A site about swimming and life
I think we have a topsy turvy approach to hazard perception when it comes to outdoor swimming in the UK. It’s OK to swim at the coast where conditions continually change with the tide and weather, there are waves, obstacles and creatures that will sting you but it’s not OK to swim in inland water’s …
Continue reading "Sea or reservoir. Which one might be safer?"
As an inland outdoor swimmer in England there are very few places I can swim without the threat of being asked to leave. Landowners can and do restrict access to water, I‘ve talked about this before here Breaking the Law to Swim. One of the reasons that’s often used to exclude swimmers is the potential …
Continue reading "Environmental Consideration and Outdoor Swimming"
Society likes labels. Man/woman, working/unemployed, old/young. We like to categorise and put things in boxes. I guess it helps our brain to compartmentalise, sort some order from the chaos. When we label things they’re often grouped together, positive or negative connotations about that group are often applied to all that “fit” in that label. Grouping …
The wealth of kit and clothing available to outdoor swimmers seems to grow by the day. It can often be overwhelming, particularly for those new to swimming outdoors. As a coach and year round outdoor swimmer I often get asked by new swimmers “what should I wear to swim outside?” People always want a simple …
Continue reading "Outdoor Swimming – What to Wear……….Or Not!"
At the beginning of November as the 2nd national lockdown for England was announced I embarked on a challenge to dip in outdoor water on each of the 30 days of November. Lots of people do these kind of challenges, often in December or January but as I explained in my starting blog here, November …
In January I wrote a blog about winter swimming. How wonderful it is, why just a few minutes of immersion in cold water is enough to make you smile for the whole day. Much of that smile wasn’t created by the cold water though. It was created by others. By the people I would meet …
November feels like a bit of a neglected month. It’s not December, the month of Christmas madness or January, the month of resolutions, fresh starts and general depression at it being damp and cold with a couple more months of that to deal with. Lots of people do a dip a day in December or …
This weekend I got to return to somewhere that feels like home to me. Somewhere I used to spend every Thursday evening and Saturday morning from May to September. Somewhere I’d only briefly been into since July 2019. Toddbrook Sailing Club. It was where I helped to run our happy, friendly, welcoming open water swimming …
Today my boys went back to school. The return to school after the long summer holiday is always a time of mixed emotions. Joy that I have a little more free time to myself again but also sadness that they’re not pootling around me all day. I often have a little wobble and need to …
In the wise words of Douglas Adams in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, DON’T PANIC! This is not a cry for help or red flag. All is well 🙂 I also need to say I am not a mental health professional, what I talk about below is my own personal experience. Everyone is different, …
