Cold water swimming

The woman on the path has come to a dead stop. She’d been shuffling along in that bunched-up posture we all developed when we bought smartphones, a two-fingered salute to the millennia of evolution that managed to pull humans into an upright position. Now she’s staring, open-mouthed, at her surroundings.

I rather enjoy the shocked faces of passers–by who catch sight of us Serpentine swimmers in our flimsy costumes as we lower ourselves into the cold water each morning. I look still more shocking when I get out. My skin turns from its normal skimmed-milk colour to bright neon, as though it has been slapped. And it has in a way: when you first enter water that’s only a couple of degrees, you do get a shock. That gasping moment when your body tenses and your eyes open wider than you thought possible is one of the reasons I look forward to my winter swims so much.