“I rise early most days, anywhere from 4am through 7am – the first thing I do is make a cup of tea, grab my iPad, take it back to bed and start to deal with all the emails I get – I like a civilised start to the day!
“You can get an awful lot done in those four hours or so before the world gets going, and I like that.
“You can get an awful lot done in those four hours or so before the world gets going, and I like that.
“With it being sub-tropical here, you don’t really want potatoes and gravy and heavy foods like that (although I admit I do sometimes!), so I’ll usually start my days with some fresh fruit and cereal, and then mid-morning I’ll make a cup of coffee, or I might go to one of the many fantastic trendy coffee shops that’s sprung up round here recently.
“I do like sculpting, and my main priority is to keep the foundry busy – I’ll go into the workshop and work for a few hours until lunchtime, when I might go out to a café for a bite to eat.
“My days are really full – I have vehicles to maintain, the house to maintain, and of course, my beautiful garden – at the weekends, I can spend the entire two days in there. The house is a 1930s, well, shed, really – so there’s a lot of maintenance work to do on that, too.
“I usually go over to the foundry once a week to make sure everything’s OK up there – and I must mention the fabulous crew – all of the foundry workers, but especially Rigo the owner, Dan in accounts, Dustin in sales, and Marie and Davey. It’s a beautiful drive up the California coast to Ventura, about an hour-and-half and I find it very therapeutic – I might see dolphins and seals, and on the way home, I might stop off somewhere lovely like Santa Monica.
“I try to finish sculpting by about 2pm, then after lunch, I like to put my feet up, and I might have a nap. The afternoon is for errands; banking, shopping - there’s always plenty to do.
“Then it’s time for my little guilty pleasure – I do like to watch Judge Judy at 4pm. I like to watch people arguing over an old fridge!
“Venice Beach, of course, is the bodybuilding capital of the world, and everywhere you go there are beautiful people looking gorgeous under the sun – it really makes you think, I’d better get myself sorted! So in 2000, I got myself a personal trainer, and when I’m in town, I see him on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 5.30pm for an hour – it makes you feel good. I go to him for one-on-one training at his home.
“Howie, my trainer, was a Mr California back in the 70s – and if you’ve seen Jaws 3, he was the diver at the beginning, welding doors to keep the sharks out, then within five minutes, he’d been eaten by a shark! He and his wife, Mary, are very dear friends now – I live alone, and I like it, I enjoy the solitude, but you do have to have events throughout the day when you meet people and have a little chat.
“In the evening, I’ll often go to a nice restaurant and have something that’s called ‘eating clean’ over here – not a lot of sugar, fat or carbohydrates. I do try to eat clean, but occasionally I’ll slip and have fish and chips.
“I’m don’t think I’m in bad shape for a man of 70 – I don’t feel my age at all, and I don’t have any aches and pains.
“Depending on how my day goes, I’ll go to bed any time from 9pm. I used to like Jay Leno’s talk show late in the evening, but that’s not on any more. So I go to bed, and I go out like a light!
“I enjoy the upbeat, positive spirit of the Californian lifestyle – it unleashes my creativity.”
Interested in finding out more about Tim Cotterill? Check out our Tim Cotterill biography and buying guide for expert tips on starting your own Frogman collection.
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