New Year Plunge

Last year felt to me, and still feels in short-term retrospect, like a year of marking time. The year before was full of barely manageable changes, and I think more huge leaps forward would have been unrealistic so soon.

This year may be different, and I hope it is in that respect. With that in mind, they say you should start the year as you would like it to continue.

I'm not sure how much it counts, but I did discover what I think is the best way I have yet found of spending time on New Year's day - open air swimming.

No, I haven't joined the mad people who, it is regularly reported, take dips in midwinter in normal open water. Apparently six thousand people from the Netherlands took a January plunge in the North Sea this year, but that would have been a step too far for me. We opted for a heated open-air pool.

It helps to have one nearby, of course, and this is a public pool open every day of the year. It was amazingly popular on the first morning of the year, but maybe a good many people beat us to the happy discovery of swimming on a cold day. There were a lot of families, some swimming, but more just having fun.

The tricky bit is the cold air between the buildings and the pool, and even more the cold ground. The old hands had dressing gowns and flip-flops (note to self for future). But the water was fine, warmer (if anything) than a regular indoor pool. Not, I would suppose, very environmentally friendly, but a great thing for general human well-being.

It's only in the last year or so that I have ventured into water bigger than a bathtub, as brethren stop swimming before senior school. Fortunately a couple of pool visits was enough to ensure I wouldn't drown in such ventures, and although I still can't really swim properly I do enjoy it. In this case a bit of moderate exertion in comfortable surroundings did wonders, and combining it with fresh air helped enormously too.

I really can't recommend the activity highly enough on a cold holiday morning. Just as long as not so many people get the idea that it gets more crowded than it is already ...