Crime and punishment

My secret's out and I endured the walk of shame on Monday morning. The kids booed and hissed as I sat down at the breakfast table.

Despite their suspicions that I wasn't a shark wrangler, they'd loyally defended me to the hilt over the years when their friends had dared to question my fighting ability/sanity. Now that the world knows they've been duped by their own mother, I am off the pedestal and they take it as a license to tell lies willy nilly. In addition, my sister is horrified that I've unleashed that picture on the universe, when she's just got used to her new identity. Well, at least we're wearing masks. In an attempt to put things right, here is another picture of us when we were much younger and dressed in a more seemly fashion.

I've been asked by Amazon to submit reviews of two books which appear in the side bar of this blog - Wild Swim and Swimmer. I appreciate that this is not an approach from the Times Literary Supplement and that a computer will have generated the request, based on my previous buying. I nearly dispatched the email straight to the bin without thinking. But then I stopped and reflected that here I am, writing about swimming. So I'll consider it a pleasure to write about writing about swimming for the Amazon readership, particularly as both books are such excellent reads.

Shark wrestler woman

No swimming today. Good job I hadn't planned to be up early, as technical difficulties with yesterday's post triggered my obsessive tendencies and prevented me from turning in last night till way past my normal bedtime. Just before I hit the 'publish post' button, I decided to adjust the time setting to bring it in line with the actual time here in the UK.

Late night meddling never pays off. Somehow I put the post on hold and scheduled its publication for some point in the future. I also managed to alter the datelines on recent posts as well. I was unable to leave this chaos and sleep on it. I reached a kind of resolution by setting my time zone to Alaska. I can't fathom how to correct this, so I hope my son will apply his teenage genius later in the week.

Today (which incidentally is Sunday) my sister in Australia phoned. This prompted me to think about significant swims which I had in Australia when I went to visit her with my husband and my other sister, long ago in 1987. I dug out our old photos and found this one, posed by me and my sisters, which is a particular favourite and a reminder of that incredible summer, the year after we got married.

For part of our visit we took a road trip from Brisbane up to Cairns, staying in some spectacular locations. We snorkelled over the coral reef and swam in the clearest water with beautiful fish and sea creatures.

A few years later when we had children, they loved this picture. I lied to them that after it was taken, I had to wrestle off a troublesome shark which attacked me while I was swimming. At school they told their friends about my exploits. When they got older they frequently challenged my veracity, but I always felt compelled to stick to my guns and insist I had carried out the feats as described. Now I hope they can cope with the truth and not be too disappointed in me. Sorry, kids.

Another significant pool

Up with the larks this morning and swam a mile plus 4x50m at the Aquatic Centre. It took a long time for my engine to get warmed up, 20 lengths before I established a rhythm. We finished around 8.15, by which time the crowds had died down, so maybe next Saturday we'll stay in bed slightly longer and enjoy a less frenzied pool when we get there.

This weekend many lidos are calling time till next season. Hathersage had its last swimming session today, and I toyed with the idea of driving over for a final dip there this afternoon before the plug gets pulled. Hathersage is one of my significant pools. I don't remember how or when we stumbled across it. Years ago it established itself on our family calendar as the place we've frequently celebrated our middle daughter's birthday in August. It's wrapped around by the green hills of the Peak District and when the weather's good it's idyllic, a perfect place for serious and fun swims, with a holiday atmosphere like pools on French campsites.

However, I love it best when the weather is dull and miserable. There are fewer punters - occasionally only us - and the water temperature is always warm. I like to think of it as an icelandic geothermal lagoon, particularly when it's misty in the teeming rain. Once, we had to evacuate mid-frolics because of a thunderstorm, and I've even seen a photograph of swimmers there in a snowstorm!

When I phoned the pool today to check the session times, the attendant said the weather was sunny and the place was busy. So on those two counts I decided regretfully to give it a miss till next Spring.

My significant encounters with water

The interior of Tracey Emin's tent was an embroidered catalogue of everyone she'd slept with between 1963 and 1995. People who ventured into this installation described the experience of meeting her bedfellows as curiously intimate.

I've been thinking about why I'm drawn to pools and open water, what's the fascination for me, what does it date back to? I reckon my earliest experience of an outdoor pool was at Butlin's - Filey or Skegness in the early 1960's. This was probably where it all started - love at first sight when I was three. Who could fail to tumble head over heels after an encounter with a wedding cake fountain like the one in this postcard?

