It's the first week of a brand new year - 2024. This, as always, brings with it the New Year's Day 'Swim'. Not so much a swim as a collective frenzy of people - most of whom wouldn't be sea swimming at the best of times - who on a count of three, run screaming and laughing into the freezing cold water, and straight back out again. It is all done in the name of charity, and is a glorious few moments of madness, and accomplishment, and steely resolution...accompanied by a lot of swearing.
But there are the dedicated sea swimmers. I have been less dedicated this year than normal. I stopped in October and once you stop, it's as if your body says; do not even think about it! I'll get back to it again soon. There is a release in it...a challenge at first, then a sense of achievement. I have recently started to paint that immersive sense of losing yourself in the sea. I understand it.