Fun night last night. We'd been planning a downwinder all week - conditions are perversely ideal during work hours so all we could do was shoot for 4:30 and hope for the best. I knew it'd be tough for me to get to the start point in time but I booted it over there as soon as I got off work and picked up my gear. I could see them, about 1000m off shore, heading east. I jumped back in the car and belted over to a beach about 2 km east and was able to slap my board down on the water just as they passed. I had to get around a kite surfer who had his kite and rigging strung across the little bay there.

What a great time - conditions weren't ideal but they weren't terrible either -  9 of us. I think that's probably the biggest group so far. Just as we finished the 8-9km, the SW wind spun around completely and started blasting from the north. If we'd waited about 10 minutes, we could've easily done a downwinder back to our start point! We were all getting cold though so we loaded all of the boards onto 2 trucks and headed back to cars and then on to our local for dinner and drinks. A few others came by and met us - like old times we ended up closing the place.

At the end of the night, one of the guys had forgotten his blackberry on the table but none of the guys would take responsibility for it (just one of the ways guys are smarter than girls).. I found out why when, at 6AM, I heard this bizarre and LOUD series of tones coming from my kitchen. I'd had a lot of pinot and didn't even remember saying I'd take the BB so I really couldn't make sense of what I heard. My iphone has been malfunctioning lately so assuming it was more of that, I grabbed it from where it was charging in the kitchen. I was heading back to bed when I heard the tones again. SO LOUD! INSANE! In that state of Still Drunk, About to Get a Hangover, I sat on the stairs to clear my head and considered how some new kind of technology could have gotten into my house while I slept. And then the lightbulb went on - foreign blackberry in my purse.
Unfortunately, I've never used a BB so 2 more phone calls rang through before I figured out how to silence the thing. I recognized one of the callers and knew he was meeting up with the phone's owner so I called him back and he passed on the info..

I tried to get back to sleep but by then a couple people were texting me so I got up. The north wind is whipping the trees around. I decided to stay upright for now and get all my errands done. I wandered out to look at my truck. After the downwinder, before we went to the bar, I'd dropped the truck off at home. I was in a rush to change out of my wet clothes and get some dinner so I didn't bother to put my board away. I'd left it sticking out of the open back hatch, opting instead to back the truck right up to the garage so the board couldn't be pulled out that way. It didn't look any worse for wear so I decided to leave it 'til later. I took the VW, picked up some birthday flowers for a friend, some goodies at the bakery, dropped the blackberry at the owners home, dropped the flowers off for the birthday girl and then went to the vegetable market on Southdown to load up on fruit + veg for the week.
When I went out to move the truck so I could unload the board, it was clear that a squirrel had found the open hatch and gone in looking for food. He must have bounced around a bit because the glove box was open and all kinds of stuff was pulled up/tossed around from under the seat. He got at least one granola bar, possibly more - I keep a box in there for days when I end up at the beach for hours - so he's set for the winter! Anyway, I think right now I'm just going to watch some pvr'd tv shows and then nap for awhile. TFC match tonight with the girls!
Sometimes I can't decide if my life is disorganized and sad or AWESOME.