Cloudburst

It's now seven days since the Great North Swim - what a great swim, and a wonderful day! It's been a strange week without training for the event that's been like a lodestar through the whole spring and summer. That watery mile was the beacon that dictated pilgrimages to various lakes, pools, the coast - regardless of the weather. It prescribed the purchase of swimsuits, wetsuits, goggles and masks, swimming hats - latex and silicone, earplugs, anti-chlorine, anti-frizz hair products, books and magazines about wild and pool swimming. It put stroke technique on the agenda as a daily topic of conversation and stirred up a frenzy of internet activity - visits to aqua-related websites, forums and blogs. It stimulated the creation of this blog. Now I'm sad it's all over. Well, for this year at least.

Great North Swim

Today I did the swim! Woo hoo!!! I'll write more when I've come off my cloud!!!

Thought for the Day (2)

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

Toni Morrison

Oh, we do like to be beside the seaside

Three cheers for the Panama Swimming Club, Whitley Bay! Hip, hip, hooray! They swim in the North Sea every Sunday at 11am, come rain, hail or shine. No wetsuits allowed! The only thing that keeps them out is dangerous water conditions. Ten brave souls were there this morning (sea temperature 14C) - I salute you. We marvelled at them when we were walking our dog at the water's edge. I considered putting on my costume and joining them, but in the event I was too chicken. Maybe I will get my nerve together and join them for their piece de resistance - the New Year's Day swim in January 2010.

Whitley Bay is the first beach I ever knew, the first sea where I paddled - or plodged as it was called in the family. My extended family - grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins - met here each August Bank Holiday throughout my childhood. We would spend the afternoon on the beach and in the sea, followed by an hour or two on the rides at the Spanish City, then back to my aunt's for tea. Happy days! Who'd have imagined that years later I would meet and marry a man from here and continue my alliance with this beautiful place.

This afternoon, two of our kids had a surf lesson on Tynemouth beach and I shoehorned myself into the wetsuit for more outdoor swimming practice. Unfortunately for the surfers, the waves weren't massive, but the sea was lovely for fish like me. It's the first time I've worn my wetsuit in the sea. It makes a big difference - the difference between 'no, I'll not bother, it's too cold,' and 'actually, this is wonderful!'

Front crawl is now emerging as my natural choice of stroke when I'm in the wetsuit. The sea was clear and I kept my eyes open, practising the skill of reining in my imagination. I freaked out when I saw a lobster and a crab lurking on the rippled sand beneath me. Calm down! It was only seaweed, but it doesn't take much to trigger the adrenalin. Today washed away the unpleasantness at Boundary. I left the water four times, but I had to keep returning as I hadn't had enough - the magical pull of the sea.

Hook, line and sink her

I began Thursday at the Aquatic centre with 20 x 50m lengths, again mainly front crawl. To start, I felt weary and not equal to the task, but by 11 lengths I was in the zone, as they say, and everything became looser, easier. I decided not to do a mile, to save myself for the evening swim at Boundary lake. Two weeks ago I only completed half the course at Boundary. As I'd been off colour and medicating myself with Lemsips in the previous week, it shouldn't have been a surprise, but I was disappointed.

We arrived at the lake later than usual, so the regular triathlon crowd had already started to thin out. As we headed out to the first buoy, we realised glumly how luxurious the weeds had grown in the fortnight since our last visit. It was a case of mind over matter as the weight of the straggly plants swathed my arms with each stroke, grabbed at my legs with every kick. The heaviness hung in the air. We didn't admit it till we were safely out, but the place reeked like a swamp. My technique had definitely improved, but the greenery wouldn't let up, this was unnerving and demoralising.

