Surf Mama on Tour

Old Fashioned Daisy with Hello Kitty

The first event on the Surf Mama official book tour was Port Eliot literary festival in Cornwall. A river runs through the grounds of the Port Eliot, and I was appearing in the Idler tent on the riverbank, so I couldn’t resist the idea of arriving on a surfboard. I know I was bitching about the tough life of an aspiring bikini model in my last blog, but it did seem like a good opportunity to show off out my new improved swimwear selection.  I asked  Old Fashioned Daisy, my beloved daughter, to come along and sing La Mer as I paddled up the estuary. Its a lovely old french song written by Charles Trenet on a train in 1946 on SNCF toilet paper.

It had been a long time since Daisy and I had been camping together, and it brought back memories of her childhood, when we travelled round Europe in a rusting camper van.

The idea of a camper van as I understand it, is that you throw in your surfboard, a six pack of beer, and a tube of insect repellent and head for the freedom of the open road.

I don’t like to talk about my ex-husband for personal and legal reasons, but I don’t think he can sue me for saying that he wasn’t great at travelling light...

Of course we started with the beer, the jungle formula and the surfboards - his not mine as I was still a surf widow and an earthmother at the time. But he was easily bored on dry land, so we also had to pack a huge plastic trunk full of diving gear to keep him happy during flat spells, which took up most of the floor space of the van. But this was only the beginning - the starting point for the trip was usually an exhibition in some foreign port, so we also had to fit about twenty paintings in the van. Then of course there were the three kids, mattresses, airbeds, sleeping bags, several tents, the inbuilt cooker and the kitchen sink. Any idea of stopping spontaneously at a deserted beach and leaving nothing but footprints was out of the question. It was more like the circus coming to town, with awnings and a variety of extra tents for the children, the paintings and the extreme sports equipment.

These trips were not exactly the jolly family holidays you might be imagining - we did a lot of our splitting up in campsites round France and Spain. It was more as if an Enid Blyton book had fallen accidentally into the hands of Werner Herzog, or some other dark and twisted film director. The soundtrack would be the vans ancient cassette machine crackling out Tom Waites Bourbon soaked drawl, or Ledbelly and his chain-gang chorus singing the blues. This would be interspersed with my ridiculous attempts at home schooling the kids in Gaelic - a language I could neither understand or pronounce. I ploughed my way through ‘Mici and Ruarc go for a Picnic’ as if it was an epic irish poem - but at least my hilarious accent provided the kids with a bit of light relief - a distraction from their parents swilling back vast quantities of wine, pastis and sinister Basque liqueurs and chucking the plastic dinner service round the awning.

So our trip to Port Eliot was a cathartic experience. As we were going to Port Eliot by train, we had to leave behind not only the emotional baggage but a lot of the other baggage as well.

Choices had to be made -we left the air mattresses in favour of Daisy’s make-up case, and took three litres of mineral water instead of sleeping bags, as if Cornwall might have fallen victim to sudden desertification. Travelling with water is one of my vices, it makes travelling light almost impossible, but I am not a good traveling companion when I’m thirsty, in fact I am not a good person at all. 

One thing we couldn’t leave behind was the Hello Kitty tent. You’re probably thinking this was a family heirloom dating back to Daisy’s childhood and those original camping trips, but in fact I had bought it off the internet the day before. The irony was lost on my daughter - “Maybe a bit close to home mum,” she muttered darkly, “Remember its not quite such a long time since I was a child as you.” 

lets get our  heels on and go to the bouncy castle

It was a bit of an impulse buy, I admit. After a couple of hours on the internet, wading through pages and pages of khaki and RAF blue tents, I was beginning to wonder if I would accidentally signed up to the armed forces if I ticked the wrong box. So when the flash of bubble gum pink flickered onto the screen, with the magic words seventy percent off written underneath, I gave in to girly temptation.

The journey down was a nightmare as the train was full to bursting and the only place to sit was on the floor outside the toilet - I suggested to Daisy that she could write a song, but we both agreed that British Rail toilet paper lacked the glamour of the french equivalent. When we arrived at the festival with the tent and not much else, Daisy and I realised that we had forgotten anything we ever knew about pitching camp. Perhaps it was some sort of repressed memory syndrome.

It should have been simple, in fact it should have been child’s play - there was warning sticker on the tent stating “This is Not a Toy”, but I rather think it was. After some bad experiences on Brownsea Island with Chaffinch patrol, I had avoided sending Daisy to Girl Guides, but I slightly regretted this as I watched her wielding a mallet in her high heels.

As we tripped over the guy ropes, a good looking young surfer in a panama hat stopped, and having overheard our conversation, joined in firmly on her side.

“Oh God, what are you trying to do to your daughter?” George Stoy laughed, “Make her revert to childhood because you can’t cope with the idea of her being a grown woman?”

“No, really, it was 70% off at Argos, ” I protested, hoping he hadn’t struck on a disturbing truth.

“Come on, Daisy lets get a beer, ” I said as we finished, to prove that I saw her as an equal, “…..and afterwards I’ll take you to find the bouncy castle.”

I decided to give my Juanita wetsuit another chance, and it did stay on better without waves.

air beds are for wimps

These may look like easy surf conditions to those of you used to photos of Hawaii or Teahupoo, but believe me it was very hard to land without running aground on a mud bank and arriving at the Idler Academy looking like I’d just written a book on naked mud-wrestling.

It was rather chilly when I got out of the water, so I slung on the coat Daisy was wearing, which happened to be a vintage fur fabric coats from my youth.  I made them for the Neo Naturists to avoid us catching cold or getting arrested after cabarets, but worked equally well for après surf, and I was very pleased with the way my outfit fitted in with the story of my book, which is all about my transformation from performance artist to surfer. I wasn’t wearing anything from the earthmother years in between - probably a good thing thinking back to my mumsy wardrobe of nursing bras, baggy shirts and leggings- but this period of my life was represented by Daisy singing La Mer in her angelic voice as I walked in. You wouldn’t necessarily guess that she had been brought up in an Irish farmhouse on organic vegetables - she looked more as if she’d been brought up in the Chelsea Hotel or a 20s Speakeasy. I was full of maternal pride -although it had been a rather uncomfortable night, I saw that it had definitely been the right decision to bring the make-up case instead of the air mattress.

Daisy wondered if Surf Mama would ever grow up

a restorative jug of Pimms after the paddle

To be continued.…….