Category: Swimming

#245 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Swimming, YardeningLeave a comment

This was a day with an unexpected ending. Today was a yardening day. Almost a year since we exchanged an exposed but fertile country garden for a coastal, white painted, stone yard.  Yardening has been a huge surprise. Today the plan was to weed and tame the jungle that the yard has become, unexpectedly fertile too.

All went to plan, but with the temperature at 23 degrees it was quite the labour of love. A sea swim was suggested but the tide was not our friend. Then we planned a swim in a local outdoor pool. The website was decidedly wonky and ultimately we couldn’t book a session.  The alternative, an ice cream and some sunbathing was a good enough plan. Until we got too hot. Retreat into the house was timely in two ways. We really were too hot, but the curious twist was an email from the cranky website that said we had managed to book a swimming session.

We were very certain we hadn’t , but a cooling swim was exactly what we needed. Arrival at the pool confirmed the crankiness of the website. Apparently everyone who visited the webpage had been given swim sessions without payment. The pool was far from full so we did that old fashioned thing of buying two tickets and prepared for a dip.

Tinside Lido

This pool is probably very familiar to anyone in Britain who watches the BBC. This image is one of the regular infills between TV programmes. As you can see it was not very busy at all and we had a wonderful swim in the historic pool.

There was another lovely bonus, bright sunshine and recently cleaned 1930’s glass bricks in the shower area gave the most wonderful distorted, abstracted views of the pool.

A fine end to a busy day.

Pandemic Pondering #515

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Summer, sunshine, Swimming1 Comment

Summer seemed to get out of bed at a reasonable time of day this morning. August often disappoints, the good days outnumbered by those that do not quite hit the spot.

As Bilbo Baggins says to Gandalph in Lord of the Rings.

 “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

Sun and warmth are the butter of summer and they have been so thinly spread, recently, that summer feels very similar to Mr Baggins bread. Nothing like as tasty and comforting as summers should. I fear arriving early on the morning of 24th of August is too late. A little autumn chill is hiding in the long shadows of this morning.

I was grateful that this location was a dog walk this morning and that I could keep my clothes on. Early morning swimmers braved the same waters that I dipped in last night. There is a biting edge when you submerge, the water temperature is dropping, almost a whole degree in a day yesterday. Hot drinks are required again after a swim, shocking behaviour, August is the time for iced latte not hot chocolate!

So August, one week to go, time to show us some of the warm stuff …

Pandemic Pondering#454

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Rituals, SwimmingLeave a comment

Summer solstice, the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere has been rather a damp squib. ( A squib is a small firework, a damp one does not go off. Thus a damp squib of a day fails to live up to expectation.) The dawn swim occurred with a backdrop of gently changing greys and raindrops landing on our salty faces. The Bobbers, of course, were a brightly coloured pod of swimmers all there to be in the water at sunrise to support the three Bobbers who were in the water to swim a kilometre for a local charity. Dry land supporters were also there. Visible sunrise, or not, the elite Bobbers raised just over £800 for local charity Barefoot Project.

https://www.barefoot.org.uk/

The gap between sunrise and sunset continued to be a damp and grey day but a solstice is a solstice and Bobbers who could not make the early morning dip commited to swimming at sunset.

The sun turned up just in time to set, like a friend who makes it to an agreed meeting five minutes before everyone else has to leave. Not one to just slip in quietly the sun was spectacular.

Even blessing the Madonna with a large coffee cup with some rainbow bathing, what a difference 16 hours makes!

Eventually only two Bobbers made both a sunrise and sunset swim.

But it was a day well lived.

Pandemic Pondering #398

On By theoldmortuary.designIn dog walks, Hugo and Lola, Swimming, Van LifeLeave a comment

The bright sunlight of Sunday turned this blog into a riot of blue and green. Starting at 8 am with vivid seaweed.

From the exact same location I could turn around to show you the sillouettes of the trees that were trimmed last week.

Its not only the trees that got a trim this week. Hannah also got a haircut this week so we are 25% tidy @theoldmortuary as Hugo and Lola can look pretty shaggy after only 4 weeks away from their salon visits.

The post swim dash to breakfast took us past this Ceanothus and this gorgeous door.

After a morning spent on human pursuits the dogos waited patiently for their turn, with a bit of a blue background.

A dog walk on a slightly different part of the coast found one more blue and green image.

