13th January Kenwood Ladies Pond 9.30

MG

"Only a pond, but large enough to contain the human body and pure enough to reflect the sky"
Forster, A Room with a View

I'm writing this from a cafe where I'm still trying to come down from a euphoric high - Kenwood Ladies Pond, Hampstead Heath, Winter swim - DONE! 4 degrees, 5 minutes, and each minute a joy. I'd been introduced to a lady who swims here through the Winter, JS,  and arranged to meet her at Highgate Tube at 9.30. I'd been feeling nervous about this swim - it's been a month since I was last in, the 3 degrees the pond was last week is colder than anything I've done before - but equally I knew that if JS swam and I didn't I'd regret it to my dying day. And when I see the beautiful ponds and the four or five bobbing heads there is no question or moment of doubt. JS introduces me to the lifeguards ("she swims in the sea!" at which they look suitably impressed) and then we're changing amongst a gaggle of breathless, glowing women. I feel like someone who's been living abroad for years and suddenly I'm surrounded by people speaking my language. I pull on my boots (thank god for the boots) and follow JS to the ladder in. She's in and away, and, turning only to make a terrified grimace at the lifeguards, I lower myself in and am away before I can question it. AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING. It's cold of course, a slow, burning cold, but no stabbing pains or breathlessness, completely manageable (aided hugely by the boots and my discombobulating hat). I swim out and from ladder to ladder (not too far away as I'm worried I might cramp up or lose the feeling in my hands and be unable to get out) and out, and then repeat this twice more, even managing an underwater moment in the green, gentle water. I've often swum here in the suumer, but summer or winter, every time I come I just cannot belive how lucky and privilged we are to have this amazing "facility" 20 minutes from Oxford Circus.

I emerge glowing and euphoric and change far more leisurely and calmly than I can on the beach - I must say, a warm changing room and not the howling wind and total exposure of the beach, does make a huge differene. SW thinks that this is one of our biggest challenges. But when I think how cold I was after the much warmer conditions of the Sharrah Pool and then one of our Autumn swims when KH had to go to bed with two hot water bottles - cold really does seem to be relative, and a lot to do with your state of mind.

It's a fantastic, indescribably good, way to start the day and I feel quite ridiculously pleased with myself as JS and I re-combobulate over coffee and croissants at Kenwood House (lush) and talk swimming like two jackdaws. On the Northern line home, the sad and solemn grey faces are the shade to my sunshine. I've got a feeling that's not my last Hampstead swim this winter.....