Weird things happen. By “weird” we mean things that just seem a bit out of place, a bit incongruous! These days that takes in a lot of things. For us, surfing is normally associated with sun bleached beautiful people on beaches like Bondi and Waikiki, not Scotland! But what do we know? Here we are at Lost Shore Surfing Centre and it’s only twenty minutes away from home on the outskirts of Edinburgh. We know the area well because the Edinburgh International Climbing Arena is in a quarry right next door but “surfing?” It just opened last week so we thought we should be nosey and check it out. Maybe catch a wave or two.

From the car park you have to walk down into a large sunken area which presumably was also some sort of quarry at one time. It’s incredible!  A kind of assualt on the senses.  Music playing, hundreds of people milling around, some with surf boards, some just lounging in deckchairs (warm enough in a wetsuit) and others in the water actually surfing.

They are surfing in what turns out to be Europe’s largest wave pool. It’s situated in a 60 acre country park with accommodation, restaurants, bar, shops and a wellness studio. The accommodation consists of anything from small pods to more than fifty three and four bedroom lodges. It’s almost a small town and seems to have just dropped out of the sky. Miraculous, it may be but it has obviously been a long time in the making. Ten years planning and construction apparently and we didn’t know anything about it.

There are two ponds each making more than thirty different types of wave. Don’t ask how they can produce more than 1000 waves per hour but they do.

Because they seemed to have thought of everything we thought there wouldn’t be a problem getting a scone in the Canteen restaurant. It houses three well known Scottish restaurants serving a variety of food.Turns out scones probably aren’t really cool enough for the surfing fraternity. They want straight forward food and aren’t too bothered about how it’s served.  No scones so just to add a bit more weirdness to our day I had what they called a “morning roll” in the middle of the afternoon.

Not like a roll, it was more reminiscent of a cinnamon bun. No idea how it got its name. It was good though and came in a polystyrene box, the coffee in a paper cup. Great vibe though! We ended up chatting to a family who had driven up from Durham and were staying for a few days.  Their teenage daughter was learning to surf so they thought the whole Lost Shore facility was fabulous.

Apparently Scotland has some of the best waves in the world. We should have known that because one of our favourite islands Tiree holds the annual Tiree Wave Classic one of the oldest competitions of its kind. They’ve even written books about it. We consider ourselves educated. 

Even weirder

However, Scotland doesn’t have a monopoly on weird happenings. Take the recent Presidential election in America for instance. With apologies to our American readers, here’s a little quiz.

This is how the rest of the world views Trump becoming President Elect … again! It is, however, democracy in action so we will just have to suck it up as they say. However, the prospect of four years of schoolboy economics isn’t exactly thrilling. Throwing an isolationist ring around the US in an attempt to make the wealthiest people on the planet even wealthier at the expense of the poor elsewhere is more than a little bit crazy. Of course, there will be the inevitable backlash but Trump will be gone again by then. That’s assuming he hasn’t done like Xi and Putin and made himself President for Life.

Also weird was the ancient Mike Tyson’s recent fight with a YouTuber more than thirty years his junior.  Whatever happened to standards?

Perhaps not so weird was the fact that we seemed to be the oldest folk here … probably by a factor of almost forty years! Just the thought of trying to get in and out of a wet suit is exhausting. No waves and no scones were caught by us today but it was great just being in this amazing place. 

EH28 8AY            tel: 0131 287 4590             Lost Shore

///imposes.hazel.arise

ps: We thought we were finished with Pat’s recent Macmillan Coffee Morning but more contributions have come in. Final total now stands at £4,810.05 … amazing!