The sea is still and the colour of January
29th January 2024
It is still January and it is still January. Windows look misted and condensation-frosted but they are warm enough to be clear. It is the grey outside pressing in. Nothing is moving. Light enough to see the damp roads and clear enough to see where you are going but there is no colour, no highlight, no hint of a sun.
Like almost everyone, I have a cold. Sneezing, snotty, endless tissues, continual hot-headed complaints. I don’t know whether my cold should prevent me from swimming. I’ve been thinking about it since the early hours. In between sneezes.
On the one hand, getting up can feel a lot better than lying down when your head’s full. Swimming in the cold water of the sea? It’s a dilemma. The shock that boosts your immunity can quickly reduce the symptoms of your cold. There are hormones that make you clear-headed and high.
Get it wrong, ie get into a cold sea with the wrong sort of virus, or a virus of the wrong ripeness, and it makes you cry. Involuntarily and immediately. Done it, not nice.
Today, the water is still and the colour of January. It looks cold and not very appealing, worn slate grey, no sparkles or highlights no bright bits dropped down from the sun. Although the beach temperature is six degrees with a gentle breeze from the south west, the sea water temperature has dropped to five point nine. It’s properly cold water, like a plunge pool beside a warm swimming pool. Colder, probably.
I’m the only one there. No swimmers, no dog walkers, shingle, a bit of sand at the shoreline, a limitless stretch of cold grey water reaching out in front of me.
I take a picture, sit down and decide to get in. It’s still, there’s no danger of being turned over by a wave. Two hours after low tide, the water won’t be that deep. It might make me feel better. If it makes me feel worse it will be a known worse, mostly very cold, rather than the miserable snivelling me of the last two days.
If I swim on my own and have a heart attack, or something, I will at some point be washed up, doubtless with my lost car keys in my cold dead hand, and they’ll be sorry. What’s Peru, Canada, Auckland, against a grey, lifeless sea?
And then suddenly I have a friend. The boatbuilder appears over the shingle bank. We look at the water together.
‘Shall we try a minute?’ he suggests.
‘A minute! Must be mad,’ but we swam round in circles in the sub-six degrees water, grimacing, making noise and after what probably was a minute, got out again.
It felt wonderful, completely rejuvenating. Of course it was cold, of course the water hugged us, but we were rebooted, companionable, funny and proud. As the beach wasn’t too cold, we chatted about work as we changed. You only need one pal for a shared experience.
As we loped off the beach, dog walkers stared.
