A year of swimming, and a swimming shirt (184/365)

[white_hart]

It's a year ago today that I met up with longterm friend L and newer friend B to swim in the river. I'd swum in the river with L once before, several years ago, but while I'd enjoyed it, I didn't feel that the pleasure of being outdoors really outweighed the inconvenience of getting to the river when I live on the other side of Oxford, and I didn't go again. After three and a half months of not being able to swim at all last spring, I felt rather differently, and happily agreed to the suggestion that we should swim together every Friday over the summer. And then somehow when autumn came round none of us wanted to stop; swimming together had become much too important to all of our mental health, as the pandemic continued. So we kept going, and actually started swimming several times a week; we bought neoprene gloves and socks, and then jackets and shorts; we swam in woolly hats and brought hot water bottles and flasks of tea to warm us up as we got changed, and we kept swimming as the temperatures dropped to nearly freezing. One weekend, we broke ice to swim; we never managed to swim with snow on the ground because when it did snow none of us was comfortable driving to the lake. Swimming has been a joy and a solace to us all, and so has the friendship it's brought us.

We will be going for an anniversary swim this evening, with fancy doughnuts to celebrate. And, entirely coincidentally, I've also just finished making a swimming-themed shirt.

Comments

[mountainkiss]

This is wonderful.

[white_hart]

:-)

[nostalgia]

epic shirt!

[white_hart]

Thank you!

[sfred]

Happy anniversary!

[white_hart]

Thank you!

[lokifan]

Oh, that's so great!

[white_hart]

Thank you!

[oracne]

I like the shirt!

[white_hart]

Thanks! I love it :-)