Burton Bradstock 2.00 Thursday 17th March

MG

I'm hankering after a Dartmoor swim – Cullever Steps, or Spitchwick Common, or the mythical, cosmic Glaze Brook where the universe may implode if I dare dip, but after some debate, PJ (famous for her startling fortitude at the Sharrah Pool, see 11th October 2010) makes the trip eastwards from Exeter, deciding that there is plenty of time ahead for the Dartmoor rivers when the water is a little less, shall we say, refreshing.

So it is we make our slow way to Burton on this glorious, perfect, truly springing day. "This is the weather the cuckoo likes, and so do I" and all that jazz. Despite urgings by self and, surprisingly, by the non-support support team (who gets more supportive by the day; in this case even helpfully pressing swimming costumes on the unwilling PJ) I'm a lone shark again and change and saunter, pausing only to accept PJ's admiration of my boots. Today even my first steps in are joyous as ahead of me in the wave break I can see that FINALLY the water is clear, gin clear, right down to the sandy bottom. This is the thing I have been most looking forward to, and I fall in and surge ahead with only a song in my heart.

It's amazing, I'd say the best swim of the year, but each in their own way is the best. This though feels different in the same way that the late October and November swims felt different; the seasons are changing and the water with them. I can swim without any agony, only two dips and each long and lingering, and I could easily stay in longer and swim further. What an absolute JOY it is to have this privilege, rising and falling with the slight swell, and gazing onward at the shadow of the Golden Cap in the unfaltering sunshine.

Knowing we have tea outside ahead of us, I don't go under and so miss out on the nerve tingling brain freeze I so love – but this does enable me to avoid any chill at all, as I leisurely chat and change into a motley collection of post-swimwear, which causes PJ to wince. And then – perfect conclusion, several enormous slices of cake over which we wonder, does breakfast, lunch and tea count as a triathlon?

West Bay 14th March, 5.00

MG

Too rough to swim alone (and that's actually NOT an excuse, it really was; waves coming in sideways) so the Mascot and I walk and talk instead.

Hopefully get another swim later in the week..... How cold are the rivers? Too cold?

Snettisham, Norfolk, Sunday 13th March 11.15am

J.J.

At last my first sea swim of 2011. I feel extremely shamefaced that it has taken so long it's March for goodness sake! Starting a two month  late New Year resolution to not be so lazy I cycle 8 miles to meet my support team for the morning. Hoping that the exercise will nullify my reluctance to plunge the murky depths and armed with the essential flask of tea and some cinnamon buns we set off for the coast.
The sky turns to that ominous bruised grey which threatens with the promise of rain as we make our way past the endless sad looking caravan parks to Snettisham beach.There is always a bleak melancholy around holiday resorts in the winter season so by the time we reach the car park my resolve is wavering.
Horribly self conscious we make our way down to the shore, I pull myself together as for one it isn't snowing so it really can't be that bad even with a mass audience of dog walkers. Not a very big tide today only about 5.5m so a little bit of wading will be required, I'm soon standing shivering in my costume pulling on the very essential gloves and giving directions on how to work my rubbish point and shoot camera. I am very proud to say even after a months break since the pond swim in January that I can still wade in calmly and strike out with no exclamations or screaming. Clearly as I haven't been swimming  at least four times a week I'm not acclimatised so I can say with confidence that it is definitely warmer than December the 27th. I'm not thrashing about in a futile attempt to stop my arms and legs seizing up but actually swimming! I manage to swim parallel with shore and back again and decide to get out wading through the shallows my feet sinking into the mud in that kind of disgusting but slightly satisfying way. My support team hands me the towel which  I am able to grasp with both hands and I stand feeling lovely and warm as the sun breaks through the cloud. Basking in the sun I decide to go in for another dip, even after the support team has voiced doubts about whether my legs are supposed to be that colour of scarlet. It feels lovely with sun on the water an actual sign stronger than snowdrops and daffs that spring has arrived after so many false starts. I finally get out as I feel the chill creeping up my legs. I mange to dress slowly and not in the mad dash that normally follows a winter dip. Still incredibly grateful for hot sweet tea post swim. Cycling home next to the River Ouse on an incredible high, just so happy to have been in the sea.

 This evening as I was watching more of the footage from the tsunami in Japan I was left with an overwhelming feeling of being so small and powerless in the face of such immense force and destruction. It seemed completely unreal to have spent the morning floating in such calm sea waters.

