In the swim

There’s a lovely number by Loudon Wainwright III called ‘The Swimming Song’ that evokes the delights of bathing with both sharp wit and faux-naïf innocence. Kate and Anna McGarrigle covered it on their eponymous 1975 debut album — one of the all-time great records in my view, mixing folky exuberance and wrenching heartache in a manner that never seems to go stale — and in recent weeks I too have been singing ‘The Swimming Song’.

‘This summer I went swimming/ this summer I might have drowned/ But I held my breath and I kicked my feet/ and I moved my arms around,’ sang Loudon and the McGarrigles. To which my reply is, ‘Excellent news, guys, but how wimpish can you get?’ Swimming in summer is easy. In contrast, I, dear reader, have been swimming in an outdoor pool in the bitter depths of winter, often before sunrise with a sharp frost on the ground.