2/5/2011
1700 (local time)
Ok, so ive been getting hassled by all of my fans which really is only about half a dozen... (At least my folks like it) about when are you going to be doing the next update on Figjam’s Adventures, to what I replied ‘ahh yeah, ill probably do it tomorrow or something” well that day is today. So I am currently writing this in the furthest south west point in England, which is Sennen in Cornwall.
Why am I here, well myself and Emma, wanted to head down to Cornwall to get away from London, and Hugo, one of the blokes from my latest season in Austria (who I actually liked) has a house down there and he was heading down at the same time, so we got people together and 5 of us headed down in 2 cars to just chill out. I had a grand plan of camping down here, so I borrowed a tent off Lizzie, and I also had another great idea that I was going to go windsurfing... the problem was, getting my gear down to Cornwall.
I had this brilliant idea in my mind that I would strap it to Emma’s roof... What I didn’t realise was that Emma’s car is a Holden(Vauxell) Barina(Corsa) 2 Door... there was no way the gear was going to go on her roof, so I put as much of it inside her car as I could, which ended up being 2 sails, a Mast a Boom and all the bits and pieces that would go with that... so pretty much everything EXCEPT A BOARD!
So far the weekend has been Steve Flack asking every second person ‘if they know someone that windsurfs so I can get out on the water’... Unfortunately no one really windsurfs down here, so instead myself Hugo, Henry (Hugo’s Brother), Simon have been out surfing every single day for the past 3 days straight. Yeah, big deal I hear you saying... well I dare you to all go surfing in the Atlantic Ocean in potentially the coldest bit of the year. Yes, I did have a wetsuit that the lovely John Palmer lent me(legend, thanks mate), but I’m not going to lie, the suit had seen better days... it was a 5.4.3mm suit, but the thing had more holes than my plan to strap a windsurf board to a 2 seater!
Myself and Simon (Hugo and Henry’s mate) are relativity new to surfing, so we borrow 2 foam boards aka Esky Lids, and have been sending it! Its been really good fun, and we have been learning loads! Even Emma gave it a go, in a 3.2mm suit, froze to death but did bloody well, for someone that had never put a wetsuit on...
So, we haven’t just been surfing, but we also went down to the driving range the other day to smack 100 balls, I got some video footage of it, so ill put it up a bit later on.
You may want to know how Austria went... Well I had an absolute ball! I learnt how to Ski, Snowboard, put snow chains on I even went Cross Country Skiing in which I got lost... If anyone wants to go cross country skiing, I would advise them against it! Honestly, that sport was fun for about 8 kilometres, but if you get lost, and end up doing something like 30km, it gets very old and boring, not to mention sore!
The season in general was good fun, especially for the February Half Term, after that our Resort Manager Gemma left, to go and find happiness in the sun of Cyprus, so we got another Resort Manager in called Russel (in a bush). It was quite obvious to all the staff, that myself and Russ didn’t quite see eye to eye in ‘literally’ any aspect of the job. Which didn’t really end well for me... but I battled through the rest of the season getting through by the skin of my teeth! I honestly believe that even the Director of the whole company didn’t want a bar of me either, my reasoning for this is that during the end of season de-brief I stated a few valid points but pretty much just got blown off... I was really happy to lay a few points, but after 15 minutes, I put my glasses on an fell asleep! Pointless meeting anyway... its a bloody season job, not rocket science!
Alright, enough about the serious stuff... on Tuesday nights we normally had a few beers and then went out afterward because Wednesday was our day off. Anyway, it was one of our last weeks, and Hugo and myself had maybe a bit too much to drink and it was snowing so we got very excited. Anyway, we had this great idea to throw snowballs at open windows, anyway this got to easy, so then we though it was an even better idea to throw snow balls at moving cars... I already know what your all thinking, but just keep it in your pants.
Anyway, this was great fun, until we threw it at one car, who then slammed on his breaks and then reversed back up and then tried explaining to us in very rubbish English ‘that he was an off-duty cop, and that he was going to arrest us’ with no sign of a badge, or gun for that matter. So Hugo and myself just blatently ripped into him telling him to ‘grow up, and pi$$ off home’ Anyway, so we walked off and went to the club, where it was a messy night, we got home at stupid time in the morning, and was woken up by a knock at our door... we opened the door to a man in a fluro ‘Polizia’ vest with not only a badge, but a gun and handcuffs... Anyway, so the game that Hugo and I played was to just play dumb, and have no idea what he was talking about... It was all sorted out and we ended up going skiing! Happy Days!
So enough about work and silly behaviour... Last weekend in England it was about 25 degrees, I was convinced by the main man, John Palmer to jump in Jamie Drummond’s car and head down to Hayling Island for a British Windsurfing event! Hayling Island is located south of London about 1.5 hours by car, and is only accessible by a bridge... aka Island!
No wind was forecasted for the event, but that didn’t stop at least 40+ car loads of people to head down to the event! It was fantastic to see all the boys I worked with at Club Vass when I was there in 2009! It was also great to see the amount of people that came down to a no wind event, it just made me wonder why Victoria doesn’t have the same amount of people involved in this wonderful sport!
Because there was no wind for the event, myself, Palmer and a bunch of the others sat around getting our tan on, and going stand up paddle boarding almost all day! It was fantastic and really cool to see all my old mates!
Its been great to hang out with these boys, as I have been feeling a little home sick over the past month, I think its just a matter of being away from all my family and friends for over a year...!
Alrighty, so I must be boring you all now, so ill leave you with my future travel plans.
So, Dahab doesn’t start until around 1st of July, so in the mean time, I want to travel around Europe whilst learning how to skateboard! So hopefully, Spain, France, Italy etc will get covered in a couple of months!
I’m planning on working out in Dahab until October – November, where then ill try and recruit some guys into coming to Brazil with me on a windsurfing trip, where I would love to travel around a bit of South America. After that, ill fly back to England and then start on my epic adventure back home... im still a bit unsure how I’m going to do it, but I want to travel throughout Europe like this ‘ \/\/\/\/\ ‘ until I hit Japan and come down through south east Asia and eventually make my way home... This is obviously my dream, but it all comes down to one thing at the end of the day, it starts with ‘m’ and ends in ‘oney’! Money!
Anyway, this has been dragging on for long enough, but to be honest, there was a lot to get through, so here are some photos... Enjoy!
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| London Town, with the the flags up for some guys that are getting married...? |
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| End of season party! with Cat Jackman! |
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| Jackman and the Flack! |
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| Emma, Creche Assistant 3, Hugo and some other bird? |
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| Hugo rocking in with the most epic Meveguissi! |
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| How friggin good do i look! |
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| Nat, The Big D, Emma and my lovely self, i dont get over my pretty face! |
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| Insbruck airport! |
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| The alps in Spring! |
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| Yetis with our snow train! |
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| Susi, one of the instructors that RIPS! |
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| Standard Emma posing! |
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| The crew! |
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| Check out that mountain range! |
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| The lot of us again! |
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| Chillin on the bridge! |
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| Epic mountain range! |
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| The lot of us! |
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| Great photo! |
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| Ok, now moving onto the Hayling Island windsurf event! BBQ Time! |
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| Adam the Stimulator Simms, with his article in Boards Mag! |
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| Muzza trying a drop in on a longboard! |
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| Beautiful weather in England! |
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| The guys! |
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| Medal of seaweed! |
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| Palmer rocking some epic stand up paddle surfing! |
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| Stand up Paddle surfing! |
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| My epic stand up paddle surfing technique! |
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| Funny, im the whitest bloke there... |
