Growing up in Porthcawl, south Wales, the author and her brother treated the ocean like a shared sandbox. She learned to bodyboard not long after she learned to walk, and the waves were less a hobby than a second home. Then her body decided to rewrite the terms and conditions.

In her teens, chronic illnesses arrived, starting with endometriosis. She could still surf, she just needed to rest afterwards - an acceptable tax at the time. But by her early 20s, further chronic conditions piled on, including a connective tissue disorder that weakened her joints and muscle strength. Standing became a few-seconds affair; walking, a few metres at best. At 23, an acute infection brought complications that included the loss of the use of her legs. Later, her stomach became paralysed, and she now receives nutrition through a tube that runs down her oesophagus, through her stomach and into her intestines.

Losing the sea, she writes, felt like losing part of who she was. But her brother, apparently not content to let a good origin story end there, found a way to launch her back into the waves. The gift was unexpected, and it delivered a whole new life at sea - proof that sometimes the most useful thing a sibling can do is refuse to accept the shoreline as a border.