#497 theoldmortuary ponders

I am the green message. The subtext was “I’ve just had a shower and I’m really warm and snug, a bob is the last thing on my mind but the dogs do need a walk so I will come for a natter”

This was the Bobbing zone. It was very persuasive.

Do you call this a dog walk?

As luck would have it there was no one else about. My coat came off and soon after it all my clothes. With a rising tide and a super quick submersion no one was any the wiser. The rising tide did cause a small problem.

Nothing that multi layers and deft dressing couldn’t cope with, the sunshine was very competent at drying me off and the reward was iced gems for all.

Where is the ponder in that I hear you all asking. Well…

Just about every local dog walk takes me past the sea. The only walk I do that doesn’t feature actual water is the Ferry Port and Royal Marine Barracks where there are security cameras and men with very big guns to dissuade casual water entry, casual anything really. In the winter, on a dog walk, my mindset is always one of gratitude that I am not about to plunge into the sea. This morning was no exception. I was fresh out of the shower and wrapped up very warmly against a bracing walk in 4 degrees centigrade. A natter with bobbing friends while doing the dog walk was as close to bobbing as I was prepared to get, until the sun lured me to take my coat off while they were getting ready to swim. We were in a sun trap and there were very few people about. The dogs were preparing to bask on the warm rocks and before I knew it my socks and boots were off, quickly followed by everything else. A very quick entry into the sea and my fate was sealed, I was bobbing. It was high tide so even getting out was easy to do unobserved. A moment in the sun, unplanned and lovely.

Temptation at 4 degrees

#383 theoldmortuary ponders

Farewell Gilly Bobber. The bobbers gathered for a goodbye gathering for a bobber who is moving to West Sussex. Gilly has been a musical addition to our bobbing gang for some time. She wears a raspberry beret and cocktail length swimming gloves. Which always promotes the other bobbers into a Prince tribute act.

A good selection of bobbers gathered today to see her off the premises.

Bobbing and bobbers are one of the great positives to have come out of the Covid years. Time to use a fabulous quote from Mark Twain to send Gilly on her way.

Goodbye Gilly from our home bobbing safe harbour.

#317 theoldmortuary ponders.

Surprises are lovely things and I have had or witnessed a few in the last few days. The first was a gift of speciality soughdough over the weekend. What a loaf, full of flavour, and full of flavour sensation and memories. Asian Street Food and Brixton market sprang to mind. Partnered with cured meats, smoked  fish and cheese, all tasted wonderful paired with this bread but the real magic happened when the bread got old enough to enter the toast zone. Fusion fabulousness happened when Gochujang sourdough met Marmite with Truffle. Quite the Surprise!

Surprise 2 was a gift from a neighbour.

How unbelievably kind, pertinent because he knows how often I pass his house on my way to the sea for a bob. Pertinent also because we have both washed up on the shores of Stonehouse via a life in London where swimming at the ponds was once a part of life. And so, with this book,as so often happens, we are back to bobbing which has also been full of surprises in the last 24 hours.

There was a rather grumpy impatient swimmer who barged past the bobbers last night before throwing himself into the sea with no fuss or preparation.

Moments later another unusual event occured. A small wedding celebration on the beach.

The colours behind the happy couple lead to another surprise. After the bob I was thrilled to see Stage drapes, created from one of my seascapes, set up in my studio. Nothing could quite prepare me for seeing my watercolour, sumptuously replicated on a huge scale on draping silk.

I could have endlessly played with the flowing fabric but it has serious work to do and the next time I see this fabric it will be at a distance on a stage. With a mind full of flowing blues and greens I go off to make a cup of tea and just when my head and heart are full of lovely surprises one of my sunflowers decides to get into the surprise game. Behind her large beaming head she has grown a little sister, what a surprise!

#170 theoldmortuary ponders

Planning a bob got a little easier last night. Miss Spearmint the over friendly seal was transported away from Plymouth Sound. Unusually for a seal she craved human company. The Bobbers knew not to swim if she was spotted anywhere near our chosen swimming beach. Checking her whereabouts on a local WhatsApp group became the fourth thing to check when a bob was called.

Tide✓ Weather✓Daylight✓ Seal✓

We were really diligent but despite our best efforts we sometimes had to abandon a bob when she casually swam up and joined us. Other people despite plenty of information locally were not so thoughtful and deliberately interacted with her or fed her, something she seemed to love but that was not good for her.

Earlier this week she took her love of humans to a new level and pulled herself into a small village and chose to take her daily nap under a lorry. For her own safety she will be relocated, again. We can only imagine her reaction when she was told.

Bobbers are going to miss her. Had we known she was going, she could have had one of our special waves.

#61 theoldmortuary ponders.

Storm Barra delivered a Sea Heart this morning.

An unusually high tide made these liquid hearts on the rocks that litter our swimming beach. The steps further along also got a little magical drenching.

