Ping Island Lightning Strike Rescue Op

Just to add to the intrigue; this post could have just as easily been entitled; "Things To Do In Wales ..With Neoprene", or indeed; "A Viking Farewell".

You see anything can happen when Richard The Monkey Boy and I get drinking. Singley, we're both quite tractable, and thoroughly encouragable as it is, let alone in each other's company, or under the influence. Or both. And so when Dan was up visiting Edinburgh a while back, and happened to mention that it was Ellie's birthday in a couple of weeks time, and that she was planning on celebrating with a weekend of surfing in Wales - it was fairly inevitable that we would invite ourselves along for the trip. The 1260 mile trip. The 1260 mile trip for a whole two nights of camping. Completely inevitable in fact.

However, it all made even more perfect sense when we factored in that Eric, our resident viking, was due to sail back to his homeland to continue his plundering ways, and that the weekend in question was to be his last here with us. So that was that, we were sold: one last random jolly for Team Zissou together again (...until next time).

After ruling out the ridiculous expense of rail travel *resists temptation to rant about the mess that the privatisation of British Rail has left us in, and merely makes do with making angry growly noises not disimilar to those of an unamused baby panda* ..and flights were a bit of a logistical nightmare for then getting to Deepest Darkest Wales at odd hours of the day or night without a car. And so piling in to Richard's spacious Toyota Yaris for the 10 hour drive was the obvious solution. Obviously.

Oh and wouldn't you just know it would be one of the hottest, sunniest days on record so far this year. Perfect weather for long car journeys. And being the shortest of the three of us, guess who got to be in the back seat the whole way... Actually, it was quite a fun road trip in the end, mostly for the hilarity of seeing the bemused expression on Richard's face on encountering real motorways, with like, 3 whole lanes on each side and everything! Not like these silly little pot-hole infested ones we have up here... with the donkey carts and dubious delineation of road boundaries. Even the descent into something akin to sibling-esque squabbling was high comedy value... arguments over who's turn it was to be in charge of the iPod, a generally unenthused response to Richard's suggestions of "I spy", throwing of peanut M&Ms, and Richard refusing to stop the car for a toilet break until HE needed one.

Long car journeys... cranky kids... kiiiinda makes you wonder howcome your own parents didn't just totally abandon you in some lonely, remote French petrol station years ago...

We arrived in the dark at about 10pm to find that we were the first ones there. Ali and Dan were shortly behind us, after driving over from Bristol, as were Ellie and a couple of her mates. By the time they arrived though, we were already on the wine and able to watch with amusement as they put up their tents whilst hearing choice comments such as "yes.. its umm, missing a pole actually, I'm sure it'll be fine though...", and then thought to be slightly more helpful and cooked burgers for everyone.

What with the darkness, we had to wait til morning to see the sea, but I think we were all a little taken aback with just how stunning it was. The beach, backed by impressive cliffs, seemed to go on forever, with clean, pale, fine sand. And the surf was most definitely up. Apparently. To me the waves looked just a liiiiittle bit big and scary to be honest. Hmm.

So we hired our boards and wetsuits and hiked off towards the water before squeezing in to them, whilst trying not to dwell too much on the thought that they were indeed hired wetsuits, and have therefore had countless other bodies squeezed into them. Because we all know what the best way to warm up a wet suit is. Especially when submersed in freezing cold water. Nice.

Tick followed tock, followed tick, followed tock...

Annnnd obviously some people took it seriously and looked more the part than others...

Ali geared up in full Lightning Strike regalia

You'll notice how there is a complete lack of ANY photographic evidence of me in a wetsuit. Not by accident. It actually took me a while to psyche myself up to go in to the water (this was after prolonged psyching myself up to get in to the wetsuit and avoid being in camera range). This was part due to my having nearly drowned once while learning to scuba dive, the fear of which I've not yet gotten over. And partly because I am so very irrationally scared of sharks (and salt water crocs. Go figure) that I even manage to freak out and have complete hissy fit panic attacks about them in quiet swimming pools *ahem* I'm an intrepid zoologist right, but only in the terrestrial sense. I lay no claims what-so-ever to any sort of intrepidity when it comes to marine biology.

Anyway, once I got over the horror of the potentially shark infested Welsh coast, and the temperature of the water, I thoroughly enjoyed myself! Go me and my not drowning too! Woo! Needless to say I am now a huge fan of both surfing, and perhaps more so of body boarding. Less so of skim boarding, as I seem to have spent most of my time flying nose first into the sand when trying that. But there's only so much fun one can take with a board and some neoprene in one day. But yes, generally jumping and splashing around in the surf and the waves IS as much fun as its looks on the tv ...right before the shark attacks.

I have to say though that splashing around in the surf wasn't the highlight of the weekend, that was still to come. Richard, in his admirably ambitious cooking plans, decided that your regular BBQ fare wasn't enough for us. No. He insisted on buying a whole leg of lamb (as I stood n the supermarket with a look of complete perplexion as my gaze flitted between the huge joint of meat in his hands, and the tiny disposable BBQ foil tray I held in mine) . Got to give credit to that boy though - he knows what he's doing when it comes to meat! After the surfing, we all headed to a spot on the beach where The Boys did their manly dues and went about constructing a pit BBQ by burying white hot firey heated rocks and ashes in the sand. Raarrrrr!The levels of testosterone were quite something. Me and my girly sensibilities were positively overcome and swoony in their presence *sniggers*

Ah. Hairy, smelly, hippy boys. God love 'em.

But as I said, credit where its due: I have not ever tasted lamb quite so juicy and tender as that. Its the perfect way to slow cook a joint if you happen to have about 3 hours of time to spare ..and a deserted beach at your disposal.

Meeeeeeeeeaaaaat!

And naturally we got drunk. Laughed so much it hurt yadda yadda yadda fun fun fun play play play....

Team Zissou

Short of setting sail to a burning a long boat though, I'm not quite sure what could have been a better send off for our Eric. He came to work with me for 3 months, and yet it was a pleasure to have him for 6. And the Lodge just hasn't been the same without him. There's no-one to torment the dog for a start. And who's going to be my personal transportation aide from now on huh?? Did you think of that Eric?? Huh?! Did you???

We'll all hopefully get back together as Team Zissou in August when Eric is back visiting Edinburgh. There's some vague mention of a coast-to-coast mountain bike ride. We'll see. It may depend on whether Richard offers to do the en route catering and meat provisioning or not. In the meantime though - just a big THANK YOU for all your help Eric. Not to mention thanks for the knife - which I'm still more excited about just sitting and stroking rather than actually cutting stuff... except my own fingers of course. Ooooohh.. Preeeeeettty knife *rocks back and forth in chair stroking hunting knife*

You are a star. A slightly odd one. But a star none-the-less xxx