Water temp: 15ish degrees
Early Friday late summer afternoon swim. I'm out and about on my Vespa and I've got an empty slot in my imaginary diary. Luckily I have my towel, swimming shorts and swimming hat with me, fancy that. Highgate here I come.
Beautiful sunny afternoon, hardly a soul about. I help a fellow swimmer in to his wetsuit. The pond looks stunning in the early afternoon sunshine that's starting to break through the clouds.
Nice dive off the springboard. I'm wearing my goggles and I forget to close my eyes when I dive, whoosh, superfreaky. Water is cool and welcoming, still not cold enough to take my breath away. I try and remember when I started swimming regularly in the ponds this year, sometime in April I reckon, it was 8 or 9 degrees, a few good swims to go until then, hopefully.
I swim through nature's debris and complete a couple of The Loneliness of The Long Distance Swimmer style laps. If I haven't said this already, this really is a gorgeous place, a fantastic time had by me. This is mine and this is good. I will hopefully be back tomorrow morning after Parkrun.
There's a free exhibition on at Camden local studies and archives centre, 'Swimming in Hampstead'. I work not far from there, gonna check it out next week, will let you know...
