I am rather fond of that little tale where an elderly lady, pensive in her last moments, recounts all the things in her life she wishes she could change, redo, try again, if she had the chance.
Yes, she would sit in the sun a little longer this time around, eat another icecream perhaps, allow it to melt deliriously down her hand, take her time over a cup of tea, smell the roses and live a little.
Oh, if only she could, for just a little longer..

I am fond of that story for many reasons.
It's lessons are many, not least the one that reminds us that, at the end of the day, most literally, there is less time spent regretting the things one has done than the things one didn't do..
And it gives me hope.

In the past I have often taken extra time to beat myself up for the vast number of thoughtless, foolish, selfish things I've done in my life.
We've all done them. Some of them I've done twice.
On more than one occasion I've gone back and done them a third time too..
Ah yes, there have been some thoroughly inglorious moments of unabashed stupidity and error.
Yet, as each year finds me inescapably older, I have found the hair coat less than helpful.
All the remorse in the world can't change the things I have done, but I can change the things I haven't done yet. Indeed, there is still an opportunity to get to my deathbed with a much shorter list of Things I Wish I'd Done, But Didn't...

Like surfing.
I can't believe I'm not surfing.
I come from a family of surfers.
Not my original family of course. We are from England. We are Hiltons.
We can barely swim.
Which is part of the problem.
Even migration to this wide brown land did little to change my non-swimming status.
I blame my mother who, darling and incalculably chic in flower covered bathing cap, instilled in me a fear of water so dark that I still suffer palpitations when the waves hit my chest.
It has been a crippling handicap, so much so that when my children were infants I made a decision they not suffer a similar fate, thus endeavouring to create them in their fathers image; surfer, swimmer and epitome of Mr Chesty Bond.
I have thrown them in the deep end, I have tossed them in dark water, I have watched them paddle out in a ten foot swell when they were 9 years old.
With no regrets.
Bold and brilliant in the surf, they have thanked me for it, as I perch, high and dry, in my itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini, holding their towels.

And it is here, dear reader, that my regret lies...
Huddled in the shallow end, hiding in my fear, I have spent at least three decades of my life desperately, heart-stoppingly, pathetically frightened of the water.
For someone so bohemian, so prone to adventuring, so thrilled by experience, it has been a gross impediment.
Living so close to the ocean, with a family of surfers, it is almost ridiculous.
And it is beginning to make me sick.

Last night, we watched a surf movie as we often do, but this one really captured my attention.
It centred on a yacht full of young women, cool, fit, ballsy chicks surfing one beautiful set after another off the coast of Sumatra. In effortless style they twisted and turned their bodies on smooth boards, carving through the face of the wave in serpentine fluidity, their exhilaration a rush of pure joy as they slipped through the green room, a backdrop of Indonesian palm fronds completing the picture perfect surfing postcard.

"You'd make a great surfer," said my husband, "You're built for it, low centre of gravity, good balance, great bod. Shame you're so frightened of the water."

I looked at him, I looked through him and back at myself.
I saw the skinny little girl with the big eyes, cowering by the water's edge.

"I don't want to regret this any more," I said, "I'm sick of being scared."

He reached out and took my hand.

"Then I'm going to teach you how to surf, Gidget." he said. "This weekend. You won't regret it."

Indeed, it might well be my greatest achievement.
Minx. Wahine.

Non, je ne regrette rien.