Day 127 - 9th November 2010

Another day very similar to yesterday, although the wind was nowhere as strong. The sea was very wavy indeed, in fact so wavy that Bob and I tried to swim around the pier, but only got as far as the helter skelter, because wave after wave just pushed us back; I think we swam the furthest out of everyone there was this morning. The crowd were the usual suspects, however, this morning Fiona also came down for an early swim which was lovely. We stayed out for around 30 minutes, which was extremely good as it was certainly a strong workout as well as staying acclimatised to the cold – Fiona had a temperature gauge on her and it showed 12.2 degrees, although I thought it seemed warmer than that. Whilst it sounds obvious to say, it is now definitely proving to me that winter sea swimming is so much different from summer sea swimming in so many ways; temperature, waves, tidal, rain, darkness, number of people, length of swim. However, not all these are negative points as it is certainly much more challenging and a lot more fun.

On the home front, the Twins are still not better yet and Jesse in particular is finding having a bed a bit odd. I found him this morning at about 1am in the hallway near the stairs! I scooped him up and brought him to bed with me for an hour and then took him back to his car bed, which luckily he was happy to go back to. It did mean that last night I only had about 3 hours sleep, but that’s OK.

Tomorrow is a pool day, which is a shame as the sea is so much more fun, but as I am doing two 3 hr pool swims this week rather than a single 5 hour I don’t mind so much. 3 hrs sounds quite easy to me these days.

At 11am today I am heading to the Grand Hotel on Brighton seafront as they are presenting me with a fantastic auction prize that the Starr Trust can use as a fundraiser for Swim4Smiles – it is for next summer, a champagne lunch for 8 people on the Grand’s own Yacht sailing around Brighton, followed by an evening meal at Hotel Du Van for 8; I want that prize myself!! Hopefully it’ll go for much more than I could afford; which shouldn’t be hard.