Pumping at La Santa

Bit more top to bottom than Polzeath! Actually, I think this is the heaviest wave I've ever seen! Just pumping - no-one out!

Staying at Club La Santa, which is in a world of it's own. A world of Lycra in fact! Everyone is either running or cycling or swimming - it's incessant! Today we've been cycling, windsurfing, swimming, rowing, canoeing, footballing.. and that's day one! I need my bed now!

Surf report for today

Only a few in the line-up - 3ft, fresh south-easterly. Looks like loads of fun.

One of the first Foamie Fests - but not the first. Never forget that one as the rain never stopped! Here's some of the local crew about to head down for their heat!

From the left Janey, Bully and Smithy

This must have been taken during our first week on Polzeath in 1995. As Janey said, "Wow, looks like we were really organised!" Doesn't always feel like that now.

Yes, still ploughing through loads of photos for the book. Think we might make some headway on it on hols. La Santa here we come! One more sleep.

Packing!

And so to the surfboard pack! Why do I feel that I should take extra care bubble wrapping the boards for a Ryan Air short haul flight as opposed to a Singapore airlines long haul? Haven't flown with RA before - seems good value on the face of it, until the extras are factored in. For example, if you want to sit anywhere near your own kids! When they were younger, I wouldn't have cared - "dude you can put them where you like as long as they're not near me." Flying with toddlers - I'd struggle to find a positive, not a joy for me. But now they're older, the in-flight entertainment keeps them happy for a while.

The weekend? Urm, footie followed by footie. I got quite involved in Billy's under 12 game. "Come on Ref!" I screamed as he let another foul pass by. He shouted something back.

Back in the clubhouse, the ref came up for 'a chat'. "I was playing advantage. Your team had the ball." he stated. "That wasn't my point! That was the number 6's third bad challenge within as many minutes. He'd kicked the ball off and pulled a shirt. He was a thug and I'm not sure why you didn't have a chat with him. These kids need to learn." I said calmly.

"Number six? That's my lad."

"Great player that number six. Great player." I went off to get a cheese burger.

Tough tough game. The boys won 3 - 1 and lead the Cornwall Premiership. It's a very hard and close league - there's two teams with games in hand who could draw level. It's going to go to the wire.

isurf

Well it's all going on back here - (all regular updates on Twitter http://twitter.com/petecraske). First off, we have a new website domain - www.isurf.co.uk - if you go to the site you'll see that it links straight to the surf school. This is temporary as the new site gets built. No clues on what's going to be on it - we're keeping this one close to our chests. But it's a big development.

Surf's been pumping last couple of days. Trailer's off the beach as the water is just about reaching the road. I cycled out to Port Quin on the coast path this morning, took a few photos. Got a puncture and walked the four miles back! Of course I know a lot of people around here so there was plenty of waving as the cars drove by. Which was nice, but what I really wanted was a lift!

Looking Back

I know... supposed to look forwards and all that! Thing is, I really like looking back.. as much as I like looking forward. Is that a bad thing? I love retracing the journey. We went up to Bristol on the weekend for Jane's Nan's memorial service, and on the side table was a photo album. And in the album were a load of photos of when Edna had come over from Brisbane, back in 1996! So we saw all these photos of her time in Polzeath, one year after we started. I was stoked to see them and I'm going to get some copies soon.

Here a few early day shots with Janey teaching - used to be just the two of us. It's the corner stone of everything we do. Grassroots that's us!

New Domain Name

Just bought a new domain name for a little project we're working. Quite excited because it's such an obvious one I didn't think it would be available. More news to come - can't give away too much.

What do you think?

We're working on a few new logos for this year - what do you think? Would appreciate any feedback.

Andy Gray and Richard Keys.

Perhaps the biggest scandal of this whole Andy Gray situation, is that he was paid £1.7m! Really? 1.7? Seems an awful lot to me. We've had a good chat about it all in our household, I'm sure many have. Thing is, when we go to watch Plymouth Argyle play, which is quite regularly (Come on you Greens!) - 30% of the crowd are women. It's got to be up around that figure. Times have changed and that's a good thing.

I'm a big fan of the saying "that a mistake is only a mistake if you do it twice." So I think a good heart to heart from management, a good deal of humble pie with egg on face - but then let's get back to work. I think we're learning daily how to manage this dynamic age of communication and media - which can be both constructive and destructive.

I haven't asked Janey her opinion on this yet. I'll catch her once she's finished chopping the wood. Joke, that's just a little joke.

Quiet

It's very quiet today - on the surf front, in the office - just one of those 'quiet' days. Suits me fine - going off to Lanzarote in a couple of weeks. Club La Santa.. no idea what to expect. lots of surfing and cycling, looking forward to it.

We've made contact through the wonders of Skype with my sis and her family who've just moved out to Hong Kong. Did you know it costs £20 over there for a choock (chicken)! That's not a lot of chicken to the lb. Talking of chickens, Janey wants some. All the rage it seems - have to wait 'til we get back from hols before we get some in.

Here I am with the Billyman. We went down to Falmouth yesterday following his football - great down there. We seem to do a lot of travelling around the county. Walked from Swanpool to Falmouth Beach, found a massive Starfish!