On our last two days in Cornwall the wind was up and the waves were big and a kite arrived on the beach.
It was red.
It was attached to a mans waist who was kite surfing in the most spectacular style.
There is a page in the ladybird book ‘The Mid-Life Crisis’ where the guy finds a ton of boat polish in B&Q and then his heart breaks for the fact that he will never own a boat (even though before that point he never wanted to own a boat).
Watching the kite surfers was a bit like that for me.
In another life I would have been a kite surfer, Callum and I and Rosie would.
We’d travel to Lanzarote to the North-West Coast and we would kite surf and the kids would take part in competitions and I would just do it for the pure love of it and be quite good at it but not brilliant.
I’m 50 soon and my opportunity to kite surf has probably passed but as Callum and I sat on top of the dunes and watched four of them in the evening, I longed for Callum to want to do it, to want to learn, to want to embrace a life where he didn’t have to unconsciously fall into the 9-5, to raise enough money to pay his mortgage and to raise a family so that they could fall into the 9-5 and raise enough money to pay their mortgage.
I was never exposed to things like this when I was Callum’s age (through no fault of anyones) but the world is wide and the chances to do different things are greater than ever. One of the things that seems critical to me going forwards from here is to try to help and inspire my children and anyone else into a pathway that embraces health and experiences more than wealth and television streaming.
I read this week while I was away (ironically on a screen) that the average adult now spends a third of the waking hours on screens due to the explosion of streaming television.
To watch a video on Youtube of how to kite surf and then go and kite surf, to then watch a second episode of your chosen box-set.
Blog Post Number - 2818