Rather like a delicate Victorian lady of comfortable means, I decided to spend some time at the beach this week in the hope that the ocean air would help clear my virus-ridden lungs.

Everyone I know is living in fear of swine flu but all I’ve had is a rotten cold and cough that seems to be clinging to my chest like a needy child.

A good friend of mine lets me keep my bike in her lock-up which is about six feet from the beach in my old hood, Marina Del Rey, so I try to get down there as often as I can.

I grew up in Southend-on-Sea, so the ocean (well, the Thames Estuary) has always been an essential part of my life, although it has to be said that Venice Beach and Southend are different in almost every way (number one, you can’t get a decent stick of rock on Venice pier).

I miss living on the west side but it’s no coincidence that I’m getting a lot more writing done since I moved nearer Hollywood. However, the theatre of the beach path is always welcome.

Slathered in factor 55, I set off at a snail’s pace after picking up a large coffee, which I balanced precariously in my wicker basket like a caffeinated June from A Matter of Life and Death, and hit the bike path.

My first pit stop was the newly opened skate park in Venice. It’s state of the art apparently, so I stopped to watch the crazy kids throw themselves around the concrete basins with all the gusto of a human tsunami on wheels. There were seven-year-olds with Californian-blonde shoulder-length hair doing back flips and other manoeuvres with technical names, that took my breath away. A tattooed stoner tried to engage me in conversation but I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, so I smiled sweetly and got back on my bike.

Noodling my way up the winding path, I noticed all the changes on the Venice sidewalk (the Shul on the Beach has had a new coat of paint), and the things that have stayed the same (the Rasta on roller blades with the electric guitar was still scaring pedestrians).

A few minutes later, I stumbled upon a harassed film crew and an equally excited crowd. It’s almost compulsory to see a film crew on the beach: I saw both Wild Hogs and I Love You, Man being filmed here as well as a Domino’s pizza commercial plus various other photo shoots, which usually involve girls in bikinis freezing their pants off in biting winds (it’s not always sunny you know).

Today though it was an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, and running up the sidewalk followed by a Stedicam was Chris O Donnell and LL Cool J, which is by far my best star spot this year.

After watching a couple of takes I hopped back on my bike and detoured up to Main Street in Santa Monica where I bought some freshly ground coffee from Groundwork. I then biked as far as the enormous green striped marquee for the Cirque de Soleil show Kooza, which is currently nestling next to the pier (bringing local traffic to a grinding halt) and decided that I’d gone far enough for an English patient.

I turned around and immediately got that sinking feeling when I realised I’d be battling against the wind all the way back home. Oh to have the energy of a seven-year-old skateboarder (who by the way was still twisting himself into the shape of an airborne pretzel as I swooshed past).

In fact, so absorbed was I by his impressive aerobics that I had to swerve to avoid a woman dressed entirely in orange walking a Siberian husky. Only then, did it occur to me that I hadn’t coughed or spluttered in nearly two hours. Call me Kellogg, job done.