is it a snail? is it a whale? no its a trussed up M.R...

I'm just having a negative flashback.
Rewinding a week or so, before the whole Not Quite Gastric Flu incident, on the first day of our time in Devon I did an IDIOTIC thing.
Possibly the most stupid thing I did since getting paralytically drunk when I was pregnant with Mol (explains a lot... but I was young, I didn't know that if my period was late I'd really be pregnant... Yes, I did biology for A-Level...). Or maybe even more stupid than that time when I was getting on the tube with Mol ahead of me and Liz behind me, and I got stuck in the doors as they closed with Mol on the tube and Liz on the platform. Both children wailing. And obviously no gallant passenger jumped up to help me, no, no, in true Brit style the assholes in the carriage looked up from their dirty Metro's with raised eyebrows wondering how this interesting predicament was going to end. Well, all 3 of us are still here to tell the tale, so the complacent fuckers on the tube can shove the dirty Metro up their dirty...
Anyway, going off on a tangent.
Sorry about my language. That occasion on the tube really pissed me off though.
How can people watch and not help? Is it another sign of our strange times... Hey, look! A panicking mother with children on and off the tube, lets do some rubber-necking! Hey! Free trainers! Lets go raid some more shops! Hell, lets burn it all down afterwards too - I've got matches in my pocket that say light-me! The relationship is as clear as the water in the local council pool (once you've pushed the pubes and verucca-plasters out the way).
Anyway. So, back to the point.
So, on the first day of our Devonshire Cream Break, I said to the girls as we bumped off the A38 nearing the end of our 4 hour journey (which I was driving alone, so had a tennis racket to hand to whack any moaners or "are we nearly there"-ers, or shouters or fighters, or mainly, sorry - not to whack the girls with - any petrol pumps that dared totalise a filling up pump over £50... - a lot of whacking going on I tell you), HEY! Girls! I've got a great idea! How about I buy myself a wetsuit too?
I had visions of us all splashing into the crystal clear Devonshire sea, a bit like a scene from Baywatch, but English and a little greyer, great white smiles on our faces, the sun bouncing off the modest waves, a boogy board tucked under our arms, and people admiring us from the beach...
I thought they'd not heard me, and that I may have actually got away with it, and not have to buy a wetsuit (because my other vision which quickly slipped over the Baywatch scenario, was of us tiptoeing into a weed-filled-sea, the skies black with cloud, our towels blown onto wet sand, and the car key lost in a sandcastle-moat...), but no. To my horror... YEAH! COOL MUM! Way to go! Awesome! Lets go now! Get a pink one! Get a shorty! Get a board! Get a new body too...
Huh?!
So the very next day, true to my word, we snuck to the local Devonshire wetsuit shop called Pickles (is that because you get pickled when you go into a wetsuit and then into the sea?) and the 15 year old shop assistant stuffing a pasty into his mouth surrounded by acne (not his fault I know, but can't help what one see's), spat his crumbs out in my face and told me: You need to be able to fit two fingers, no more, between the suit and the skin. UG - I'm thinking, well, I don't need your fingers going anywhere near my skin thank you.

2 Hours later, its scene two (minus the lost car keys thank god) and we're tip toeing into the water, me feeling like a sausage that's about to burst its skin in my pink and black (wow, its the same as mine mum, says Mol, how cool are we? - I'm nearly replying, about as fucking cool as MCHammers crutch) wetsuit, and my girls in theirs looking way better and 'at home'...

Despite a lack of paparazzi and camera flashes to admire the 3 of us jumping and boarding in the fridgesome water, and despite the fact that a man left the water (he had strange man-boobs that actually bounced as he walked - has he NO idea his boobs bounce?) telling us 'watch out for the jellies' - we stuck it out and screams of delight were fast replacing screams of ffffff-hahaha-colllldddddd, as the wetsuits warmed up and we caught some fat-waves.

So in fact now I come to think of it, although I feel a bit like that man with man-boobs (what on EARTH does a woman my age think she's doing in a pink & black wetsuit, clutching a board that has cartoon fish on it?) I have to say: it was the bloody best thing I've done for a long long time.
Rock on the sea!
Rock on wetsuits!
Bring on the fat surf - and yeah baby - see that chick standing on the board? (yep, in my dreams...)