Only today I read an article noting that Japan recycled 77% of its plastic waste in 2010, representing an increase of 38% in merely 14 years.  That’s about twice the current rate of the UK and way above the US figure of 20%.  New technologies coupled with legislative reform are altering behaviour and, in simple terms, saving the planet. 

Surfboard technology has also come a long way, but, by and large, our boards are made in a very un-environmentally friendly manner with copious amounts of fibreglass, foam and resin involved.  The last seven or so years have witnessed many shapers and companies beginning to explore ”greener” ways of developing boards.  Organisations such as the Eden Project pioneered such initiatives in the noughties and wooden or bamboo based boards are now becoming increasingly available.

There is a truly beautiful article in the latest edition of Surfer’s Path (Issue 88 Jan/Feb 2012) following Cornish surfboard builder, James Otter, sourcing a local Western Red Cedar and seeing if an entire surfboard could be crafted from a single tree.  The skill and craftmanship involved resulted in a board that is, perhaps, every bit as much a piece of art as it is a lovingly honed surfboard.  Because the entire project was being photographed and storyboarded, they actually decided to replace the holes in the ribs of the board with letters.  In so doing, a breath-taking poem is at the core of its being – something lovingly instilled into its fibre that would not be seen by the outside world.  I’d urge you to get the magazine and see the photos and read the account of this inspirational project.

I got to thinking….how often I judge on the outward appearance rather than what is on the inside.  Actually, it is the latter that really provides substance and character.  When I stop, even for a few seconds, to marvel at how amazingly the human body functions, I am left in awe.  Add to that personality, reason, free-choice and the ability to relate and I am left with a faith rekindled that each one of us is fearfully and wonderfully made.  I love the idea that someone or something so much bigger than us – God, if you like – could have loved us enough to think about how we would function, to breathe life into us in however you may understand that happening and to pour a poem or love-song into our very DNA.  I can’t really get my head around the enormity of this poorly articulated, half-formed, thought or understand how that could come to be, but, sometimes the questions are enough…

Surfing in January?  Too right!  The coldest part is actually stripping off the toastie wetsuit in the car-park after the session.  In direct contrast to Bruce Brown’s 1966 film “Endless Summer” which followed Mike Hynson and Robert August’s epic trip chasing swell around the globe, here’s the first installment of “The Endless Winter” – a quintessentially British surf movie and it ought to get you in the mood.  Enjoy!

There are few places I’d rather have been than stretching the legs and clearing my head out on the beach on New Years’ Day.  Whilst the last few days have been crammed full of great times spent with friends and family, I was suffering a sense of being somewhat cooped up, with a natural tendency towards grazing on a wide array of food. 

Today I traded the comfort and coziness of wood-burning stoves and hot air blowers in car journeys for the fresh coastal breeze that heralded in 2012 and awoke my senses from their slumber.  Old friendships were re-kindled and new ones invested in over a walk, shared flasks of soup, tea, hot-chocolate and tins full of tray-bakes, brownies and flap-jacks. 

Sometimes I just need the miles of sand, acres of sky and the vastness of the sea to re-calibrate and to re-orientate.  In the simple act of inhaling the fresh sea air until my lungs feel at full-capacity and I realise afresh how that renders me fully alive in this very moment.  To acknowledge that there is a heart full of thankfulness within me and to recognise that there is also a sadness for the things and people who were lost somewhere along the way last year.  To cast out to sea the regrets, short-comings and disappointments and to wonder what lies beyond the horizon.

Traditionally we spend these few days wishing one another a ”Happy New Year”.  Clearly that is my desire for us all, however, maybe, I’d  rather wish you a breath of fresh air for 2012?  To dare to dream that new life would be breathed into the old, that everything stagnant and overly-familiar or routine would burst into new growth and vibrancy.  Sometimes, it’s in those very moments where everything falls apart and our own plans and dreams are dashed on the rocks that we realise where our props have been and we gain a new perspective and determination to face the future.  Whilst none of us would wish: job uncertainty; relationship difficulties; financial struggles; health concerns; or anything similar upon anyone – these are realities that some of us will face in 2012.  It has been my experience that life defining moments can be forged out of both the high and low water marks.  I am increasingly convinced that we need friendships, community and an anchor for the storms of life and, equally, we want those things and those people around us to share in the celebration for the high points.   

So, may the cobwebs be blown away, may your embers be stoked and would you and I walk into this new year with fresh courage, hope and belief that life is there for the living, we can make a difference and we each have a role to play. 

2012? – Bring it on!    

I often feel I just want to carve out a little more time to mull around the German Market, ferris wheel and traders’ stalls that take up a short residency at the East end of Princes Street this time of year.  To deeply inhale the scents of roast chestnuts, gluhwein, candy floss and orange peel whilst exhaling steam from my nostrils against the crisp night air.  Yet, every year without fail the weeks that comprise December seem to speed past quicker than any of the other forty eight. 

