Of course, you mustn’t forget, tomorrow morning i leave for maastricht for a long weekend, for a very close examination by my doctor!!!

But i am glad to be leaving portugal this time. it has rained here every day since the 15th of this month which is now becoming a real pain in the arse. i can do my washing, i just can’t get the stuff dry, julia has the same problem too. this makes packing my bag for holland very easy, i have virtually no clothes left to take.

my washing line was completely detroyed in the winds of two nights ago, i will upload those photos very soon, along with the naked surfing pictures.

Of course, with all the rain, this means i havent been able to wash my car but who cares about that? at the moment, it is the cleanest it has been in ages because of all the rain.

so what did my long hot summer consist of?

well, i surfed a lot and enjoyed most of it too. my skills have improved since last year but now i have a two month void. i will return to portugal over the new year and spend 8 days surfing my ass off until i have to go back to work but all in all, i am happy with the progress i have made. still not achieved the elusive total cover up but it will come. i find myself taking waves later and steeper, stuff i just wouldn’t have tried a year ago. i am also finding wave selection easier now, knowing when to go for it and when to sit it out.

have been guilotined a couple of times, one of them very hard, took my breath away. i also took a leap of faith in tonel and came up for air laughing my tits off. the ocean can provide so much fun and amusement, but beware!

yesterday, a beginner at one of the local surf schools lost the tip of his finger. he was in at mareta (which i had decided was too heavy for me) his leash had wrapped around one of his fingers and tore it off at the first knuckle. if that wasnt bad enough, while he was in the hospital, the nurse was giving him an anasthetic and broke the needle off in his hand. i guess some days you should stay at home.

so beware – if you are one of the macho surf boys, you will pay a price.

also in th enews this week, one of the local fishermen fell off one of the cliffs into the ocean. if you have seen the cliffs here you will appreciate that he had no chance of survival. the cliffs range in height from 100 – 120 feet, and they are sheer!!

i hear the weather is much better in masstricht so be sure to drop by next week and take a look at all of the photos, there will be plenty to see , i promise. Dr Lineke will show me all of the best bits of holland i am sure.

I have done a little work on the house and will add photos next week too. progress has been slow but who is in a hurry ? not me !!!

so remember, as from tuesday next week, i will be on my spanish number. if you don’t have it, you can view my contact card details and grab it from there,

be good

let me put this into perspective for you, while most of you were sitting at home or at work with the heating on, mid october, i was surfing naked in the atlantic on a very small but just about useable swell.

and of course i have photos to prove my claim, they will be added during the coming week so please make sure you keep dropping by to have a look.

but in my defence i must say that the water was a little chilly – if you can see where i am going with this.

today i am taking Kelly and Amy for a surf session. of course it is their first and they will be complete grommets for sure but i will have my camera to hand to capture the action or lack of it.

when i asked him what he was doing with my land he explained………

i saw you marking it out and the old lady that lived there before told me i could have it or use it!

so clearly he knew it wasnt his land but he didnt want to get in a fight with me so i decided to be kind to him instead. so the land is mine, always was and always will be unless he cares to part with some dollars to pay for it. i got so much land i dont know what to do with it all. but still, what kind of drunk old fool takes your land, puts a small brick wall on it and tops it with soil – WHILE YOU ARE OUT OF THE COUNTRY???

then he tells me he was going to make a lawn on it!

anyway, the other night while i was driving home on the old road, the local sheperd was out with his sheep. As i approached i could see the sheep in my headlights so i dipped them and slowed down. the herd was completely covering the road. i didnt want to honk my horn and scare them so instead i switched the engine off and sat with just my side lights on as i was completely absorbed into the woolen cloud that covered the road. it was almost silent, apart from the hoofs on the road and the clanging of the bells around their necks. i sat and watched as the cloud engulfed my car and devoured it as though it wasnt even there. they chomped and stomped and clanged all around me until the moment when the shepherd called to his sheep      ( yes i know this sounds a bit biblical) and the all ran to him like obedient dogs. it really was a spectacular moment, a moment of peace, tranquility and of being close to nature watching next sundays lunch eat and roam free.

so changing the subject

predictive text.

been talking with the doctor quite a lot on text. there are some strange word combinations on there, for example

EAT and FAT have the same combination, as do
COCK and ANAL, and similarly
AWAKE and CYCLE.

the last one actually did catch me out when i was trying to wake up gentleman Jim at 6am one morning for a surf. my message read………….

Dude, are you cycle?

some how he knew what i meant but if you have any other T9 predictive text funnies, please let me know. i am sure everyone has made some mistakes somewhere and totally changed the meaning of the message that they intended to send.

so lets talk about the house now

been working hard this week re-plastering walls. i would like to say two things at this point….

1. it is bloody hard work mixing muck and spreading it on walls
2. to get a smooth finish is an absolute art form, its a damn good job i prefer the rustic, antique look

i got some more photos to add, will do as soon as possible

and then the other day, the same day that Luis returned, the digger man turned up again. the week before i had been to the builders merchants to see about a JCB again. the boss wasnt there and i forgot to go back later so, as the digger man was passing, he just popped in to see if i needed the digger still. Half an hour later, the garden had moved again. Nice people those  dudes at vila do bispo, very nice indeed.

so, i am almost at the end of my portugal stay and very nearly out of cash. mallorca beckons for the winter and i am expecting to work my cute ass off.

Kelly and Amy arrive tomorrow and guess which fool has to get up at 5.30 to go to the airport? yep, ME.
no doubt i will have tales of adventures to tell and photos to post so stay tuned.

so that leaves me with two more things to say

Max – where the hell are you ???
Jo Beach – glad you enjoy the page, keep watching

i arrived late in the afternoon on a very high tide, (3.8 metres) as the tide was dropping back. it wasnt working when i got there but i knew it was gonna go off at any moment. the morning session was similar but ended almost as if someone had flicked a light switch off.

i called rick and told him ‘get here quick, it is gonna happen’. with all the water in the bay, the session would last for less than an hour – you just had to be there.

rick arrived while i was still getting into my wetsuit and mooning to the rest of the carpark. we hit the water less than two minutes later.

it was one of those days, the waves were picking up on the first sand bank and dropping again over the channel before lifting again on the second bank. on a big board, i could catch the first rise and have enough speed to ride over the soft spot until they reformed again, and this i did for the best part of three quarters of an hour.

the rides were long and solid but this meant i had to paddle a hell of a long way out to do it all again. i even found myself laughing as i paddled out, laughing at the guys on the short boards as they tried in vain to catch a wave from the second bank. even if they did catch it, i would call them off as i ploughed through the swell from much further out on the first bank. the rules of surfing and priority are simple

1. furthest out (that’ll be me on my longboard)
2. nearest the curl
3. first to their feet
4. call for it good and loud

sometimes it’s good to ride a longboard – english gentlemen ride longboards – short boards are for pussys!!

after getting a bit too cocky for my own good and dropping down faces that were too big, i took a couple of knocks and decided enough was enough, i had just had a most excellent session.

as i got to the beach i looked back, as predicted , the waves had stopped, just like turning a light off

amazing