Day 134 - 19th November 2010

7am and the first of two sea swims today. The second was at 10am when Fiona, Bob and I went back to meet Richard Lindfield (friend and local radio news reader) who is going to make a film blog for the Argus on my channel training.

Swim number 1 - It was around 4 degrees in the air at 7am this morning and it really made for a cold wake up call. The sea was back to be calm, which meant we could actually get in and have a swim, although the cold in the air and water made for what I can only describe as a “character building “ start to the day. We swam to the silver ball along the pier, then over to the donut on the groin and then traversed back to where we’d left our flip flops. All in all about 20 minutes I guess. I’m not sure yet how long we’ll be in at 10am, but if it’s much more than another 20 minutes I think I might be cold for the rest of the day!

Swim number 2 – Being back at the Arches at 10am and back into my Speedos seemed somewhat strange; I had barely thawed out from the first one and here I was again ready for another freezing! Saying all that, it was so sunny and gorgeous by this time, that it was a pleasure to be back down there. We met with Richard and two young lads he is training and they set up their camera and interviewed us individually, then filmed us in and out of the sea. It caused a slight stir on the promenade as people stopped to watch the three crazies in their swimming costumes; some people even came over and asked us if we “are really” going to go in the ocean (they were American, so it was all very British to them!). The interviews and swim lasted around half an hour and was good fun. Hopefully it’ll be available to watch over the weekend and then I can link it to my blog for all to see.

Aside from the two swims this morning, there was great discussion/debate in the Arches on my use of the word Pilchards in my blog (see blog dated day 132) – this rowdy discussion was led by Little Bob (you need to make up your own minds on which bits of him are little – I am sure this line will start another debate!); he was clearly the ring leader in the attack on my verse, however, he was soon joined by all those who felt 'pilchards' was just not a kind word to describe my fellow BSC members. On the drive back from the Arches to work I gave this matter some thought to see if I could think of a better word to describe grown men & women lying flat together on the beach being washed over by freezing mountains of water. I considered “brave” as an alternative, I considered “wondrous” as a description I even thought of words such as “heroic”, “extraordinary”, “phenomenal” & “astounding”, but after much thought and internal deliberation I just kept bringing back to my mind the picture frozen there of grown men and woman lying next to each other on the beach and all I could see in my minds eye were Pilchards! But we should not forget the value of Pilchards should we? They are rich in so many things; vitamin, calcium, protein to name just a few. Also it should be remembered that in my prose I could have referred to us all as Sprats or Plankton!! So to Bob and all his cohorts perhaps after all you should slapping me on the back and thanking me for the kindness shown in my description; food for thought my friends, food for thought!!!