After the frenetic activity in the run up to Christmas, New Year always seems to roll out in slow motion – full of the spliced film stills of the hopes and fears of the year ahead and all that could or may come to pass… 

So this year, you’re invited to come and join us on the beach on New Year’s Day.  To stretch the legs, clear your head, dream some dreams.  To watch last year’s regrets get swept out to sea and buried in the depths.  To keenly await in expectation for the fresh blessings that lie just over the horizon…

Where?: Shore Road Carpark, BelhavenBay, Dunbar.

 When?:  Sunday 1st January 2012 – 2pm till around 4pm.

 What will be on offer?: 

• Time and space to enjoy the elements, gather your thoughts and embrace a new year with some like minded souls.
• The Surfers Against Sewage gazebo with free posters, stickers and literature.
• Is it too much to ask for some fresh air, smiles, laughs, a wee crowd and a great afternoon?
• Who knows…your first surf of 2012?

 What to bring?:

• Yourselves.
• Your friends.
• Warm clothes.
• Some flasks and a picnic or disposable bbq.
• Your board and wetsuit??? 

 Directions:  

• Take the A720EdinburghCityBypass. 
• At the Old Craighall Junction, take the third exit and follow the signs for A1/Berwick Upon Tweed. 
• Stay on A1 for over20 milesuntil you come to a large roundabout where you take the first exit signposted A199/East Linton/Dunbar. 
• At next roundabout take the 3^rd exit to the A1087 signposted forDunbar. 
• Follow the road through West Barns. 
• Go past the Belhaven Bay CaravanPark on the left had side.
• Take the first left which is a sharp turn onto a narrow road called Shore Road. 
• Follow Shore Road along and you’ll see a large grassed carpark on the left hand side. 
• Look out for the Surfers Against Sewage gazebo.

It’s funny to think that I came to surfing as something to feed my stoke in the months between snowboard-seasons.  That was before I knew of golden summer peelers, September sessions and winter swells.  I discovered surfing at a season of change in my own life.  Fatherhood was impending and, whilst I had some grasp of the notion that “life would never be the same again”, I was determined to embrace that as something positive and to not become a living cliché of “game over”.  As someone who became exposed to skating and bmx in my school days, there is something non-conformist or counter-cultural in my DNA.  I have sought to think for myself, stay true to my beliefs as best I can and to try and avoid simply being moulded by the world around me.    

The truth is that life was often great before we had kids.  That’s not to say, we didn’t face our set-backs, disappointments or challenges.  When our daughter arrived, however, it was as if the three dimensional life we had sought to live to the full just took on a whole new dimension that was shot through with bright new colour and brilliance.  Whilst my surfing continued in regularity for the first six months of fatherhood, the frequency with which I made it to the beach naturally waned as I tried to juggle the demands of work:life balance. 

There were wet Saturday afternoons when my caffeine deficient mind gloomily observed the invisible think bubbles limply hovering above the heads of other Dads.  They also seemed to be secretly wondering how on earth they had ended up in an icky soft-play facility whilst the things they loved and missed about pre-parental life where happening somewhere altogether different.  Such thoughts were internalised and counter-balanced with the guilt of even thinking such a thing, whilst also recognising the gift of life bursting with enthusiasm, wonder and seemingly endless possibilities that had somehow been entrusted to us.

As a result, in the following few years, each time I read the charts half-correctly, strapped the boards to the car and headed for the coast with the tunage firing, the anticipation was turned up and the experience heightened, because it was no longer taken for granted.  My surfing may not have improved markedly, but I was out in the water with a heart bursting with thankfulness and a smile that showed it.

Seven years on and our wee clan has grown in number and in years.  The geographically scattered surf community I belong to continues to expand as people journey through different seasons – physically and metaphorically.  There have been: winters of discontent; springs of new life, noise and colour; summers captured in sun-speckled snapshots of smiling faces and good times and; autumns of recognising that certain things have run their course, whilst anticipating the shoots and roots of new chapters, stories and adventures forming unseen.  Those times when surfing seemed like a distant memory were only for a season.  Clichéd as it may sound I wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

It reminds me of the ancient words of wisdom.  There is a time to plant and a time to reap.  A time to tear down and a time to build up.  A time to cry and a time to laugh.  A time to grieve and a time to dance.  A time to search and another to count your losses.  A time to keep and a time to let go.  A time to rip out and another to mend.  A time to shut up and another to speak up. 