Burton Bradstock Sunday 13th March 5.00pm

MG

SW is house bound by a cold which is probably more annoying for him than for me on this glorious day, so I won't go on about it. I'm slightly over swimming by myself (there's no one to laugh at my jokes or pour the cocoa) but as the day steadily improves until by tea time there's barely a cloud in the sky, I know I'll regret it if I don't. So I descend from the hill top where I've been walking the Mascot and the Hairy Aunt, and put in an appearance at Burton. I've been so anxious to miss the Sunday crowds that I've actually left it a bit late, and am just hopefully wondering if it isn't too cold, when the sun breaks clear of the only cloud in the sky and everything is cast with it's rosey balm. I give myself a pep talk ("it's going to be fine, everything's going to be fine") struggle out of my clothes and advance. The water is much clearer than it's been for a while, but I must say it does feel cold, not helped by my practically falling in as the bottom drops away after three steps. But the feeling of the warm sun on my face as I strike out is unbeatable, and looking back at the empty beach, and up at the blue sky – it's worth it without a doubt. This is a good one.

I'm in for ages on my third dip, and force myself in when going underwater causes a fairly spectacular brain freeze. As I change a knowledgeable family approaches on the horizon "have you been going in all year?... yes, I thought you must have been". I feel proud and reflective as I think back on the year (I'll save my reflections for SW) and gaze rather dreamily at them. They clearly think I'm insane, particularly when the woman asks me if I do triathalons, which though extremely gratifying, will inspire hilarity in anyone who knows me… (lazybones).

I jump in the car and motor home singing along to The Beatles "I'd like to be, under the sea, in an octupus's garden in the shade….". Yes, I would.

Ps I'm thinking it's almost time for KH to put in an appearance. KH?? You know you want to…

Kenwood Ladies Pond, Monday 7th March 12.00

MG

I'm still on a soaring high from our holiday, and to calm my jangling nerves and fight off the onset of a crippling depression brought about by the return to real life, I make the pilgrimage to Hampstead. It's a perfect day for it – clear blue skies, and London actually looking quite beautiful; it's a very clever city at sudden surprises, reminding you that maybe it isn't all traffic, and Oxford Circus, and filing, and tourists getting in your way and never seeing the sky… look hard enough and you might find this…

I meander across the Heath, for once getting neither lost nor furious as I make my slow way to the ponds. There they are, still, glassy, green, but appetising all the same. There's a lady just getting out, and another arrives as I leave, so there is clearly a steady flow even at what must be the slowest part of the morning. We have some banter, and again, there's that brilliant feeling of shared understanding between winter swimmers; we're mad to everyone else, but to each other, it's the best sort of sanity.

I approach the water and agonise as I slither down the ladder and in; it's 6 degrees –  exactly the same as when I came in January, which seems surprisingly constant. It's cold. But the birds are singing and the sun is warm on my face as I strike out across the water. I'm in too long I think, doing several rounds (I must be careful about this) – I only get out when my hands start to tingle and a strange spasm like a tentacle shoots across my arm. Of course, it may actually be a tentacle….

I change leisurely and a lady arrives and is in and out before I'm even in my third layer tshirt. She is totally breathless as she comes back in, glowing, but gasping, which I remember from my first swim last year (April – when I nearly died and SW and I looked like we had been peeled after two minutes in the water), but haven't experienced for ages. I gaze reminiscently and slightly nostalgically at her struggle for air as her lungs look like they are about to close up. What happy days those were.

Despite easy breathing, I'm cold and dash across the Heath to Kenwood for several cups of recombobulating tea and bowls of stew. Our holiday and all it's various treats may be over, but for a good few weeks more at least, the icy, life giving water is going nowhere. As SW reassuringly says as I later lament the approach of warmer waters (!! That's a joke… sort of…) "I think we can shiver at any temperature if we stay in long enough and dive deep enough".

Criccieth - North Wales, or How to Lose your Head in Wales, 5th March 7.45 am

MG

Put an obsessive wild swimmer in charge of a holiday and you will probably find that all roads lead somewhere watery. Thus it was that ECP and I set out on our merry (some might say too merry) way, roadtripping around the Northerly coastal corner of Wales, swimming costume, fleecy tracksuit bottoms and wetsuit boots securely packed. Wales is awash with swimming spots – the Wye at Hay, famous for almost washing me away while my lifeguard read poetry under a tree; the expanse of Whitesands near St David's where JJ and I were the only ones wetsuit-less a few years ago. I've been dying to swim in the tarns over Snowdon for years, but even I will concede that they may not be at their best in March. But after last week's success, I'm buoyed up and determined to take the plunge somewhere.

But it isn't till day three that a perfect opportunity arises. Well, that's sort of true. It isn't till day three that an opportunity SO perfect that I can't ignore it and claim that the water is too shallow, too rough, too dangerous for me to swim alone… It's not that I don't want to, but as previously discussed, an icy plunge isn't always exactly what one feels like...