I arrived at the first buoy after the others and we chatted briefly before setting off on the middle leg of the course. As I kicked away, something held me and I guessed it was weeds from around the buoy's anchor ropes. The pull was at my left wrist and I chopped my right hand down the length of my sleeve to brush off whatever was clinging onto me. Something bobbly hung on, and a surge of adrenalin revved up my urge to flee. I called the others to wait. By now I could see that a fishing hook had snagged my wetsuit, the fine wire piercing the neoprene in two places like a tiny vampire bite, snaring me with the finest nylon line. Remarkably, it hadn't broken my skin. I felt compelled to thrash the thing off, but I resisted this preservation instinct. I held my arms out on the buoy and my companions set about attempting to free me. My immediate thought was to bite the line but I dismissed the idea. Without even putting it to my mouth, I knew that this line meant business. Working like microsurgeons, my swimming buddies painstakingly fed the hook back through the twin punctures and pulled the determined thread with it.

We completed the course, but we won't be going back. Salford Quays have never really appealed to me, but I'm expecting to be pleasantly surprised when we take the plunge there next Thursday.

Breaking the silence

When I was little I liked watching Stingray on our black and white TV - I just loved the storylines that featured Marina. For one thing because she was a girl, and incredibly glamorous, for another because of the way she seemed to float through the water - jerky, but strangely graceful, all at once!

I hadn't realised why she was silent, until recently I read this passage on internationalhero.co.uk about Marina and her people:

..........Marina was a native of the undersea city of Pacifica, the daughter of its ruler Aphony. Pacifica was menaced by the evil Titan. Marina, along with the rest of the inhabitants, had been sworn to silence by the villain, on pain of being destroyed if they spoke, and so they used gestures to communicate instead...........

The explanation for Marina's silence struck a chord with me, and set me thinking about my process around creative writing. I love writing and yet.....sometimes it's as if I believe I'll be destroyed if I voice my thoughts this way. Or rather, my impulse is to destroy what I've written before anyone has a chance to read it. This started to change a couple of years ago when I began writing poetry. This blog is another opportunity for me to confront that impulse. I won't be menaced by that evil Titan any longer.

Standing on the end of the diving board

On Saturday I visited Manchester Aquatic Centre for the first time. What a lovely pool! I don't know why I haven't been before. It is light, airy and with everyone intent on their training, it felt like a university library during exam season, or early morning mass in a cathedral. I slipped into the water and joined the congregation. Now that I've stepped up to swimming a mile, my goal was 32x50m lengths. I immediately felt overwhelmed. This is exactly how I am with writing. I will make up a thousand reasons why I can't sit down and just get on with it, yet when I force myself onto the chair, I am fine.

At 50 metres, the lengths in the pool seemed wonderfully/scarily long. I started with breaststroke to calm myself down, and I cut in a few lengths of crawl which left me gasping but ok. After 11 lengths, we were asked to transfer to the diving pool, while the main pool was split into two for the family session at 9am. Very deep water makes me panicky and excited at the same time. I feel anxious with that volume of water under me. I did a width (25m) of breast stroke and forced my eyes open to the blue tiles on the bottom. What spooks me when I look down? For one thing, the grille in the stripes on the floor of the pool. There was something silvery in the cracks, probably part of the filtration equipment, but it gave me the heeby jeebies. When I put my head under, I scrunched my eyes shut and forced the scare to subside.

I decided to bite the bullet and to continue the swim with crawl. I swam one width. Then another, and another. Then another, and another and another. My breathing calmed down, I opened my eyes. One width I breathed to the left, the next to the right, the next bilaterally! I started to revel in the fact that I was doing it, that I could do it, that I was freestyling and I wasn't even out of breath! My eyes were wide open and I delighted in the scare! My final width, and I chose breast stroke. I powered forward like spurts of air from a bellows. By the end, I swam about 400m breaststroke and an amazing 1200m front crawl.

Thought for the Day

The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of one's trousers to the seat of one's chair.

Kingsley Amis

Hmmm........

Going the (extra) mile

Today for the first time I swam a whole mile! 64 lengths, not the usual 40. Many of them front crawl, which I'm now finding easier. It's like a switch flicked in my head, and instead of the customary panicking and huffing and puffing whenever I change from breaststroke to crawl, I launched into a rhythm and surprised myself as I enjoyed the variety. It will be different when I'm in the lake, but this morning I began to think that I might manage the Great North Swim in less than an hour.

And while I was counting lengths, steaming along with my new found confidence as a freestyle swimmer, I made the decision to set up this blog. Regular practice has expanded my swimming confidence and technique, so I'll apply the same theory to my writing. All the experts say that's the way to do it and I'm willing to believe them. We'll see.