Cone head

Our next door neighbour has 4 cars. fair enough, there’s no laws on how many cars you’re allowed in life although I expect it must be quite expensive to keep them all on the road as I struggle just to keep my shit yellow van taxed and insured but maybe he’s a footballer or something, I hear they usually have loads of cars but not sure who he would be playing for living in Braunton. It is quite excessive but then again he’d probably think I’m excessive with the amount of surfboards I have in my life. It’s not the cars that bother me though as I’m not really into cars, as long as they get me from A to B and are reasonably safe I don’t care what I drive. The thing that I can’t understand is that after taking up all the parking spaces outside our house with his 4 cars he also feels the need to reserve a parking space with a freaking CONE whenever he takes one for a spin. I don’t understand it. Am I missing something here? Every time I see this CONE I want to break down and cry, I’m not sure why but it just makes me really sad and a little frustrated with life. On a brighter non-CONE note I just booked a ticket to LA to go to the XXL awards. I’m sure it will be a whole lot of fun and an experience to tell the kids when they’re older. Thanks to everyone for the support this year, ANALOG, TIKI and The THATCH in Croyde. Very much appreciated and looking forward to next winter already.

The way that I do it.

Long ago a wise man once told me ‘It’s not what you do it’s the way that you do it’. Take from that what you will but I think I know what he was getting at which is why after the drunken phone calls, twitter harassment, leg humping and chasing the Editor-in-Chief of the above magazine through a field I’d be pretty surprised if they’d ever want to run a shot of me for the rest of my surfing days. Fair enough why would they.
So you could say I was shocked when I heard they wanted to run a shot of me in the above issue although at the same time extremely happy. But when I bought my copy, which you can too from any good news agent and realised I didn’t have just one but two double page shots and a couple of inserts I couldn’t quite believe it. They even describe me as their ‘favourite plumber’.
Might phone him up late on Saturday night, early Sunday morning and thank him personally or maybe just hump his leg again next time I see him, I know how much he’d appreciate it.

Ace Winston Cotton

I like a good coffee in the morning, trouble is in North Devon if you want a decent one before 9 or 10 you’ll be lucky because nowhere is usually open. The other day I walked into a cafe at 9.57am to get my morning latte and was told I would have to wait outside 3 minutes until they opened, obviously I asked if I could just get one 3 minutes early but was denied as they officially didn’t open till 10am. I didn’t wait.
So this is little Honey with her new brother Ace, bless them. I’m relieved he’s finally here because the same questions and baby spiel was tipping me over the edge. ‘Are you excited?’ ‘is Honey excited?’ ‘do you know what you’re having’? Boy or girl?’, ‘what would you prefer?’ and my favourite, the classic ‘not long now then!’
What can I say, childbirth: A truly amazing experience which can’t be described and no one would believe unless you’ve actually been there which brought tears to my eyes but I’m not one of these dads who’s deluded about his child as to be honest he looked a little bit like a blue E.T when he first came out. Surprisingly he isn’t ginger, but he does have massive red balls just like his dad. Welcome to the world Ace I’m sure you’ll love it.

Last month

South Of The Border, Volume 3. from Luke Pilbeam on Vimeo.

I could post the video of all the XXL nominations and bleat on about I’m not just in them for the biggest wave but I also towed Gmac into his nomination for ride of the year too and how great I must be but I’m a pretty modest guy and not one to blow my own trumpet. Instead check out the last clip we made of our winter in Ireland and the lead up to THAT Mullaghmore session.