Thanks Met Office

Looking forward to the impending heat wave? The Met Office have just declared that August will be unsettled, so we can assume that means we can now fire up the BBQ's!! 

Yesterday was a wet day! Took the boys to the RNAS Culdrose air day - rubbish! You'd think they'd be a plan B. But no we stood there for the best part of six hours in the pouring rain waiting to see some action. The best action was a police dog show that reminded me of a school drama lesson. "Okay, I want you to go off in groups of four and prepare a two minute routine that you'll then perform in front of the class." This invariably involved a lot of running around chasing baddies and firing pretend guns. But hand on - over the tannoy we've just been informed that a plane is 14 miles away, is travelling at 342 knots and that there's every chance that it'll be able to crack on with it's display. 9 miles and counting down - anyone guessed what it is? You feel the excitement build. And then there it was ... a Tornado. Just like a plane from Top Gun. It swooped in low and touched the runway .............. and then parked up. Oh .. that's disappointing then. And so it was that planes and helicopters sort of arrived and went - some you caught fleeting glimpses through the low cloud, others you just had to work out what they were by the sense of hearing. By 4pm the boys had had enough - they left with their grandma. Ten minutes later and the show began!! But it was all too late.

My blog has been bare for a few days. No reason - just been out and about doing stuff. Took the boys fishing on a boat trip out of Newquay. Sea sickness kicked in pretty early as did the rain. It was miserable. I thought it was a two hour trip and consoled myself with this thought until I was informed that it was actually a four hour trip - deep joy. I suffered from Biggus Vomitus Over-Sidious for the best part of the entire trip. The boys loved it!

On the beach the last two weeks in July have been a challenge. Which has come as somewhat of a surprise, particularly as up to then the season was looking so positive. Well down on numbers compared to even last year. But hey ho, it's tough for everyone out there, no reason why we should be any different. The surf shop has been the saving grace proving to be 50% up on original targets and that's going to make a big difference come the end of the year. I'm pretty sure the investments we've made in the beach house - ie shop and office, have come at the right time. And I'm also sure that Surf's Up! will change and evolve next year into a slightly different beast. Of course we could go out and chase more business, but that's never been the Surf's Up! way. I left a life of hard sell behind many years ago and that's not going to start again now we're a bit quieter than last year. Just got to tweak the business a bit. To be honest the margins at the surf school at so tight that the fact we're quieter is the catalyst for change that we need.