moon, shaking my fist screaming ‘dam you modern technology’ and ‘why?’ at the top of my voice. Well it was either that or I left it in the taxi that took us home but none the less I woke up without it which added to myself inflicted guilt. Having not learnt my lesson from the previous night I descended into one almighty internet binge which ended in me somehow chatting to an ex girlfriend who I dated for 4 years about 6 years ago. Turns out she’s now married, has kids, a house and is very happily living abroad which then lead me to think and ponder about the ‘meaning of life’, choices and paths I could of taken and actually what the hell have I been doing in the past 6 years since we split up.
Then yesterday the surf was flat so I went to the gym and rowed until I almost puked as some sort of punishment for being such an inappropriate idiot over the weekend, like that’s going to teach me a lesson. After that I went to see Richard Gregory at Wave dreamer to put the finishing touches to the clip we’re putting together. This is when I realised maybe my personal choices aren’t all doom and gloom after all, I get to share some amazing times with some special people and I’m pretty dam lucky in life. I also found this little clip of my fisherman mates from The Cliffs of Moher which I took when over there last month. I wonder what these two guys have been up to lately. 

AG Board short test 1.

When I got invited to a board short test I jumped at the chance as to be honest I was thinking like a week in the Caribbean or maybe Indo surfing, wearing boardies. So I’ll have to admit when I found out that it was a day in Bedford and at a Flowhouse I was slightly disappointed and also worried for my limbs as I’ve heard the odd horror story about these things and with my luck wasn’t prepared to take any silly risks. Being the switched on sort of person I am I came up with a plan which involved inviting young Alex Baker along to do my side of the testing and risk taking, he surf’s pretty good, can do airs and shit so this flow rider thing should be a walk in the park for him I thought.
Well it isn’t as easy as it looks and I can honestly say it’s nothing like surfing, skating or snowboarding but when your natural show off like myself, faced with a small crowd I did manage to lay down some turns and generally impress, although I think the highlight was just messing about on the body boards. As for Alex, well it didn’t go exactly to plan, although he did meet all the crew at Analog he wasn’t as natural as I thought he might be which was slightly annoying for him and quite amusing for me.  

I LUV COCK......... and Mullaghmore

Oh how the Irish love the crack, so there I was driving round rural Ireland waving to all the old boys in their tractors and folk alike. Got a lot of attention when I rocked up at some surf spot too, but I just put it down to they must recognise me, that’s understandable as I do get the odd shot in the mags and I was even on telly once. Little did I know I was sporting a new personalised number plate! Must of looked like a right twat as I got changed for the surf thinking I was all cool as the group of lads kept looking over, probably muttering to each other ‘look at that English toss pot who the feck does he think he is with a number plate like that?’ even made a point of jogging past them on the way to the waves and shouting ‘alright’ and doing a little wave. I’m just happy I noticed before I got pulled over by the cops or at customs at Fishguard. Of course I had an idea who it was but it wasn’t until I received this today from photographer Conn Osborne that I had the proof, Al Mennie the funny big ginger fecker you’re a comedian.
Oh yeah, if you haven’t heard already yesterday Mullaghmore was off the dial, huge and offshore. Al being Al decided he was going to paddle no matter what, as I sat on the ski in the channel and he dodged Wide clean up sets and tried to position himself in the pretty much impossible line up, nutter not a chance I’d of grabbed me tow board in a instant but as he tried to convince himself and me it was a good idea he told me ‘I could tow these waves all day long, I just really want to paddle into one’. Fair play you big crazy fecker. The boys who had the sense to tow, if that’s possible! Mikee Hamilton, Dave Lavelle, Paul O’Kane, Barry Mottershead, Richie Fitzgerald, Neil Britton, Peter Craig, Rick Hutton, Dylan Scott and Kurt Rist took it apart and charged harder than ever, really raising the level out there and inspiring me beyond belief, If I don’t see some cover shots from Aaron Pierce who was shooting from the boat I’ll be amazed, good work by all involved. Just give me a couple more weeks till I get the all clear from Andy the knee surgeon from London and I’ll be right out with you, Can’t wait....
photo: conn@surfingphotography.co.uk

The weekend bender

I’ve just worked out in the last 2 weeks I’ve eaten 83 sausages, that’s a fuck load off sausage for any one man to eat and hardly the diet of an athlete. It’s like everywhere you go they sell hot sausages in Ireland and I just can’t help myself as I just love them, from garages, corner stores to supermarkets they all seem to have these little deli counters that sell hot sausage. Obviously I have eaten other things to try and balance it out, like fruit etc but I’ve pretty much only really been eating sausages.
So this is me at my favourite right hander after a balanced breakfast, lunch and dinner of sausage, the shots by Aaron Pearce who I was surprised to see there as he’s usually shooting death slabs or huge Mullaghmore which is where I often see him and know him from.
Been riding this board which diplock has leant me called ‘The mushy pea’ I’ve re named it ‘The weekend bender’ as its loose, fast and loves good lines, it’s also my re-hab board which I got to help keep me on the straight and narrow so to speak and it’s been doing just that.
You seen the chart for tomorrow? Shit the bed, probably be seeing Aaron again!

A left hander, Myself, Terry, Doris and a red tractor

I finally know what I want to do when I’m older, not that I’m young but I’m talking maybe in a couple of years when everything’s become too much and I feel the need to eject myself from normal society and day to day life. I’m gunna sell all my worldly possessions, which to be fair only really consists of my van and, um, my van. Yeah that’s about it; well my van and 23 surfboards but I wouldn’t sell those for the life of me. So I’m going to sell my van and buy a old red tractor, get myself a dog and call it Terry and also a goat which I’m going to call Doris.
So Myself, Terry and Doris are going to live in front of this insane left which I surfed today and when not surfing were all gunna cruse round in my old red tractor, maybe to the local pub or just through town, Terry by my left shoulder and Doris by my right and I’ll talk to them, but not in English just in dog and goat noises like ‘woof’ and ‘bleat’ or whatever noises goats make. I’d be known as ‘That weird English bloke that drives that fucked old red tractor and talks in dog and goat noises.’ But I’d be happy, who wouldn’t with an empty sick left hander to surf, red tractor, a dog called Terry and a goat called Doris in your life.
Job done and my future sorted, might call the folks and let them know; hope this left pumps again tomorrow. If not I might get started on this life plan of mine and buy myself a goat.

Coffee for two

The other day I was standing outside one of those coffee places, you know the ones that do those loyalty cards which when you spend £30 on coffee they so kindly give you one free. I’d just bought an overpriced latte and was about to savour my first sip, when this old fella comes up to me and asks for a 1 euro for a cup of tea. I didn’t even think and it was almost an instant reaction as I handed him my stupidly overpriced latte ‘have that mate if you want’ ‘just got it and haven’t even had any yet’. This guy was obviously in a bit of a scenario with life although he didn’t look that rough and seemed to be slightly more cleaner and sober than the likes of my mate Szczepan from Poland but he took the latte off me and had a sip. We both stood there momentarily in silence as I watched him drink the coffee then out of the blue he broke the silence and said ‘you want to share?’
Blue tractors have nothing to do with this but I like them and spotted this one while I was looking for waves today, Surfs been pumping.