LXVSWIM

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...

Most good ideas start with a conversation. This particular idea started with Sef and Jeremy mulling over swimming into the River Thames....

Woman for All Seasons Helen Edwards has insinuated herself on my psyche almost by stealth. I honestly can’t remember when I met her...

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...

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...

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...

“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...

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...

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...

“First of May! First of May, Outdoor ****ing starts today”. Rumpole of the Bailey, a fictional lawyer, a character in every sense of the...

I woke up this morning with the number 888 in my head. On Sunday 19th April, Pauline woke me with a cup of tea and “888”. I like numbers,...

If I were writing a letter to my beloved outdoor swimming, it might start ‘My dear Port Meadow…’. It would be written long-hand, with...

The loneliness of the social-distanced swimmer. I miss you all, and it’s only been a week or so. Pauline and I are nostalgic about the...

This one was unexpected, but should not have been. Emma had a swim-aversary, she had swum every day for a year. Every single day,...

The Christmas period 2019 was a special period for swimming and dipping. When the swims were so perfect in their own way and the...

Dodo – December Outdoor Dip Oxford; Dip Outdoor December Oxford; December Oxford Dip Outdoors. I am never sure how it goes, but however...

This felt very much like the last longer one before winter sets in. Thanks to Juliet and Hywel - lovely company, lovely day - the sun...

Port Meadow, Oxford in the morning, Hammersmith in the evening. Changing by the dodo tree in Oxford and watching the sun rise at water...

Thames again, Teddington to Richmond. Swim the Thames Group Missing Link Swim. Several years ago, a group of kindred souls swam the...

Not quite a moonlight swim, just a little too early for that. The birthday swim of Chris Dalton at a small beach a little downstream of...