February 2022

This is to give all those clients who are interested an update of how David’s attempt to return to youth, good looks and have a Herculean body is going. In January I decided to learn how to paddle a Standup Board.

Now a standup board is basically a person standing on top of a long surfboard and paddling with a very long paddle – to achieve this feat the person who is standing on the standup board has to have fairly good balance, be dressed in clothing that can get wet and have a tremendous sense of humour and be willing to put up with the laugh of the people in the vicinity.

I also found out that the person on the standup board has to be able to wave frantically at boats coming close, and then be able to swear frantically and look angry as I disappeared under the water usually backside first, legs outspread and arms failing in the air as I tried to regain my balance.

It also pays to do the paddling in calm water and water about waist deep. I seemed to spend an awful long time trying to struggle back onto the board while the music from Jaws rings inside my head. My wife described my attempt to get back onto the board in deep water like watching an elephant climb onto an iceberg – lots of thrashing, lots of white water and lots of noise with very little result.

My wife (Rhonda) demonstrated how to stand on the board and how to paddle, then it was my turn. No problems I thought, as I sat on the board with both legs draped over the edges of the board. Then I discovered the first problem – you have to lean forward and swing the legs up behind you and end up in a kneeling position – an interesting episode especially if you have a sore knees.

The next stage is to the stand up – sounds easy but it is like standing on your ironing board while a person at each end moves the board up and down as well as side to side at the same time. Now you need to stay in the standing position, balance the board from side to side as well as front to back and take a firm hold of the paddle (opps!!! forgot to hold the paddle when I stood up, so had to jump back into the water and start again – this time holding the paddle whilst repeating the above) and, whilst smiling happily and with a song in your heart, start paddling in a forward direction. Sound easy, doesn’t it?

The long and the short of it is that after 90 minutes of numerous repeating of the above first steps, the most I paddled for was 9 strokes before heading towards Davy Jones’s Locker AGAIN. To Rhonda’s great amusement (rolling around, holding her belly and making weird nasal and vocal noises), I eventually gave up and she paddled the standup board home. I refuse to admit defeat but that is another story.

David