Day 624: Head Up, Buttock Off

The water has been hovering at around ten degrees for the last five days or so. It's amazing how quickly it becomes normal. The first day that it was ten, having dropped from eleven and a half, I felt the pinch on my fingers and toes all the way around and for a good while after. Someone pointed out that we all looked pink like sausages on most body parts, but yellowy-pocked like plucked chickens on any part that's been in a glove or a neoprene sock. I'm still pink. I'm not a ninja, I just don't know where I've left my gloves. it's cold enough. 

I'm enjoying it though, and now some days have passed, I've got used to the presence of the water's nip and the ice cream headache I get after diving in. It doesn't last. I'll delay the digging out of gloves until the water tells me to. 

Today, I went late. Fighting off a cold, I'd stayed in bed first thing instead of rushing up and out. My sloth paid dividends, on every front. By afternoon, the sun was out, picking out tree tops and lighting up the leaves. I wasn't sure if I'd missed my boat - it closes early in the winter - but there it was. The changing room was full and buzzing with some kind of conspiratorial giddiness. We talked racing and diving, buttocks and the lack of them, The Nation's Favourite Sandwich, insults (you cheeky mare, you effing boozer among today's favourites) and whether we're ladies, women or, god forbid, females. There was all sorts of ungainly cackling and joyfulness, culminating in a decision to hold a collective buttock-off to find the Ladies' Pond's Favourite Buttock, or thereabouts, and a commitment by me to annoy someone in the hope of getting a better insult from my target than ever before. 

I've never once regretted swimming, although with the cold I'm carrying and the cough, I'd almost planned to today. Not a chance. That place is balm and balsam for my soul - I'd say for any soul and I'd believe it, but perhaps for you, it's something else or another place that gives you the wonderful community and calm that I get there; the humour and the love; the bodies - our nakedness is a joy to me. And the thing is (a thing highlighted by my search for bum shots, which threw up loads of porn and women posing sexy whatever they are doing rather than just getting the fuck on with it) that I love the variation of bodies. They are ALL beautiful in their very difference, in all their range of shapes. I don't need to see anyone 'doing' sexy, thanks. That's not what's hot to me, male or female.

I've been blessed with some wonderful, kind comments over the last few days. Thank you, Vic, for building up my heart with being funny and brilliant and direct and for championing me beyond all requirements.  A twat, always, and a most beloved one. Thanks, Carey, for your sane and compassionate support, for a cup of coffee and for saying something so lovely to me that you then rushed off 'to be sick' (your words). Thanks Eddie and Ruth - every time - for delighting me with your rich and vibrant selves and with your dance. 

Macarena, your juicy wisdom and presence. Margaret from afar, with the sweetest words. Fiona, unfailingly astute and supportive - I aspire to be as skilled and heartful as you are. Thanks, N, for your lesson. I am humbled and gratefulled by it. Thanks, Ruth, for unfailing love and concern. Thanks, Rob. Your honesty and care is fuel to me. Thanks, Abdou, for your patience and your challenge. Thank you, Ned. And Nick. Thanks, Cuphead, for telling me my arse is lovely as a place to be while I need to be there. I stayed up there for a while. I think I'm back now.

Anyway, anyone who says my arse is lovely in such a sweet and funny way is my friend forever. 

I have to sleep now, or this cold will get the better of me. Remind me, though, to tell you about Pronoia and that Tiu de Haan. They rock.