Solstice darkness and hope

Friday 20th November 2024

For the first time, the forecast air temperature was below zero. The chill reality was between two and three degrees. In all imaginings, there was little less appealing than submerging one’s sleep-warm body in the cold North Sea. In December. Late December A day before the solstice.

Leaving home, it was still mostly dark. I console myself that being this date, the twentieth, it can only get a little bit darker. It certainly feels dark when I’m fumbling around in the pre-dawn sevens to find a not-quite-dry swimming glove, latex black in grey.

Walking down the shingle to the beach felt like entering another place entirely. The sun was raising its vast friendly face over a silver grey low tide that rippled and gleamed as if someone had put it together drop-by-drop for a movie set.

The winter sky was beautifully bruised pink and blue. Gentle high cloud, decorated with sparkling Christmas contrails painted the ceiling.

We were minutes behind the first low tide and a hefty stretch of smooth blonde sand led from the single to the shoreline. There were heads (less than a handful) bobbing in the water between the shallow downward slope, gated by a friendly, frilly-edged mini-wave, and the underwater sand that leads up again to the sandbank.

In the summer months, this faux lagoon is frequently irritatingly shallow in low water. Not deep enough for a proper swim, uncomfortable to wade through because of the sandy bottom which is uneven enough to topple one over. On getting up, a damp body is exposed to an unexpectedly chill summer wind.

Not so this morning. Someone must have spread the word that there were people longing to submerge themselves into nine degree sea water. Around the mid depth of a large swimming pool, the low water lagoon was plenty deep enough to swim in, the fine shingle bottom had no plans to tip one anywhere.

One of the best things (surprisingly there are best things) is the view. Neck-deep in the water, swimmers have a mesmerising view of the waves breaking over the nearby sandbank. The waves approach looking enormous, swimming close by, your perspective is practically underneath them, watching them fall in a perfect curve before crashing.

The view is breathtaking, if your breath hadn’t been taken already by the cold.

The tide pulled north this morning and before long, I’d travelled further than I’d planned. Hadn’t planned to travel anywhere at all to be honest.

I paid my final respects to the sun, which had now dragged itself up, more or less clear of the horizon, turned and swam to shore. The water looked clean, which always feels lucky, and the fine shingle that bordered it almost glistened in the morning sun.

Once again we were saved by the fact that there was very little wind. A light west-south-westerly, barely noticeable on bare skin.

The slope out had me walk-knees-walk in quick succession and attempt an awkward jog back towards my friends and heap of dry clothes that were not far away at all. At intervals people jump up and down now, once they’ve got dressed, or in one unnamed individual’s case, embark on a circular run round the sandy strip, repeatedly declaring, ‘I don’t feel cold at all,’ despite having been in the sea for twenty minutes.

Movement is the key to getting warm, apparently, increasing blood flow, returning the body to normal temperature when it gets out of the cold water. My normal temperature is cold and I tend to follow getting dressed by standing still and taking photos which doesn’t often increase blood flow.

As we splash and stroke our way towards tomorrow’s winter solstice, I remember this shiveringly brilliant poem by Margaret Atwood from her collection, Eating Fire. It’s been quoted a lot online recently:

“This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath, the door of a vanished house left ajar...”

A Cormorant, wings out, facing west-south-west, was drying itself on the very corner of the old rig as I was in the water. A handful of Brent geese flew high towards the north. Gulls, loudly shouting, were mucking about over the water and the shoreline.

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I’ve always sent the blog on Monday evening. Swim Friday, write up Saturday, schedule for Monday. I’m now planning to send Sunday evening instead. If you hate the idea, or have an option, please comment. It’s genuinely a delight for me to hear your thoughts.