For Fuck's Sake.
It goes back to the start of to the start where dreams of French summer swells take over your life. All you can think of is those long summer days of seemingly endless waves only ending in darkness or lack of energy. Having spent at least two weeks of the summer in France in each of the last 5 years I now considered myself a bit of a veteran. This particular trip had been planned even before the last one had ended.Myself, Jon, Craig and Phil were booked on the famous 24 hours of joy ferry crossing from Plymouth /Santander. Being an even number of surf starved individuals and low on cash we had opted for a budget room on the ferry and two budget hire cars on arrival. Intention, charge as much as possible, spend as little as possible, introduce Phil to French culture and have a right fucking laugh.
I began to pack in the week running up to the departure date, but as the ferry sailed on early Monday morning, I left the majority until the Sunday evening. I had planned a relaxing night in, packing, repacking and chilling with my girlfriend Katie (AKA The Beaver) before my two week departure.
At about eight thirty that evening Dan came around and asked if we both fancied going for a couple of cold ones. The first mistake was made here. After debating for a while, and initially declining the offer, we accepted. I quickly packed the remainder of my gear, got changed, and scurried off. All I had to think about was sink a few, wake up, bit of travel and some perv called bob claims to be your uncle. Woopie!
Mistake number three basically tore out my heart and ruined two months of my summer. As we walked high spirited towards home, I sub-consciously decided that i was going to jump, as you do, through a very inviting hedge. Why do those little leafy chaps always look so good? Little known, or considered, was behind this particular hedge was a drop of approximately four foot. Having realised this as I lay in a heap at the bottom of said drop I started checking for body misalignment.
After a brief examination I realised that I was not in good shape. My left shoulder was a bit of a poor show. Both katie and Dan were telling me that it was probably just dislocated and I'd still be on the ferry, don't worry. After the initial 'o shit', Dan set about throwing himself in front of taxis to arrange my journey to hospital.
After a few of his own near death experiences he succeeded, and sent myself and Katie off to Torbay's equivalent of ER. Four hours later,several X-Rays, and alot of pain I was told no holiday,no surfing. It's a broken collar bone and a rather bad one at that.
'FUCK!'
At that point I new I had really messed up. In two hours I was supposed to be being picked up for two weeks of near perfection, but instead I had assigned myself to two months of misery. I rang Jon, and had a job to convince him that I wasn't joking, and I really wasn't going! The next two weeks when they were away were the worst. It did get better, they came back, my collar bone healed and eventually I got back into the water. The only moral that I can drag into this is that if you get drunk, you fall over, and if you drink even more then it doesn't hurt as much, and as the well known skateboarding phrase goes "Chicks dig lumpy collar bones squire " o yeah!
By Rup.
