Thursday 25th November West Bay 12.00

Sea Temp; 10 degrees

MG

Feeling thoroughly depressed after 11 days cold-turkey on Winter swimming, I made the mistake of taking a cyber swim through the other blogs around – one led to another – and within minutes I had depressed myself even further by reading about other people's unbelievably brave attempts in challenging conditions; rivers, lidos, even the Lakes. Suddenly our swims no longer seem quite so impressive. I can only appeal to our non-support support teams NOT to look at http://segingembre.blogspot.com/so that they can carry on being touchingly impressed by our endeavours. On the other hand, if they want to be reassured that we are not certifiable, perhaps a glimpse might be helpful – at least we are not fainting in the changing rooms (if only we HAD changing rooms) as they are at Tooting Bec Lido….

Encouraged by the weatherman closing his report of snow in Newcastle, the North East and a scattering over Cornwall, with the words "good luck" I retire to bed determined to swim the next day whatever the weather may bring. And the next day, PERFECT conditions. After several misses, SW and I grasp the opportunity to coincide for the first time in weeks, and I leap in my car and down to the sea as soon as I get his call. The North Wind whistling over the car park burns through me, and despite my and The Mascot's enthusiasm on seeing SW, I can only gasp out a welcoming sentence. We stagger up the ridge and look down on the beach. Works on the gravel yard that make up the car park here have extended and now the entire length of the beach seems to have been turned into a motorway with deep ruts and gulleys created by lorries driving up and down. Consequently, the beach is deserted and possibly ruined for the time being – but it is too beautiful a day to get irate now, and we head to the Winter Bathing Spot without much further ado.

The sea is flat calm, azure blue and when I gallop down to the surf, I see that the water has finally, after a long wait, returned to crystal clear. There's no time to waste and we begin unpeeling our layers, trying to pace ourselves so there is no exposure of skin to wind until we are both ready. We are keenly watched by an aghast workman.

Then final peel, and dash. I am cracking open my thermal swimming hat, but the moment spent in the wind, in my costume, putting on my hat, nearly does for me. Once it's on I dash and am in while SW is still wincing in the shallows. In some extraordinary way, my hat seems to act not only to warm my head, but to insulate me entirely from reality. I can feel a distant burn in my toes, but inside my hat, I could be sitting by a roaring fire. Instead of being pleasing, this completely discombobulates me and I cannot seem to access my feelings or my symptoms which normally fill my thoughts for the first moments of the swim. When SW asks how it is, I call back "it's fine!" without any consideration of how it actually is. This lack of brain freeze, lack of connection with the environment is too much and I wade back to tear off my hat before plunging back. Paralysing brain freeze greets me as I dive and I welcome it with open arms. Is this totally insane?!

But now I can recognise the true AWESOMENESS of this swim. I could stay in and stay in and stay in – I'm tingling but it is completely manageable and the beauty of West Bay, the sun on the water, the deserted beach, the mascot barking on the shoreline – whatever amazing feats other Winter Swimmers all over England are achieving, none, NONE, can possibly be as incredible as this!

As usual we're wary of staying in too long, so exit too soon. SW is suffering – hopefully it is just from the lack of his swimming booties which he swears by at colder temperatures, and not from having completely screwed up his acclimatisation schedule by his warm dips in Madeira. I advise cold baths and frequent swims. But we do agree on numb fingertips and topes, so much so that it isn't till I get home that I realise that a) my clothes are all on inside out and back to front b) I've put my boot on with my hair clip inside it, crushing it into jagged sharp pieces with a foot so numb I haven't even noticed!

We're breathless and tingling so we cross the car park at a strange floating gallop and part at the cars in a dash to get to our heaters, hardly having exchanged a word. It's all happened in a blur, for which I blame my swimming hat. And the lack of a bar. But we do agree that a hot tub or a sauna like they have at Tooting Bec Lido would really be the business right now.

We're all (except possibly KH….) praying for snow – I think the lucky old Norfolk outpost may beat us there…..