Not with a splash but a drizzle...

All things must have a beginning, here is mine.

A year or so ago I rediscovered swimming...

I say rediscovered because I have always swum. My childhood was full of trips to the local pool and I was never one of those kids that was afraid of water, but that's about as far as it got me. I was a solid breast-stroker and a confident enough swimmer. I think we swam at school a little and somewhere in my mum's house is a grade 4 swimming certificate which I'm still quite proud of having - because hey, you don't get certificates all the time right? So that was me, Mr periodic swimmer: at the beach, in holiday pools and on occasions when I lived reasonably close to public pools.

A few years ago I joined a local gym, and proceeded to do what most people who join gyms do...not go to it much. However the gym had a hidden saving grace. Stuck right at the back was a small swimming pool. A rather tiny one. The type most gyms have so that they can put a nice picture of it in the brochure but in reality are a bit like being in large bath tub without the taps at one end. The beauty of this one was (is) that almost no one uses it. Thus in the peace and quiet of an empty north London swimming pool I had a chance to practise my strokes and return, as it were, to the water.

Last year, I swam in a short Aquathon (a swim and run event). This year I bought a wetsuit and started cold water swimming in early summer in the Hampstead Lido. Swimming is becoming something I do more than once a week.

So, here is the proposition, the idea of the blog. Each week (or so) I swim in a different London waterhole, and I write about it. Simple. A wild swimmer in the urban environment. A Neddy Merrill for London...though hopefully without the despair and disintegration at the end...actually maybe we should forgot John Cheever.