Surf School of Life

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Back in the endless summer of my youth, I took up the offer of being taught to surf by a friend who was working as a lifeguard at Southerndown Beach. The lessons, or rather, the lesson, went something like this: “this is the surf board, there’s the sea, and try not to hit any bathers.” And after a few hours, I was standing proud, threading a path through any swimmers not wise enough to get out of my way.

It’s very different now. We gave each other surfing lessons for Christmas and I’m writing this with what might be a cracked rib. Certainly feels as though it could be. I have no idea how it happened, at some stage in the first lesson. No further damage was done in the second lesson. Sara has lost the skin from one knee and the ability to move her arms. Sister-in-law-to-be Sian has retired after doing a fair impression of Robinson Crusoe being washed ashore clinging to a piece of driftwood after days at sea. Brother-in-law-to-be Colin seems remarkably perky and unscathed, apart from also complaining about sore ribs.

Our instructress, Erica, seemed rather surprised when we turned up for the second lesson. I don’t think she has to deal with many people of our age. She appears to have the flexibility of a brand-new elastic band, which makes manoeuvres like the “Five Toes” look very easy, especially when she’s showing you on the beach. But my right foot has never seen the need to get very close to my groin before and shows no sign of wanting to do so now. Also, I have trouble with the lunge for the vertical that follows the “Five Toes” so, between applying ice packs to my ribs, I have been lunging in the lounge. I may be getting the hang of it, at least indoors, but you‘ve got to start somewhere. Both Colin and I have, however, stood up briefly. On a wave.

Somehow, it all seemed so easy at Southerndown and I remember catching the waves and rising to my feet with one single, gazelle-like movement. I can’t think what’s changed. Perhaps it will come to me when we have our next lesson tomorrow.

Crawling Along…..Still

There’s more to do than I thought Crawling Along. It turns out Cheryl wasn’t being entirely honest when she said my right arm and my breathing were OK. She was being kind. My right arm doesn’t leave or enter the water properly - you’re right, that doesn’t leave much - and when I try to breathe on my left side, my mouth is still under the water. Yes, this makes it difficult.

So my current “drill” involves trundling along with my flippers on, one arm held straight out in front, concentrating on making the correct movements with the other arm. And I have to find a position for my head, which hopefully will not be resting on the bottom of the pool, which seemed likely on my first attempt when my inability to think about more than one thing at a time and to coordinate various body parts came to the fore.

And I have to develop “long arms”, a phrase I’ve heard drifting out of the toddlers’ learning pool. My legs have been left to fend for themselves for a bit and we’re concentrating on the bow, rather than the stern. This summer’s Jetty Swim might be a bit ambitious, I feel. However, I am now inspired by the achievement of our friend, Amanda, also from Wales, who has just qualified as a lifeguard in Sydney, hard enough in itself, but she’s also the mother of three young boys. So - when do I breathe, exactly?

Quick Sale

We think we may have bought a house. I say “may” only because I don’t want to tempt fate, but it does seem as though we’re going to acquire a detached bungalow one street back from the beach in a village about twenty minutes drive north from Coffs. You can see it here Ti-Tree Road, at least until the agents change their site.

Compared to buying or selling in the UK, it’s happened with frightening speed, less than two weeks elapsing between agreeing a price, organising searches and inspections, exchanging contracts and including a five-day cooling-off period - we’re in the cooling-off period at present. Taking Christmas into account, the completion and moving date is January 31. Considering that it took more than two months to sort out the deal on our flat in Penarth, even though we weren’t buying anywhere else and our buyers weren’t selling anything, and for most of that time we had nothing resembling a completion date and languished in a legal and financial limbo, it seems quite remarkable.

It’s strange because the elements of both systems are much the same, the only difference being that everyone here - banks, solicitors, surveyors - seems to agree that it can be done, and done quickly. We did have to put down a 10pc deposit on exchange of contracts, which does concentrate the mind, and gives the seller some security. The deposit is returnable if you pull out with good cause in the cooling off period, otherwise it stays in trust until completion. You could still get gazzumped in the cooling-off period but, in theory, everyone knows where they stand.

There’s little in Sandy Beach itself, apart from a hairdressers and a shop selling papers, milk, canned goods and fishing tackle and bait. And the beach, of course. It looks and feels like a seaside community. Woolgoolga, just up the highway, or at the end of the next beach, depending how you look at it, has a fine Sikh temple and shops and restaurants. Otherwise, one scoots down the highway to Coffs. In eighteen months, there will be another option - a cycle-way along the coast which will make a fine ride.

Fingers crossed……

Crawling Along

I've written before about the humiliation that awaited me on last summer's visits to the swimming pool Sink or Swim. Well, nothing's changed. But I've decided that I can no longer be the only one doing a leisurely breast-stroke while everyone else is speeding up and down doing the crawl, or freestyle, as it's known here. Whenever I try it, I expend a lot of energy and get precisely nowhere, except nearer a watery grave.

So Cheryl, an instructress who also runs the pool, kindly agreed to sort me out. "Sounds like you've got heavy legs," was her initial verdict when I explained my problem, and my tendency to lie in the water at 45degrees. In fact, it's worse than that. A full inspection this morning revealed that my right arm and my breathing were fine but my left arm, upper body, legs and feet were not. I could see the poor woman wondering where to start.

She opted for the left arm, and her advice produced an almost immediate improvement. For the more serious problem of my heavy legs (her initial diagnosis was confirmed) I need soft flippers, apparently, and Cheryl will give me a set of drills to perform. So after some serious practice of my new left arm movement (carefully not forgetting what I was doing right with the other arm and my lungs), I tottered off to near-by Paul's Warehouse for said flippers. I'm determined. If I can crack this, maybe I'll even try the annual Jetty Swim.

Christmas Confusion, Dingo Drollery

Driving back home the other day in blazing sunshine, with temperatures in the high twenties, we came across a selection of floats, like a small carnival. Standing beside them in the heat were hordes of small children, all sweating in red tunics and hats, and amid them, Santa Claus, in full regalia, including whiskers.

This was the starting point for Santa's parade to the nearby shopping plaza and to anyone used to celebrating - if that's the word - Christmas in conditions of stygian gloom and possibly torrential rain, it was bizarre sight. Since then, the temperature has climbed to the mid-thirties on a couple of days, and Santa is well set up in his air-conditioned grotto, doing what Santas do the world over - patiently, or otherwise, having their photo taken with small children while being observed by a security camera to ensure propriety.

Most of the houses round here are decked out in flashing lights, stars, sleighs and reindeer, all looking bleached under the blazing sun, with the fizzing noise that cheap electrics make being drowned out during our regular tropical downpours by the croaking of hundreds of frogs and the cries of enthusiastic cicadas.

There are no lights on our house but, like most people, we'll be having a barbecue on Christmas Day. Apart from this, I really can't accept that Christmas is coming at all. We seem to have no need of a mid-winter feast but no doubt we'll manage to force down a few fresh prawns and, because I thought everyone was joking when they said Christmas was coming, I'm committed to making a pudding.

In the midst of all this tradition and sentimentality, you'll be glad to hear that the Australian sense of humour remains as robust as ever. You'll remember the case of Lindy Chamberlain, whose baby daughter was apparently taken by dingos from a campsite at Uluru? Well, she still regularly makes the headlines here, and did so last week, because what exactly happened has never been fully established and speculation continues.

Outside almost every bookshop is a display of Larson desk calenders. The cover cartoon shows a nursery and in the front garden is a playpen full of toddlers. Nextdoor is a dingo farm, with a line of dingos, their noses pressed to the garden fence, looking keenly at the occupants of the playpen.