Kayaking!

Woke up a bit later than intended this morning, wanted to head off around 10am to get a good few hours of Kayaking, but didn’t leave Rich & Rach’s until 9.45. Typical of Nathan & I to be running late, holiday mode made it hard to be punctual. Didn’t get to play Wii again either! Devo. Was also supposed to try & see my old neighbor,

We chucked our wetsuits, towels & swimmers into the car & head off to the beach. It was a bit windy this morning, typical, but still a lovely day.
Nathan had hired two wetsuits from my Uncles Surf shop, Redwood so we took them both down & hoped one fit me. I picked up the first one & it fit fairly well, great! I thought, until I checked the size, mens LARGE! Gutted, I can’t be that fat!! Haha. I swapped with Nathan & the small/medium also fit. I’m just going to blame it on the fact that I’m tall.
Today was supposed to be one of the largest tides of the year, the water was already a long walk away but when we got to the shore & stopped to sort out the kayak wheels the water went out a few meters in a couple of minutes. It was going out ridiculously quick!
The current was so strong when we paddled out that it kept pushing up in all weird directions, every time we looked over to Karma she had drifted away. We ended up fairly close to the rocks & could have easily paddled out round the point, but I didn’t want to push to far with my hip & back.
It felt so great to be able to do some sort of exercise, especially on such a beautiful day, the view was amazing.
I’d left my crutches about 10 meters from the waters edge & because we had drifted so far & the tide had gone out so quick it was a bit of a mission to get back to them.
Walking back from the water took a solid 20 minutes, on the way back we met Dafydd! He’s been given the day off work so he joined us, along with a ball & a 4 pack of cider.
Debby had reserved us the last 4 of the beach huts so we had our pick of huts & a decent amount of space to ourselves. Perfect. Didn’t even need to put up a windbreak as it was such a sheltered area.
We got out the ball & played catch for a bit, I just stood in one spot & hoped the ball came to me not above or beside as I wasn't going to be moving to get it. karma had bad athletes foot so she was also hobbling. I didn’t stand up for long, decided I’d try to get some action shots on my camera instead, hadn’t had much opportunity to use it yet. Got some great action shot photos of Karma, a lot of Dafydd standing still & some fantastic photos of Nathan looking like a ballerina as he dove for the ball! Toes pointed, straight back & perfectly posed. It was hilarious.

Nath & I popped back home to have a quick shower & get changed before heading out to Barnstaple to see one of mum’s old friends from work, Charmaine. I went to school with her son & did nippers as a kid with him & his sister.
She had brought a delicious variety of cakes, including a red velvet cake, some cupcakes, chocolate squares & biscuits. We felt so fat! It was great to see them. An old friend I went to school with popped over to see Simon, I said hi & he gave me the strangest look as if to say: ‘Who’s this weirdo?!’
Charmaine reminded him who I was & he gave me a big hug!
From there we had to head off to physio again. Which went great, I’m almost 4 weeks into the recovery, so she said I should start trying to strengthen my muscles again to get my balance back & give the muscles on the right side a break. My left butt cheek is incredibly lacking of muscle so I have a very wonky bottom. Time to start doing some light exercising!

We head back to Karma’s after physio with the intention to go out to Ilfracombe & see some famous statue called Verity (I think) but we were so exhausted we settled for some fish & chips at Squires. Which was absolutely incredible. Quick pint at The George after & we were all ready for bed.