01. My baby who’s been away the longest returned home this week. He spent five months in Europe – his favourite places were Montenegro (which is where the pic above was taken), Lapland (below), and the city of Brussels. Continue reading
Tag Archives: swimming
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
The things I love about swimming:
- the immediate sense of relaxation as soon as I dive in
- watching the tiles on the bottom as I churn through laps – it’s my meditation
- the ritual – from the order of my laps to the way I roll my towel and bathers post-swim
- the lingering smell of chlorine or the grit of salt
The specifics: I’m a medium-laner; always a 50-metre pool; always outdoors (all year round).
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka is a novel in two parts. The first is about an indoor pool and its swimmers. Swimming can be a great leveler, and Otsuka captures this in her descriptions –
We suffer from bad backs, fallen arches, shattered dreams, broken hearts, anxiety, melancholia, anhedonia, the usual aboveground afflictions. Continue reading
Wintering by Katherine May
The subtitle of Katherine May’s memoir-meets-nature-writing, Wintering, is ‘The power of rest and retreat in difficult times’. The subtitle might suggest a how-to guide for coping with pandemics but that’s not the case.
Instead, May’s gentle book examines the cues that flora and fauna take from the weather; and the human response to the cold, including winter recreation (saunas and rolling in snow); and rituals and customs.
Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Continue reading
Sample Saturday – swimming, an engagement, and a town
Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye. Continue reading
Things That Are Making Me Happy This Week
01. No, this is not me, and no, I’m not on the Amalfi Coast but I do have a new (to me) mint green Fiat. Continue reading
Things that are making me happy this week
01. It’s been approx. 80 days and my rotator cuffs were like rusty wheels… but BEST SWIM. Continue reading
Sample Saturday – friends, more friends, and boundaries
Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye. This week, three from the list of books I was looking forward to in 2020: Continue reading
Things that are making me happy this week
01. Alas, conditions did not favour diving this weekend but I did enjoy some time on the shore looking at the angry sea. Continue reading
Things that are making me happy this week
01. My first dive (from Rye pier) – exhilarating, terrifying, exhausting, addictive. Continue reading
Things that are making me happy this week
01. They were filming an ad when I was swimming this week (hence the stupid lifeguard chair). I’ll let you know if I appear in the background. Continue reading