Minnie’s Musings

Rapidly turned into a sport for the menfolk. Goodness how they like a bat and a bit of friendly rivalry.

Less so swimming in the Lake. Apparently it was cold.

NO IT WASN’T. Luke warm at worst. Our local heated indoor pool is chillier.

I love a bit of fresh water swimming, particularly with snorkel and flippers to help me motor along a la David Wilkie in a one piece. The only obstacle was that the snorkel purchased was designed for a teenager so was too small for a good seal, rendering it obsolete. I could just squeeze my rather flat feet into the flippers.

Scratch that. The second obstacle to said fresh water motoring was the lack of ladder on the dock. The bank was a sea of loose silt and foliage that was tied my feet in knots. I can’t hold myself up with my hands while lowering myself into any pool and can’t dive so getting myself into the water involved a lot of wriggling on the scratchy wooden boards. Not in the least bit elegant in any way, whatsoever.

While neither my brother-in-law or my best beloved lasted more than five minutes in the lake, once in, I splashed around and floated on my back for a good half hour. Utter heaven. The water was like a sheet of glass and where it was still dappled by the sun there where warm spots in which to wallow.

It is a well established fact in our family that I love an evening swim. I have fond memories of moonlit dips in Lake Maggiore when camping. Best Beloved has been known to join me, with much wincing and shivering from someone who used to swim for Middlesex. He drew the line at the Irish Sea one summer evening on Anglesey when I took the plunge with our son. “You know you’ve gone blue”, he observed from the shore as I tried to ignore the loss of feeling in my extremities.

Getting out of the lake was a lot more difficult than the already significant difficulty of getting in. Best Beloved had disappeared for what he promised was only a five minute trot back up to the cottage in pursuit of a beverage. Half an hour later I was muttering that I “could drown down here for all they care” when he appeared at a run down the steps and hauled me out like a sack of potatoes.

“Half an hour”, I scolded them. “It was five minutes,” said my sister. “It might have felt like half an hour, but it was five minutes. And you should have seen the speed at which he moved when he couldn’t see you.”

And it wasn’t me who knocked my glasses in the lake.