Another great ‘ Bobbing’ session and time to share another vegetable carving story.

A different bobber did something saintly last week and was rewarded with a carved parsnip digit hidden in the wall near our swimming beach. The carrot finger of the previous week had been nearly nibbled away by local wildlife.

But two days after delivery to the reliquary the Parsnip thumb is looking remarkably fresh.

Obviously in normal times this would all seem a little mad, and of course it is. But in a pandemic lockdown a little vegetable humour can go a long way. Cold water swimming is not only good for the swimmers . It also gives the walkers nearby something to enjoy watching and talking about. Every time we go out for a swim we also get to talk to complete strangers , some who also swim and others who think we are as Mad as March Hares for doing so. It is an absolute bonus to stand in the sunshine, in this third lockdown and talk about whatever comes to mind with whoever is around, all at a safe distance of course.

Bobbing, exercise and safety but so much more.

Bobbers the Whatsapp group was formed to give a group of friends some safety in their first year of year -round sea swimming. No one ever swims alone and we nearly always have an on-land observer who keeps an eye on the ‘ bobbers’ who have decided a time to swim together. Some of us have known each other more than thirty years, some others just a few months and today a new bobber joined us.

The safety aspect was underlined today when we heard of the sad death, yesterday, of a fellow open water swimmer, in the next bay to our own.

Bobbing has given us all a fresh new friendship group and the topics of conversation post swim are wide ranging.

The startled look on my face on the header image is the effect of two bobbing sessions.

Yesterday  Bobbers hit the beach early to avoid too many people. Overnight the beach had been used for outdoor drinking and it was a dreadful mess. One organised ‘ Bobber’ cleared all the rubbish from the beach and stacked it by the rubbish bins. 

On the way back to the cars the same bobber saved a dogs life as she swooped him out from under the wheels of a car as he ran away from his owner. She was declared a Saint for the day. Witty chat suggested that we break off her fingers in order to have a valuable saintly relic.

This morning she arrived with a gift.

We swim very close to a convent , it took very little effort to store the finger within its own protected reliquary within the convent wall.

But as things do, in post swimming conversations, one thing led to another and the finger found an amazing spiders trap.

Which pretty much demonstrates a post bobbing conversation. Loudly covering a million topics and sometimes getting lost down a complex and convoluted hole.