Beverley Fearis gets on better in the classroom than on the Atlantic waves when she takes a combined surfing and French language course in Biarritz

"Attention aux rochers," came the frantic shouts, as I hurtled through the water, on my knees. I knew enough French to realise that I should be watching out for something, but I had no idea what. I also realised that it's not good to surf on your knees, but I just couldn't haul myself up. I had come here to improve my French and to learn how to surf and, so far, I wasn't doing too well on either front.

I was in Biarritz, Europe's surfing capital, nearly half-way through a two-week holiday with Cactus Language. Each morning my boyfriend, Warren, and I had French lessons at a school on the edge of the town, and each afternoon we would make our way down to the beach at the Côte des Basques to learn how to surf. I'm not sure which part of the day I struggled with most.

Whether you're five or 35, a first day at school is daunting, particularly when you discover that you're nearly twice the age and far less glamorous than most of your fellow classmates. As we gathered for the newcomers' briefing, I surveyed the room and saw a bevy of young, bright-eyed beauties of all nationalities - bronzed, blonde Swedes, rosy-cheeked Irish, Swiss, Danes, Japanese, Australians, Russians, you name it. The boys were in designer combat shorts and T-shirts, the girls in denim hot pants and skimpy vest tops. Warren thought he had died and gone to heaven!

Based on an online test before we arrived, he was put in the beginners' class and I was with the intermediates. While he was top of the class (or so he said), I struggled to keep up. Carole, my teacher (also a good few years younger than me) wouldn't allow one word of English to be spoken, and spoke French very quickly. Too quickly for me.

We worked our way through the textbook, doing aural comprehensions, watching videos, playing games, learning tenses I had never even heard of. At first, I didn't understand a word of it and humiliated myself on several occasions by giving a clumsy answer to a question I hadn't actually been asked. Homework was tough, and took me more than an hour each night. While Warren was learning whether chemise was masculine or feminine, I was practising how to tell my classmates the story of Jack the Ripper, frantically leafing through my dictionary to find the French words for "strangled and mutilated".

While I hadn't studied French for 15 years, most of my fellow classmates were straight out of school or college and still had brains like sponges. Plus, most were in France for the whole summer, staying with a local family so they were forced to speak French outside the classroom. I, on the other hand, was staying in a campervan with my English boyfriend. This, according to Carole, put me at a distinct disadvantage. At least I think that's what she said.

In the second week, however, things started to click into place and my confidence grew. We had also made a few friends by then. We would get together with Martina from the Czech Republic, Tobias and John from Germany, and Aya from Japan during our mid-morning break, or for an evening drink, and attempt to converse en français. It's amazing how much our French improved after a few pints.

In many ways, Biarritz reminded me of Brighton, my home town. It has the same strange mix of architecture - elegantly faded Victorian facades, garish palaces and concrete monstrosities - and the same steep hills (our bike ride to school each morning was a killer). It has the same funky shops, bars and cafes, the same buzz and energy.

Of course, Brighton's pebble beaches just don't compare to the beautiful sandy beaches of Biarritz, nor do its surfing credentials. Here on France's wild Atlantic coast you get fabulous year-round waves that attract surfers from all over the world.

The Newquay is a favourite drinking hole for Biarritz's international surf crowd, especially when there is football or rugby on. Personally, I preferred to join the more sophisticated (and older) crowd at Les 100 Marches, an alfresco bar overlooking the sea. It's not the best spot when it's raining, though, and we soon discovered that it rains quite a lot in Biarritz. Pretty much every day during our two weeks, in fact, and it wasn't that warm either. Learning to surf is just not the same when it's raining. OK, I accept that you are going to get wet anyway, but those waves look a lot more ominous under a dark grey sky.

To make it worse, our second week happened to coincide with a freak time of year, when the Atlantic tides go a bit crazy. This meant it was only possible to surf in the mornings (when we were doing our French) or in the evenings. At other times, the best beach for learning was completely under water, so you would have to surf straight on to the rocks - not good when you are a terrified beginner. Faced with the prospect of surfing in the rain and cold - at night - Warren and I decided we would rather give it a miss, so in our second week we only made it to one lesson.

The first few days of our fortnight were sunny, though, so we managed to learn the basics. Kitted out in our wetsuits and beginners' blue T-shirts, we lugged our enormous L-plate boards with the other novices down to the water's edge. Our instructor, Fred, told us we were either regular (left foot forward) or goofy (right foot forward) - whichever one feels more natural. I tried both, and neither felt natural, but in the end, not wanting to be just boring old regular, I opted for goofy.

Surfing essentially entails lying on your board, facing the beach, waiting until the wave is around a metre behind you and then paddling like mad in the hope that your board catches it. I mastered that bit quite quickly, and found it totally exhilarating. I would have been quite happy to spend the rest of the fortnight surfing on my stomach, but unfortunately, surfing is supposed to be done standing up, and that's where my problems started.

While my fellow students - young, petite and agile - managed to simply jump, on a moving board, from a lying position straight to standing, it didn't come quite as easily for me.

On day three, Fred gave me special permission to cheat by getting on to my knees first, and that was about as far as I got. I cracked it once, on day four, managing to finally haul myself on to two feet. By the time I had achieved it, though, I was in about two inches of water, practically on dry land. Luckily for me, that was the day the surf school photographer came along and I look pretty good in the pictures. Warren, on the other hand, had regressed that day, and the snap of him doing "cossack" surfing generated many a comment when it mysteriously made its way onto Facebook.

Apparently, the waves weren't that big by Biarritz standards, but they were big enough for me. It was exhausting paddling back out again after each attempt, fighting against the power of the waves. One afternoon, I was stung by a jellyfish, and although it didn't hurt much, it gave me the perfect excuse to take a break. Everyone else was loving it, but surfing just wasn't for me.

I gave it one last shot in the second week, when the strange tides meant the beach was reduced to just a tiny strip. Fred warned us that the high tide was now covering dangerous clusters of rocks and advised us to avoid surfing in a particularly hazardous section of the beach. That's easier said than done when you're hurtling along, balancing precariously on your knees, totally out of control.

Hence the cries of "attention aux rochers" from Fred, who, in his panic, had forgotten he was dealing with a non-French speaking idiot. Luckily, before I reached the rocks, I had fallen off anyway.

Essentials

A two-week French and surfing course in Biarritz with Cactus Language (0845 130 4775; cactuslanguagetraining.com) costs from £1,009 (course only - 20 French lessons and 10 surfing lessons) or £1,589 with accommodation in a host family (including breakfast and dinner), or £1,749 with accommodation in a self-catering flat. All prices exclude flights. The courses run from 30 March to 12 October.