With my mind now heavily on Tiger Lily, its time to immerse myself in that story world. For this part of the series a lot of the action is in California, and that undoubtably means surfing. Lilian Gale finds herself befriended by a group of musicians, who are also surfers and Atlanteans. For this i need to get right to the heart of surfing life, which i understand is more than riding and somersaulting on huge waves. It is a way of life with a culture and a language all its own.

Thankfully, my time on twitter has made me many friends from all over the world and from all walks of life. Two of these are Californian surfers (Jack and Jay) who have already enchanted me with their easygoing, generous and sometimes poetic banter. Thanks to Jack, I have three ‘must see’ films to watch: Endless Summer, Riding Giants, and Step into Liquid (I’m loving the language already). So i have plenty of homework. My only sadness is that surfing is something i wish i’d tried myself years ago and kind of feel it’s a bit late now. I’m sure i would have fitted in with such a spiritual, outdoors loving, bohemian, ethos.

Anyway, i’m off to do some homework, and still chuckling when i remember Jack’s sign off in his last tweet, ‘to keep my knees to the breeze’. Priceless!