So here we are, its Monday again.

Lets start the week with a splash!

Pandemic Pondering #397

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Hugo and Lola, Serendipity, SwimmingLeave a comment
Normal blogging service will resume later this morning. Its a swim lesson day and I haven’t even made the sandwiches!

So a late start for the blog but with the added bonus of some dog pictures. The stand out feature of this weekend has been the wind. A very brisk Easterly blowing into Plymouth Sound affecting everything weve done. Al Fresco Dining, Bobbing, and dog walking. Nothing I’ve produced photographically has shown the severity of the wind. Anecdotally Miss Lola was blown off her legs yesterday. A situation only remedied by a very tight cuddle. The swimming lesson outing required the van to keep Miss Lola on board and in a good mood.

Hugo was also not averse to a bit of van comfort while swimming lessons were affecting the quality of his Sunday morning.

Some outdoor activity was permitted in the morning schedule. Lola agreed to a pose that demonstrated the wind direction.

Hugo also attempted a similar pose but just ended up looking messy.

The most important part of the day was guarding the beach awaiting the return of the swimmers.

Pandemic Pondering #384

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, SwimmingLeave a comment

Sometimes you have to get up early for the twinkliest of moments. We got double twinkle yesterday. -1 degree and a frosty car as we set off very twinkly. Then a twinkly sea to swim in.

We only exchanged christmas gifts last week, during Easter. This weekend we got to use some of them. Swimming lessons and a silk shirt, neither particularly suited to the day but we are living in unusual times .

I got the easier option of wearing a new orange silk shirt while walking the dogs.

Hannah opted for orange accessories for her swimming lesson. Accidentally orange became the colour of the moment as an orange noodle was thrown to her during the early part of the lesson.

https://www.aceswimming.co.uk/

Me and the dogs watching on the beach.

Just a tiny tweak on the saturation of this photo shows up the orange of the tow floats as the lesson continues. It also gives the shine on the sea a pale purple hue which matched the weed I was leaning near to get these photos

Then as the lesson concluded I got a lovely splash of the complimentary colour to orange. Turquoise. This was not a cunning plan to introduce colour theory into the Monday blog!

Just luck, but serendipity does play a large part in these blogs. Because as luck/serendipity would have it we have a red flask for post swim warming up. Another portion of colour theory is that a small dash of red can improves the overall look of a picture. The same could be said for this blog.

For the story about a dot of red read this.

https://www.cassart.co.uk/blog/colour-speaks-volumes.htm

An accidental lesson in colour theory during a deliberate swimming lesson. Pandemic Pondering in a nutshell.

Pandemic Pondering #369

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Gardens and gardening, SwimmingLeave a comment

Four Seasons in One Day.
Yesterday was a funny old day weatherwise. There were two sea swimming sessions planned but the weather forecast of the evening before suggested that neither would be possible. Heavy rain and a nasty wind might make things tricky.

We made a firm commitment to the morning session when we woke up  and the sun was out. Almost the minute the wetsuits were on a sharp shower of rain appeared.  Undeterred we set off and were rewarded by an empty beach and a calm sea.

Good swimming was had even though the tide was out.

©Debs Bobber
©Debs Bobber

It was out so far I could make a close inspection of a rock that had stripped some skin off my leg during a swim a few weeks ago. The surface, despite this cute shell picture, is like razor blades to a flailing limb.

The swim set us up for a session of gardening . The first serious gardening session after winter is always a bit gooey. Moving overwintered stores of garden waste and taming the jungle that has a duel purpose of emergency winter dog loo and a summer lawn . Once the poo was picked up two strimmers attempted the task of taming the long grass. Both failed with spool issues, a trip to the DIY store was required, coincidentally about the same time as the second swim was planned. As we were in the area it would have been rude not to check on the swimmers who had chosen the afternoon slot for swimming. What a difference a few hours had made. Still bright sunshine but the nasty wind had arrived and despite it being high tide the swimmers were kept very close to shore.

The sneaky weather had also given them the chance of the bay to themselves. Moments after they got out of the water the rain arrived.

Followed by a rainbow or two.

Too much of a good thing when the excitement of a DIY store is the planned event of the evening, we set off into the sunset to collect strimmer spools. Oh the excitement and glamour of a Friday night in Pandemic restrictions.

Have a fabulous week end.