Here is a record of today's post-surf conversation.
"Dad, you can't blame yourself for not getting out the back today."
"Yes, I can."
"But it was big and breaking on the rocks."
"It wasn't that big. I stupidly wasn't wearing a hood or any gloves and felt numb from the cold and gave up. I decided it was just too hideous and that I couldn't face it."
Harry infers, not unreasonably, that some degree of reason is present in this analysis, relatively reasonable as it is. So he asks (not without reason): "Then why are you in such a bad mood?"
"Because it was stupid to paddle out in the middle of January without a hood."
Inwardly, what I'm actually thinking is: I waited until 3.30pm to pick up Harry for a post-school surf, and blew it. By the time we got to the beach a very full tide was breaking on the rocks. Harry and his friend Mark took one look and, quite reasonably, didn't fancy it. Nor did I but some collective 'we must surf' demon possessed us and got into our wetsuits to paddle out. At the water's edge the boys thought better of it. I felt I ought to give it a go and, full of misgivings from recent flu, work stress and generally feeling out of sorts, started to paddle out. My head was screaming with pain after a couple of duck dives. It wasn't big and I could have got out the back, but I just felt horrendous and came in.
Harry pauses. "But you were surfing the other day without a hood."
"Be quiet."
Just then Ali from the Windswept Gallery in St Just comes over. "Good?" she asks.
"No, it was s***," is my uncharacteristically blunt reply. Ali asks how so, for unlike me she timed her arrival to perfection and scored good waves earlier in the afternoon.
"I wasn't wearing a hood, my head felt numb and I just went off the whole thing half way through paddling out. I got very cold and hated it, and came in."
Ali nods sympathetically, for she is A Good Person. Perhaps inwardly she is thinking: "Hmmm, I've seen Alex out in bigger than that, and without a hood too. I wonder what's up with him?" However, she is too nice to voice such thoughts. I promise to meet her tomorrow and vow to time my arrival at the beach correctly, whereupon we will enjoy that which is proving so elusive lately (for me, at least) - a good surf. Meanwhile, as Ali suggests that I take out any lingering frustration in the boxing gym, not elsewhere, Harry has been pondering the situation.
"Dad, Twat Caps (I'm not sure we should allow this term. Ed.) look so uncool. I don't think you should wear one. Especially not after that picture in Pit Pilot."
"I know, son," said I, but then, suddenly mindful of the deluge of letters from surf babes around the world who were lucky enough to see Greg 'It's a flattering shot, really Alex' Martin's recent picture of me in said mag, I made an announcement. "But It Is Time. Time for the Twat Cap."
And so it came to pass that I failed to hold out and surf through the winter without a Twat Cap (is this really what they're called? Ed). Tomorrow I will wear one loud, and I will wear it proud. It's simply too humiliating to start to paddle out and then turn back because of the cold and I cannot let it happen again.
But as for gloves - no. I will fight them on the beaches, I will fight them on the streets, I will fight them in the fields and I will fight them in Chapel Idne if I have to but whatever happens, I will not, ever, wear gloves to go surfing.