And for now the sun is out. On days like this, wrapped up in lovely warm clothes I wonder why I choose to whip my everythings off and swim in this exact location. But when I’m in it it is the best feeling in the world.

#45 theoldmortuary ponders

Todays blog was knocked off the front page by another story of bobbing. This is how tranquil the area was when we went for a dip last night. But what lies underneath?

A playful seal! Spearmint the seal joined the two distance swimmers at the furthest buoy and swam back with them to one of the other swimmers. They calmly warned her that they were not alone. Not trusting them at all she disbelieved them. Calm, was not, in truth, how any of them were feeling . An onlooker who was alerted by their excited chatter said she had never seen anyone swim back to the shore so fast. On arrival back in Tranquility bay Spearmint played around with two other bobbers before noticing that the others were getting out, she joined them in a rush for the beach and the video that follows was her being calm with a background soundtrack of excited chatter.

©Teresa

Teresa, the quick thinking onlooker who filmed this also had a video of Spearmint having her supper.

©Teresa
©Teresa

I think it is safe to say that the whole encounter was a lot more exciting for the humans, Miss Spearmint just takes the whole thing very much in her stride.

©Teresa

Soon after she returned to the sea the water if not the ‘ bobbers’ was entirely tranquil.

Pandemic Pondering#454

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 #451

Recycle, repurpose, reuse

This reused headstone gave me all the excuse I needed to repurpose the same outing into another blog. The gravestone forms part of a beach footpath that is regularly damaged by winter storms and high tides. Another reason for recycling is that bobbing at Wembury is far more gentle than our usual locations and I could take the camera into the sea using my dry bag/float without worry of mishap.

St Werburghs Church from the sea.
The South West Coastal Path heading to Heybrook Bay from the sea.
Wembury Beach from the Sea

We met another Bobber this morning, she lives just round the corner from here but chooses to swim the rougher waters of Plymouth Sound because the company of other bobbers on a regular basis is an experience not to be missed.

Cornish Bobber, Local Bobber

Sea weed and sea water from the sea were also small excitements of the morning.

Back on dry land we found a coastal lily and a pretty piece of driftwood.

Then after a quick peek at the view from the car park…

Looking towards the Mewstone.

… we set off to visit some friends who are in the middle of a big building project. Having lived through the big rebuilding project that was @theoldmortuary a few years ago there is something nostalgic but not necessarily in a good way about seeing people trying to live their best life in an atmosphere of disruption and concrete dust. The thing that is great about visiting people in the middle of a big build is their expertise in making ‘ builders tea’ which is the perfect way to drink tea after a swim.

A quickly recycled blog for a Saturday. The original one will follow this, as these things do in a newest on top way. Have a great weekend.

Pandemic Pondering #427

This over saturated sky is not benign. Todays ‘ Bob’ was always a risky call, the weather is just dire currently. No one could have anticipated a hail storm in May. It was the weirdest sensation to swim with piercing needles of ice bombarding our out of water flesh and continuing to penetrate well below the waterline. Not an experience we need to repeat any time soon. In other bobbing news many of us are doing two swims on Solstice Day 21st June. 4:30 am and 9:30pm. Maybe a snooze sometime between the two!

This was how the weather looked as we got out, calm, friendly, welcoming. Do not believe these visual lies …

In other news I have read a book in less than 24 hours.

This is a page turner!

Beyond that a day of domestic admin and a little socialising. A friend also made this cool video of the art exhibition we set up last week. The link is below

Tuesday is my day for visiting as a regular punter. I guess we already know what the blog will be about!

Pandemic Pondering #422

About this time of year @theoldmortuary are sometimes to be found at the Chelsea Flower Show. Picking up gardening inspiration for our own patch of horticulture. Our next project is going to be a courtyard garden and with the Flower Show cancelled for a second year we will have to go it alone using photos we’ve take in previous years. The Islamic garden above is quite beyond our talents but we could get close to something similar to the one below.

You might think that gardening and sea swimming have very little in common, and you would be right, but in our post swim natterings the subjects we cover are wide ranging. Some would make a nun blush, and quite possibly do, as we swim and natter just below the walls of a convent. Gardens though do feature a bit in our conversations because that has been the only place we have been able to meet friends and family. Bobbing has become a bit of a social club and we are looking forward to gathering together, with our clothes on, in each others gardens during the summer. The picture below popped up on our bobbing WhatsApp page, most bobbers thought it was a garden designed to be open to the public. But it is actually a Bobbers Garden!

© Kim and Andy Bobber

Also featured this week, in the the Bobbers Whatsapp group photos, is Flossy, a guinea pig, who has recovered from a recent illness, which kept her mum away from bobbing for a while.

©Helen Bobber

Bringing the subject back closer to actual bobbing, the picture below is a Bobbers portrait of a fellow bobber with her daughter.

©Marianne Bobber

And finally given the unusual location of our beach a warship and an assault vessel.

©Andy Bobber

Have a fabulous Thursday !