Like Sam, I’m warming to a wetsuit on the beach
It has been a long time coming but finally Samantha Cameron and I have something in common. Keep your hair on, MI5, we’re not both bedding the Prime Minister – we’ve discovered bodyboarding!
I have, as of last weekend, become a surfer dude. (Chick. Babe. Dudette?).
Thanks to the vicissitudes of the weather in Wales, where I am on holiday, I bought a full body wetsuit on a whim.
What was I thinking? Actually, I was thinking: “I can wear this to hang about in the miserable drizzle while the kids are swimming in the freezing sea.”
But then my husband said I looked like Emma Peel but without the Enfield No 2, which made me so giddy that I ventured into the water.
And it was unexpectedly, gloriously exhilarating.
The waves were towering over me and the rain was lashing but it didn’t matter because I was already wet. Ladies, encased in neck-to-toe neoprene, I was toastier than a Welsh cake straight from the oven.
As someone who loathes the cold, I never believed I would ever willingly enter 15-degree water and stay there for three hours, like an overexcited spaniel. But I did.
In truth, bodyboarding is surfing for those not limber enough to leap into a standing position in one fluid movement.
Essentially, you cling to a piece of hydrodynamic foam as the water surges forward. What’s there not to love about that?
Catching waves requires skill, but as a new, all-weather family leisure activity, it’s perfect. And a heck of a lot cheaper than skiing.
The 13-year-old can already surf. The six-year-old bodyboards like a demon. My husband doesn’t swim, but he admires us from the sand – and fetches the hot chocolate.
When the Camerons were photographed bodyboarding together in Cornwall, one presumes the security services were busy sorting the drinks.
Oh, and Samantha, just in case you’re at a loose end on bank holiday Monday, do drop me a line. After all, we’re sisters under the surf-skin now.