Rain Rain Go Away

You may have noticed it has rained a lot over the last few months. We certainly have. We booked in for our roof to be repaired in December, scaffolding went up in January, it hasn’t stopped raining since and work hasn’t been able to start. One bedroom is now resembling a swamp. Facing up to the problem headfirst and with much strength I have shut the door (and will open it again when it stops dripping in there).

One effect of the frankly bloody awful weather is that Archie and I have been surfing a grand total of twice in 2014. We usually surf pretty much year round, but it’s been so wet and the waves have been too big, even for Archie. The water quality can be pretty poor when it rains so much as well and I wasn’t all that keen to trade a surf for a stomach bug.

So our first trip back into the water was with some trepidation. It was a gorgeous day. The water was freezing, but the sun was shining and there was a decent swell. The beach was busy and (luckily as it happens) pretty crowded. Archie had a great lesson with Harry H and I was delighted to be able to catch some waves even while wearing boots (usually I just catapult off the board if I surf in boots).

After our lesson the beautiful day quickly had a shadow cast over it when Harry H spotted someone unresponsive in the water. He was helped to pull him out of the water, and together with another Discovery surf coach, Harry B, started CPR. Because the beach was busy some doctors passing by were rounded up to help, the Bigbury defribrillator was fetched and the air ambulance called. Archie paid no attention to a helicopter landing on the beach, focussed as he was on his post surf sausage sandwich. I felt this was preferable to the people taking photographs of the scene before them (why oh why would you do that?). And it is – thank goodness – a story with a happy ending – a few days later we heard the man was expected to make a full recovery.

We left before the air ambulance – (and passed the land ambulance taking the wrong turning – we did redirect it – although it reminded me of the need for an air ambulance in a rural county and I went home and made a donation to the air ambulance service) and later I looked on Twitter for reassurance that the man had pulled through.  I didn’t find any reassurance there, but I did find a photograph of Archie and Harry H. Taken by a random beach goer who had obviously spotted the absolute joy Archie gets from surfing. After such an emotional day (it really was), I must admit I had a little something in my eye.