The Barefoot And Baffled Blog

As is well known, the world is broadly divided into two distinct classes of people: a tiny minority of widely shunned mentally unstable people who love bagpipes; and the entire rest of the world. Among those poor misguided creatures who love the pipes a special Hell is set aside for those who actually play them themselves and willy-nilly, deliberately and with malicious predetermination and intent go out of their way to inflict them on other people. I am One Of Those. We moved to the place where we now live on a wing and An Unhealthy Amount Of Wishful Thinking. We had no money, zero prospects, and no work of any description to go to. On the other hand, food and shelter had to be provided for two adults, two growing kids and a wildly fluctuating number of guinea pigs. So we pulled out all stops and worked at anything and everything that presented itself. For myself personally that meant, in addition to guiding wildlife spotting kayak tours on the bay, freelance outdoor e...

Courtesy in the surf is an important thing. Everyone wants to catch waves and enjoy themselves, as well they should, and so it’s vital that we show respect and consideration for other people. That means being aware of who’s got right of way, who’s been waiting for a wave and is next in line, and taking it in turns. By observing these few simple rules everyone in the line-up can get waves and have a good time, no one misses out, and there’s no aggro or shitfights. It’s a simple thing to do, and in our group of people who surf together it goes without saying: we wait for our turn, we make sure everyone gets enough waves, and, frequently, we share waves among ourselves, with two, three or more of us all jumping on and riding the same wave. It’s awesome fun, and, somehow, even more satisfying than catching a great wave by yourself. Having a mate there to share the experience with adds another dimension to it. Sharing is caring, after all, and we never fail to have a hoot. Howeve...

There’s a song called “The Song Of The Sea” that, not surprisingly, talks about the sea. It’s slow and hypnotic and mesmerising, rocking, swaying and lilting, and speaks of an indefinable way of being, a place and a time that are neither locational nor temporal. It positions this sensation as being between one thing and another, between one wind direction and another, between water and land, between sky and rock. It is, potentially, the space that holds the membrane between the wet and the dry, where the seagull, the gannet and the tern take their swooping dives and, for a split second, as they scoop up their prey and before they become airborne again, belong neither to one reality or the other, but to both and neither. It is, in other words, Middle Earth. This is the place where we come to play, hang out, socialise, enjoy ourselves, engage with the natural world and, for limited periods of time but repeatedly and consistently, become part of it and commune with it. For us ...