SWIMMINGPOD - HELEN EDWARDS’ RIVER-BASED EXHIBITION IN OXFORD ‘BREATHING OF LIFE’
Helen Edwards is an ecological artist, dancer, and swimmer. I am with her at her solo exhibition at Oxford’s North Wall Arts Centre,...
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LXVswim
- Apr 23, 2023
- 4 min
SWIMMINGPOD - POOP POLLUTION POLITICS BY STANLEY ULIJASZEK
The gorgeous rivers of England are sick, and I am sick too. Of the politics, of the discharges into the rivers. Of the effluent, both...
LXVswim
- Jan 2, 2023
- 4 min
I’M SORRY, SAY THAMES WATER, FOR RUINING YOUR SWIMS
I could feel it all over again this Christmas, the sense of deja-vu, of raw sewage running between my fingers and toes. The Oxford DODO...
LXVswim
- Dec 21, 2022
- 2 min
SWIMMINGPOD - A WINTER SWIMMING BRIEFING, GIVEN BY STANLEY ULIJASZEK, FRAMED BY JEREMY WELLINGHAM
Cometh December, cometh the DODO Swim, in Oxford, at Port Meadow. From the Dodo Tree, now reduced to a stump after being struck by...
LXVswim
- Oct 30, 2022
- 1 min
MOON-SWIMMING AND SWIMMING IN MOONLIGHT BY STANLEY ULIJASZEK
If you haven’t already swum outdoors in full moonlight, you must. It is one of life’s priceless un-buyable treasures. There are twelve...
LXVswim
- Sep 9, 2022
- 2 min
SWIMMINGPOD – JULIET TURNBULL AND ‘OPEN WATER – SHARE THE KNOWLEDGE’
It is September, and time to take stock of the summer season of open water swimming. While countless thousands have enjoyed the water...
LXVswim
- Aug 18, 2022
- 1 min
SWIMMINGPOD - WILD OPEN SWIM, WITH KATH FOTHERINGHAM, FIONA UNDRILL AND DARRIN ROLES
The Wild Open Swim Blog is the organised work of Kath Fotheringham, Darrin Roles and Fiona Undrill. This now sits under the Swim Oxford...
LXVswim
- Jan 20, 2022
- 6 min
THE SECOND GREAT STINK? SWIMMING RIVERS IN A MESS
‘I can feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes’ – ‘The water’s all around me, and so the feeling grows…’ Waking up from a dream, me...
LXVswim
- Oct 8, 2021
- 1 min
SWIMMING, LEPTOSPIROSIS, AND ME, BY STANLEY ULIJASZEK
If you are an outdoor or open water swimmer you probably don’t want to know too much about leptospirosis, or its more extreme form,...
LXVswim
- Apr 30, 2021
- 3 min
SWIMMINGPOD - DARRIN ROLES AND THE OXFORDSHIRE LOCK TO LOCK SWIM EVENTS
Darrin Roles is Eynsham man and boy. I have lived in Eynsham only since 1999, and have met him a number of times, increasingly so in the...
LXVswim
- Apr 13, 2021
- 4 min
SWIMMINGPOD – JULIET TURNBULL SWIMMING AND SINGING THE THAMES
‘She came in through the bathroom window’- the song welled up from the deep as I stumbled to the bathroom this morning, before any tea...
LXVswim
- Nov 22, 2020
- 4 min
SWIMMINGPOD – KRISTIE WALLER AND JUDY PEARSALL, WOMEN WHO SWIM TOGETHER
It is November, and Lockdown Two, which thankfully permits outdoor swimming as long as it is not at a venue. Hardwick Lake is closed for...
LXVswim
- Nov 12, 2020
- 5 min
SWIMMINGPOD – SWIM THE THAMES, WITH SEF PENROSE, JEREMY WELLINGHAM, CHRIS DALTON AND SHARON CURTIS
Most good ideas start with a conversation. This particular idea started with Sef and Jeremy mulling over swimming into the River Thames....
LXVswim
- Nov 2, 2020
- 3 min
SWIMMINGPOD - HELEN EDWARDS AND DIP-A-DAY ALL YEAR ROUND SWIMMING
Woman for All Seasons Helen Edwards has insinuated herself on my psyche almost by stealth. I honestly can’t remember when I met her...
LXVswim
- Oct 12, 2020
- 3 min
POSTSCRIPT TO 65@65
So in the end, the 65 swims at 65 years of age started with breakfast and finished with lunch, with burrata in both cases. This...
LXVswim
- Sep 13, 2020
- 4 min
65@65 SWIM #63 - COOKHAM, RIVER THAMES
When I took part in Swim the Thames, Cookham featured twice – the kilometer or so from Bourne End to Cookham, then a kilometer or so...
LXVswim
- Sep 3, 2020
- 8 min
65@65 SWIM #61 - KEW BRIDGE TO HAMMERSMITH, THE RIVER THAMES IN LONDON
That’s life. C’est la vie. So das ist das leben. It amounts to the same thing, which Scottish poet Robert Burns summarised as “the best...
LXVswim
- Sep 1, 2020
- 5 min
65@65 SWIM #60 - HAMPTON COURT, THE RIVER THAMES
“As long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset, I am in paradise” – this Kinks song from my early adolescence, was running through my head. David...
LXVswim
- Jul 16, 2020
- 5 min
65@65 SWIM #55 - THE THAMES AT MURDER CENTRAL (WALLINGFORD)
The weather was hot enough to want to murder someone. Early summer 2020 was the hottest on record for the UK, and after a day inside of...
LXVswim
- May 23, 2020
- 6 min
65@65 LOCK-DOWN SWIM – GODSTOW LOCK WITH ABBA
Abba is the happy-music that pops up when I am happy. Life somehow is less than surreal, but it could go from stage two back to stage one...
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