Casually drop into the conversation at the school gates that you’re off on a girls’ surfing weekend and just count the jaws drop. When word got around my childrens' primary school that three other mums and I were going on a learn-to-surf break in Cornwall, we became playground celebrities.

Not surprising I suppose, given that we were doing something so radical, so extreme, so out there. Yes, we were dumping the kids with their dads for three whole days. And we were going to surf.

Personally speaking I was a little nervous about that last bit. Of course I loved the idea of being a surf chick, hanging out on the beach with all those cool young things, riding some waves and, errr, stuff, but worried that at 40-something I was, well you know, a bit past it. Given that my knees creek when I get off the sofa, I wasn’t sure how I was going to pop up on a surfboard and ride the waves. Still, I reasoned, I could always just lie on the beach.

So Thursday night when the dads got home from work we loaded Ella’s Audi with car snacks, sweeties and bottles of gin and headed out of London to Watergate Bay on the north Cornish coast, which Ella had chosen because it has a fab hotel, its own surf school and Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen next door. No slumming it for us.

With Ella doing her Penelope Pitstop impersonation at the wheel, and without the hassle of small children needing frequent toilet stops, we were checking in at The Hotel at Watergate Bay before midnight. Once a bit of dive, the hotel has been transformed into an uber cool surfers’ hangout. Just one hitch. On all but the first night the hotel was full, so we were shoe-horned into the old Coach House annexe round the back. In bunk beds. That didn’t bother us, though, we were too excited at being away on our own for an entire weekend.

We woke the next morning to the sun shining on the gloriously golden two-mile sandy beach below the hotel. It was the second weekend in September, baking hot and only a faint breeze in the air. “This is the best day we’ve had for surfing all summer,” said Jo, our deeply tanned, lightly tattooed, frighteningly young surf instructor, as we sat on the sand getting a pep talk.

Jo and co-instructor Dave (equally tanned and heavily tattooed), both from the Extreme Academy next to the hotel, ran through safety procedures, explained what was what on our nine-foot long beginners’ boards, told us how to catch a wave and, crucially, how to look good when standing on the board; then it was a quick warm up on the beach and into the sea.

Lying on our boards we had to paddle after Jo a little way, then sitting on the back of the boards we waited for a wave. When we saw one big enough to surf, Jo would tell us to swivel the boards round to face the beach, lie flat and paddle furiously until the wave hit, then we were supposed to paddle one, two, three, four and jump up into a crouching, karate style pose.

I spent much of the first half of the two-hour lesson standing in the shallow water in a daze. Every time I tried to catch a wave I was tossed into the sea where I’d go through a spin cycle before scrambling to my feet, snot flaying and hair strewn across my face.

After a while Dave intervened, pointing me in the right direction and giving me a shove at the right moment, shouting “paddle paddle paddle.” With my spindly arms flaying furiously I caught that wave and, clinging to my board, went racing towards the beach. Whey hey, I thought, the kids would love this. Hell, never mind them, I loved it.

The next afternoon we were back in the water with Jo who, having seen that Nicole, Suzy and Ella were managing to stand, showed us advanced techniques like how to turn the board, slow it down and speed up.

“I’m gutted I’ve never done this before,” said Nicole. To be honest, I was surprised that Nicole, a Kiwi, and Suzy, an Aussie fitness instructor who practically lived on Bondi Beach, hadn’t surfed in their youth, but surf chicks are a relatively new breed, apparently. “We still don’t get many groups of women doing it,” said Jo. “We get lots of guys on stag weekends and a few mums doing it with their kids, but not many women on their own. It’s only recently they’ve started making wetsuits for women.”

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