Heatwave, hottest day in October ever recorded - brilliant swimming, poor blogging. I rushed home on Friday night after three sweltering days in London, and toppled immediately into the sea with SW on Saturday morning. Strangely disappointing as SW had warned - he'd had a few days of impossible condiditons; waves and scum, despite the perfect external conditions. My support team said it was something to do with the new moon and the equinox (?! For reasons I have never fathomed, she seems to know all sorts of interesting and useful things like that) but whatever the causes, the Saturday sea was soupy and murky. Then we were nearly turned into shark-fin soup by a boat full of fishermen. Very unpleasant all round, but a swim none the less, and a high standard of banter involving a long and fascinating story about my breakfast. Not to be put off, I got in an evening swim that was pretty perfect - far better conditions and in the fading light the scum and murk were less noticeable. And the happy beach obscured by a fug of barbeque smoke at 7pm on a Saturday in October was an extraordinary but cockle-warming sight. Nowhere I'd rather be. Sunday morning found the whole team together; almost perfect conditions (though still murky) and a long, brilliant swim. Breakfast at The Hive was planned but rendered impossible by a queue almost out of the door by 10am. It was a foretaste of what was to come; snatching an hour at lunchtime I could barely squeeze my car into the carpark; there must have been 200 cars there. But the sea offered the peace and stillness as always and swimming 15 times further out than anyone else, I could look back at the beach and marvel at the wonders of the weather: no one does a heat wave like the British seaside, and this feels like the closing of the bracket opened in the April paradisical conditions.
That was US, were where you JJ?!
I went back to Brighton on Sunday and it was really just like the photo... By the evening it was amazing though, as night fell the beach and prom was packed with families and groups out having bbq's or sitting around. The smoke from all the fires and light from the moon was otherworldly. It felt like a big city on the med. Or a gathering at the Ganges. Definitely Brighton at its best.
ReplyDeleteOn Monday I managed to pack in a lunchtime swim at Kemp Town - the beach was quiet and for the first time in the year I have been travelling the water was clearer than in Dorset. The air and the water were so warm it was better than August. The real autumn might be a bit of a shock next week!
SW