Saturday, with a small pause in the ongoing bedlam I did manage a few moments in the sun of a pretty glorious late summer day.

A semi glassy 2-3 foot swell pulsed quietly, the odd long wall giving me what I needed to play with the hull and glide some worries away for those moments at least. The crowd, such as it was, were fellow travellers in the search for a little happiness, a dad and his kids, a couple of euro longboarders, one air seeking missile who gave us a glimpse of what might have been had air seeking existed in the seventies before muscle memory precluded any delusions of grandeur.

The water was warm, kids laughed on the beach, all was good.

Today is another day.

Fatherhood is a mixed blessing.

Teetering on the edge of sanity, with the word 'well I didn't ask to be born' ringing in my ears like bad tinnitus, I'm forced to resort to a ride report on the hull, 'cos anything else will have me necking myself.

Last Sunday the green sled got a run. In cleanish 3ft Winki I got no points for style and the first turn was a face plant as I went one way and expected the board to follow. They don't work like that.

Looking to the west and a threatening onshore blacklining it across the horizon, five waves later I had started to understand the concept of a displacement hull, the foil pulling forward off curves and flexing fin, sections swallowed, a very different feeling to the cut and thruster. My great wish would be to be blessed with the body to add elegance to the lines the board draws, but thick legged and stocky it is, Occy after eating a (small) softball.

The pic is my friend Luke Featherston, a very hot youngster of 45ish, he rips, really, and I am proud to call him a friend. One of life's gentlemen, Luke is a true eccentric, the possessor of a singularly fast but unusual method of swimming underwater. When I lap swam he'd regularly glide past beneath me, feet and hands doing strange things at speed.

Nearly two weeks is a long time between drinks on my little window, but to be quite frank I've had some distractions.

A few ructions in the family that have been achingly draining, work busy (good), surf crap (bad) and general distraction has kept me away.

And, as a site citing life, art and surfing as its raison d'etre, there's not been much of the surfing or art, and the life has been too close to the bone to share with the world.

The bit I can share is my Dear Old Dad is recovering from his stroke, so his desire to be seen as a recovering stroke victim, not a man with cancer is proving both true and continually inspiring.

Over the past few months as some may know I've been beset with a pathetic but niggling injury. A shoulder that has refused to improve is finally doing so, though I get superstitious just writing about it. The bloody thing has grown ears, which is not a good look, and every time I mention it it says to itself, "stuff that, Micko, you're out of the water for a few more days."

So, with all the fuel I've been saving by not driving down, every so often I've been putting a little down on a board I spied.

Though thoroughly spoiled by the wonderful boards from Maurice Cole, which he has been feeding me as testers for ages, I've often wondered what a detuned, mellower take might be like occasionally. A clean, small day shooter.

Having been a curious observer of the hull, that hold on from the days of George Greenough and Ted Spencer, refined and revitalised in California over the past forty years, and being a regular surfer of a pretty fine and speedy set of point/reef setups that suit that style of board, well, I've wanted one for ages, and my birthday is coming up.

Fifty bloody seven in two weeks for Christ's sake so I can afford to go from 6'0" to 6'6".

Added to that they demand a longitudinal, high line and bottom turn, roundhouse and run approach, as old school as you like.

Suits me.

So for want of anything more to post, this is my new ride.

Family members who read this may deem it as irresponsible, and I am, I admit it. The Catholic guilt is gnawing a hole in my back just to spite me, but dammit I can't take it back now.

Hutcho from Vouch shaped it, and I picked it up from Angus at Rhombus.

Thank you gentlemen. Thank you ball boys.