Criccieth was already highlighted in gold for me by it's description in the guide book; "when Victorian sea bathing became fashionable, English families descended on the sweeping sand and shingle beach at Criccieth…". Yes please. Without any especial effort I have managed to book us into a B&B literally 50 yards from the sea, which almost causes me to spontaneously combust with over excitement. I send SW a few exhilaratory texts, and go to sleep knowing that a pre-breakfast swim is in the offing, which triggers a lovely dream in which I am a seagull, perched on the Battenberg cliffs of Westbay. It is hard to shake this off as, luxury of luxuries, I can hear the sea and the other seagulls from my bed as I awake. I wish every morning started like this. In daylight we've got the most fantastic look out on the flat calm water stretching away and the sun blearily shining.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I do some prancing, but at least it's confined to our room, ECP eventually pushing me out with a "are you going or not?!". The spectre of HL and her fearless swim before breakfast in Brighton last week makes it totally impossible for me to bail; if she were here we would have had sixteen swims already, and she probably would have swum to Dublin and back. So I prance down the stairs and out to the car to grab my towel, then gallop down to the beach. ECP is watching for the "not waving but drowning" signal from our bedroom window, and gives me the thumbs up as I assume an air of nonchanclence, change and swagger down. And then – joy of joys, I'm swimming.

I do a few bursts, work through the burn, and by my last stretch, as always, I feel I could stay in for hours. It's indescribable. With Criccieth castle to my left, the mountains of Snowdonia vaguely visible ahead, and the glassy sea and misty sky blurring into each other, this is what Roger Deakin describes as Dream Swimming, suspended in time and space. It's peerless, perfection, stillness, peace and bliss.

After eventually dragging myself out, changing (and accepting congratulations from a passing dog walker) I make the mistake of wading in to rinse out my swimming costume and without my boots, the burn in my toes is alarming, which shows how essential the boots are. The feeling is starting to flood back with a vengeance, and by the time I'm back in our room I'm feeling a bit chilled, to say the least – soon sorted by a hot shower (oh for one of these on the beach! SW?!) and followed by an enormous swimmer's breakfast.

"Was it you in the sea?" asks our landlady "My husband said some nutter had gone in the water…". She follows up this cracker with stories of leatherback turtles and dolphins in the bay, and most excitingly, a killer whale which had been biting the heads off the seals last summer. I'm relieved to be able to leave Criccieth not only having gone down in legend as A Nutter, but also with my head held high, and, still attached.

Thursday 24th February, The Hive, 9.15

MG

After another failed swim attempt earlier in the week, we have resolved to swim today by hook or by crook. I have lobbied for a swim outing to Ringstead after the West Bay sea on Wednesday was a muddied silver with thrashing waves and a layer of scum. On top of the customary February battle to overcome the internal hibernation voice, it's not enough to persuade us. In my mind, Ringstead is a paradise of still waters and clear sea – though in fact I'm basing this on a few August visits, so who knows really. But time is pressing on us, and we agree to assess conditions in the early morning.

Waking up to the dulcet tones of Jim Naughtie proclaiming that today's weather would be "spring-like" SW and I are in textual communication quite ridiculously early and arrange to meet at Burton at 9.15; the Ringstead outing must await another day. "Are you going to the leisure centre?" asks my non-support support team, suspiciously watching me fill a thermos with cocoa "ummm…." I avert "it depends on your definition of "leisure centre"…".

At the still sleeping beach (I don't think I've ever been here so early) the sun is just squinting through the scudding clouds, and the waves, though still annoyingly thrashy, muddied and breaking just on the shelf, are certainly better than previous days this month. And at least there is no wind. SW is jubilant and enthusiastic. I want to be. But I'm battling the internal voice; February seems to have been the month that really takes insistence and determination not to just curl up and have a snooze. SW ignores my whining as we change and advance. The first spray is like a hail of bullets and I feel like crying. The waves look enormous and every time there's a calm patch a monster wave appears on the horizon. After several minutes of agonised prancing (yes, PRANCING! What has happened to us!) I run back up the beach to get my camera to capture SW drying his wings, cormorant style, in a valiant attempt to have as little contact with the water as possible...

But then, just as I'm really considering giving up, SW is suddenly in, actually swimming. Now there's no question and choosing my moment I grit my teeth, throw myself in and join him. The glow of satisfaction meets the burn of cold almost cancelling it out. We're swimming! At last! We do many bursts in the end, in and out, surfing in on the waves which once in are not as frightening as I'd thought, though at one point I do give SW permission to drink the cocoa if I drown. "We really ought to stop" he says as we poise on the edge for another dip, but it's just too tempting – the rush and submerge, the burn, the thrill and jubilation, followed by hysteria – it seems more pronounced this time than for a long time, perhaps because I'd come so close to bailing, perhaps because it has been 5 weeks since our last swim (though some would say 3…), perhaps because the water must be at about it's coldest point of the year now. Eventually, after a few more runs and dives, we skip back to the towels and the cocoa, to toast SW who has now officially swum every single month of the year; I have next month still to do. But despite this, I allow myself much self congratulation.

Not even washing seagull mess off my car for the third day running can dampen my exhilaration; as SW memorably said after one of our November swims "I have seaweed in my hair and sand in my eye, I am happy".