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thursday 31st july
Unfortunately this article starts with the sad news of the death of our Whistler neighbour Jay McGinn. Jay was one of our Whistler crew we partied with, living just up the hall from us in our Creekside apartment.
I'll never forget the night we organised a pool party at our apartment block pool after drinking in Whistler, only to get properly busted by the police - to Jay's immediate response of "Whats yer problem?!"..! Cue face-in-the-hands moment, followed by some nifty fleet-footed negotiations to ensure our safe passage out ;)
R.I.P Jay McGinn. Love for Jay.
On a brighter note - MASSIVE congratulations to fellow streetboarder Tim and his fiance Amy who got married earlier this year - it was a great wedding, the booze flowed and the speeches were short ;) Top drawer, Tim..!
 We have had the most glorious summer, with 3 months of consistent sunshine meaning GAME ON!
We have spent most weekends skating, sometimes locally, sometimes trying new spots further afield to see if we can find an uber-park within a reasonable driving distance.
We met Bristol-based streetboarder Simon Johns at Sherborne - only an hour to get to by car, it's one of the best skateparks in the area in my opinion, with a really good street section line. While it only contains a couple of rails, a couple of blocks and a euro-gap, everything is perfect - and its really good for either learning new stuff, or styling out complex tricks and combos :)
The sun was so strong it was difficult to keep your eyes open against the glare, but it meant that James could get some great photos over the day, and while we have subsequently returned - we have not had the same fabulous shoot conditions.
We used the whole park (ironically except for the launch box, the transition being too tight) but by far the best part of the day was playing on the begger rail - the combination of good camera/lenses and some funky post-processing has produced some great results.
It was so how and we skated for so long - I couldn't believe how Simon could skate in such dark coloured, tight-fitting jeans all day..!
A couple of weekends later I went to Mere to meet Simon and Dai Hare, which I had seen on the internet and looked good with a launchbox. In reality it was smaller than we had imagined, and somehow parts of it just didn't gel - which was a shame.
It had a nice little street sectionflat-down kink rail and planter, a mini and a launch box, but was a little too compact to be able to link things together properly. Nevertheless, Dai was throwing down 270-boardslides and backside bluntslides, Simon was flying round the mini and I was trying smith 5-0s down the kink planter.
Not a bad park, but on to bigger and better things! We have visited Downton in Wiltshire, Hedge End near Southampton and Cirencester skatepark to name a few.
All the while, we have been meeting up for local weekday skates - either Prevail, Verwood or 2 Riversmeet down at Christchurch. Prevail has been empty due to the heat, and its a difficult toss-up as to whether to take advantage of the opportunity, or go to an outdoor park and use the light while it's here...
I organised a birthday weekend, and streetboarders Paul Nash, Colin Horan and Andy Garrett came down to stay over and skate. We visited Prevail and Verwood, and Colin and Paul managed to get some great shots from the weekend, including an impromptu cone jib session at Verwood - a good find by Colin.
While I haven't managed to get a Five Trick Flick together yet, we have got a number of combo shots down, and have created our own streetboarding Instagram gallery "South Coast Streetboarders" - this will provide an ongoing record of our day-by-day adventures - less detail than Dom-Ebel.com, but perfect for the one-off shot or 5 second video..! :)
We have enjoyed skating the parks, and managed to get some good photos and video to take away - but we still haven't found the uber-park..! Guess we just gotta keep searching..!
 And last, but by no means least - by the time you read the next article, CJ and I will have a little baby!
Don't know yet if boy or girl, have to wait and find out..! Something for CJ to look forward to in during the pain of childbirth...
Till then...
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