Sea sigh
“Ooh that was lovely!” Trilled my mother-in-law as she briskly toweled herself down. “Very bracing.”
A large cloud obscured the sun and the momentarily blue and glittering North Sea became as grey as the default window frame colour in Mac OSX 10.4. The wind whipped the surface into shimmering fragments and small specks of spray blew off the wave tops.
Mrs R emerged from the waves with goosepimpled arms across her chest looking small, pale, wet and frozen.
“I wouldn’t bother if I were you,” she muttered through chattering teeth.
I stood at the water’s edge in my dry swimming trunks, toes just out of reach of the waves. I looked out at the frigid sea and back at Mrs R hurrying up the beach to her towel.
With a sigh I decided that my last swim of the summer could wait until next year.
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As a child I appeared to spend all day every day on the beach (it never rained in the summers in those days) and every year my friend and I would push the boundaries of the last swim of the year – popping down to the beach every night after school.
My mother put paid to any after school dips after 30th October with dire warnings of the perils of swimming in the dark and catching a cold.
Funny now as an adult I decline the invitation to join in the Christmas day charity swim!!!
John – 30 October?! Respect.