The teenage version of me got the bug of board-riding through skating.  The adult version of me still loves to cruise around on my longboard skate rather than give into land-locked blues.  The teenage me wanted to be myself, to make a difference in some way, shape or form.  The adult me still strives for those things.  Life is short, the seasons are changing. 

The 17^th Century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote that, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God”.  The world is charged with beauty.  As for me and my household, we want to keep soul-searching and to get out there and live life to the full.  As the old Vision skateboard slogan went, “Don’t die wondering…”

With Magic Seaweed claiming that there was “no incoming swell” the other weekend, we ended up ambling through the countryside on a Sunday afternoon as the kids slept, cosy, in the back of the car.  The fields were white into harvest and the hills had a purple hue.  The sky was clear and even the birds seemed to be being whipped along as gusts made sheets of leaves dance across the road with the scratching sound of dried parchment as they ran in flash-mobs for the safety of the verge rather than the oncoming danger of the car. 

My mind turned to the simple pleasure I find in wrapping a soft scarf around my neck and fidgeting with the worn linings of my jacket pockets which are now bereft of purpose.

Much as I love urban life and all its contrasting chaos and rhythm, I need time and space to let my senses be restored.  To breathe in deep.  To stoke the embers.

Three weeks on and the evenings are beginning to get darker.  The bike ride home tonight involved a rainy headwind which resulted  in the first “head freeze” of the season.  On entering the inviting glow of our porch - my glasses were steamed up and covered in rain drops, my ears were numb and there was the palpable sensation of blood pumping around my body.  We can be a nation of moaners and, despite a house that had been turned upside down by two children who had been cooped up on the first day of the October break, I felt lucky just to be alive in that moment.

Sometimes, I just need those things in order to strip away the layers that so easily separate or insulate me from my surroundings or from the world outside my door and just outside of my conscious life at times. 

Someone sent me a link to this music video on Facebook this morning.  They knew I’d like it.  I hope that you do too.  Get out there with the people who are important to you, engage and enjoy.

As a teenage surfer, Bethany Hamilton sprung to fame for reasons that no-one would wish upon anybody else - losing her arm in a horrific shark attack.  As you can see from the little clip below, to watch her surfing now is an amazing sight to behold. 

It sounds so trite to say, but, life doesn’t always play out the way we plan it.  The way we interact and react has the capacity to change everything.  The inspiration that someone like Bethany is and the legacy she will leave behind is such a powerful and hopeful testimony to determination, belief and faith in the face of devastation. 

I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the “Soul Surfer” movie which tells her life story thus far.  It’s on general release at over 100 cinemas across the UK from Friday 23rd September.  In the meantime, you can whet your appetite by watching the official trailer for the film by clicking here.

Finally, a full list of the various cinemas showing the film can be accessed by clicking here.

By the time I read “Our Common Future” at University in conjunction with the first ever Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, the scales were tipping.  By 2011, a day doesn’t pass where the topic doesn’t gain column space with a range of political parties or corporations trying to promote their own environmental plaudits or every-day people grappling with the impacts in some small or large way.  Even a cursory look at the surf industry demonstrates a range of pioneers investigating means of producing boards, wetsuits, leashes, wax and clothing ranges that have less of an impact upon the environment we enjoy so readily.

Whilst a number of individuals, organisations or events have been change agents in awakening many to the need to face up to an inconvenient truth and to consider how to modify our behaviour -  the danger is that lethargy or apathy creep in.  No-one likes to be preached at, told they need to change, made to feel inferior or overwhelmed and unable to really turn things around.  Such notions are why I think so many people get defensive or dis-interested. 

It’s like that old saying, “Never talk about religion or politics”.  The thing is, I find religion and politics can be stuffy and full of cumbersome structure, man-made heirarchy and focused upon issues which are far removed from the concerns or passions of most people.  Conversely, when you strip away a few layers, the actual things at the core of religion and politics are all about: belief systems; world-views; conviction and; the working out of and the out-workings of those elements.  Those are often the very things which, in turn, influence our actions. 

So whilst we can focus on renewables, maybe it’s time to renew our minds?  Maybe that act would change more than just our own outlook.  Maybe we would dare to believe in hope and gather enough courage to live by our convictions – to put belief or faith into action.  Maybe we would live as people who can still make a difference…

Surfers Against Sewage have just released the “Sustainable Surfing Guide”.  There is loads of useful info here that all of us would do well to make ourselves aware of and things that each of us can put into action whether we’re into surfing or not.

Please have a wee look here

They say that a picture speaks a thousand words. 

In some ways there is so little going on in this shot and, yet, for anyone who has sat out there floating on a surfboard under acres of sky, you know that there is also so much happening – senses revived, emotions ignited, thankfulness over-flowing, love rekindled…

Thank you Richard at Nineplus for letting me glimpse into the soul of surfing…