Catching Up.

Last Sunday was the day before my final Final. It was rainy, it was miserable, and I had one of the best trips to the Granta I have ever had. Bela and I went down at about half past ten, walking from New Hall in the rain, talking about all the things you're not supposed to talk about during Exam Term: family, politics, love, ecology, the Great Outdoors... Bela is a new friend, and we had a lot to cover. When we reached the swimming hole, I was laughing maniacally; couldn't quite understand why we were doing this, but incomprehensibly glad that we were. I got in first, avoiding the Carlsberg cans on the riverbed.

*INTERLUDE*

Why do be people drop beer cans into the river? Does the river LOOK like freakin' recyling bin? PLEASE, if you're in a punt this summer, make yourself the person in charge of the rubbish bag and save our river.

*ACTION RESUMES*

The water wasn't warm, exactly, but I'd pitch it at at least 16* - we could take it. We swam down to the Newnham Riverbank Club and, finding it deserted, climbed out. I have made a resolution to be able to turn a cartwheel by the end of the summer, and we both practised on the beautiful sheltered gardens of this semi-nudist organisation. We got back in the water - I dived, Bela would, I think, rather die. Which is odd as she, the caver, is very much the braver ofthe two of us. We swam on downstream, and scrambled on trees growin out low over the water. I hung upside down koala-style and dropped into the river onto my back. It felt like time had been stopped, like no-one else had ever seen ther iver. Everything was so green, so still apart from the birds and the rain. As we looked at the thick shrubbery on either side of the water, bela described it as "vitamins for the eyes", and she wasn't far wrong. We swam on one further bend, to another overhanging tree, before heading back upstream.

There is a bench - marked private - on the bank of the river, and as Bela grew tired and i grew increasingly nervous about revision (I was reciting Dorothy Richardson quotations at her by this point) we climbed out, having decided it would be quicker to walk back to our gear. We clambered through ankle-deep ivy, eventually meeting barbed wire, and being forced back into the water. I have so very little time for private landowners. The river is ours. The riverbank should be, too. Anyway the rest of the swim was great fun, and intensely, blissfully relaxing, after we decided that we didn't need to rush. We drank hot grapefruit juice from a thermos as we changed, and cooked pasta together at my place afterwards.

Not just one of my best Cambridge swims - one of my best Cambridge days.

Have been to Dublin since then, but my brother wants the computer now...

Jordan.

xXx

Swimming for Sanity.

Like Digging for Victory, only... well wetter. And less productive/nationalistic/dated.

Yesterday was Jesus Green opening day! Lins and I went down at lunch-time, just like we did in our first year - what goes around comes around, I suppose.

Characters:
Crazy Tracy with her TINY bikini, hoop earrings and full face of make-up.
Excitable man with camera talking about the comparable temperature of pool (15*) and river (15* last week, dropping).
Octogenarian, F., with improbably fantastic legs.
Octogenarian, M., doing a fantastic little warm-up dance.

Dived in. Probably shouldn't have, there followed a strange feeling like a piece of cheese-wire being drawn around the crown of my head, or being scalped in slow-motion. Swam ten lengths in all, half crawl, half breast-stroke; crawl is very, very hard in that beautifully clear water. Or, it is if you're me. Others were ploughing up and down without batting an eyelid, hats off to their strength. Is it only the cold that makes the difference? Or does the absense of either salt or chemicals make the water less buoyant? I don't remember struggling like that at Sea Point last year, for example.

If anyone knows, do reply...

I love the colour your skin turns in the water at Jesus Green. Kind of reddish-brown from sheer cold. And I love how Lindsay's incredible pre-raphelite hair looks when completely and utterly soaked.

I don't love the showers, which were much much too hot - and some blokes came in to fix them, which made it worse - they had us running in and out under scalding jets of water for some time:

'OW!'
'Is that better?'
'No!'
'How about that?'
'OWW.'

But then we had sausage rolls from the bakers, so everything was okay in the end.

On the subject of Sea Point, I may be heading back there in a week or so to swim with Holly and Jenny. And have a break.

Gotta get my finals out of the way first - expect more posts, Cambridge, Brighton, Ireland - after next Monday.

Check It Out.

Swimming costume, x3 : Check.
River shoes : Check.
Tent : Check.
Bedding roll : Check.
Sleeping bag : Check.
Billy Cans : Check.
Camp stove : Check.
Campingaz : Check.
Fleece : Check.
Bizarre lightweight zip-at-the-knee trousers : Check.
"Delicious" dehydrated food, for emergencies : Check.
Walking shoes : Check.
Walking Socks : Check.
Canvas trainers : Check.
Backpack : Check.
Plane tickets : Check.

TO DO:

- Wetsuit.
- Day pack.
- Towels, clothes &c.
- Currency. Travellers cheques?
- SPONSORSHIP.

Parents leave the country 5 am Wednesday. Anything involving the use of a car must be organised by then. Slightly concerned that Gloria, rained in to Oxford, may have trouble making it down to Brighton on Thursday. Justgiving.com website refusing to register Common Ground. I shall have to collect money the old-fashioned way... should be having a "dig deep now folks" type launch party at The Roundhill on Friday night. Wrap party probably to be held in Cambridge next term. You come, you drink, you give us your shrapnel, we give it to charity. Everyone's a winner!

(Panic stations being manned - advice welcome at this point...)

Jordan.

xXx

I never did tell you about the time...

...we had all the trouble with the porters. It happenned some weeks ago now.

Benjamin, Iona and I met Gloria at Emmanuel porters' lodge at 8.45, a.m. As we three "aliens" waited, we were questioned by Angry Porter (the only angry porter I have encountered there, in all fairness): were we members of the college? Did we have permission to be there from a fellow? Were we aware that it was Quiet Period? No, No, Yes. When Gloria arrived, she turned on the charm. I have a lot of respect for Angry Porter, because Gloria's charm is very hard to resisit, but there was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY we were going to be allowed to use that swimming pool. No sirree!

So, Gloria whispered to us to go and hide.

Which we duly did - but, foolishly, in the fellows' garden, near the pool; we should have kept a greater distance... Sometimes, the porters just give G the key, and tell her to lock up and bring it back when she's done. I thought that would happen now. I hadn't reckoned on the true Grump of Angry Porter, who ESCORTED HER ALL THE WAY TO THE POOL.

Iona, Benz and I hid behind a bush.

We kept very still.

Angry Porter got closer...

We won, in the end.

It was cold.

Term is over. I am swimming in the Granta once more, very early tomorrow morning, then I shall be back on Brighton beach...

Bring on the sunburnt beach-whales that signal summer in the south east!

J.

xXx

Jesus Green.

Finally. I was there on the first day of the season last year, but this time didn't make it until the water, blue and beautiful of course, had reached a positively welcoming nineteen degrees. Leaves on the bottom. Diving in and making patterns. Lengths so long you lose count and don't care anyway, because you're just there to think, and feel, and not, for once, to compete. Patrick came too. We read books poolside afterwards. We're going back today.

You look at the water and you think of Hopkins. It's unavoidable.

Glory be to God for dappled things.

Jordan.

xXx

In Honour Bound...

I have a friend who is tied to the code of the A.F.N, or "All F***ing Night". The principle is simple: he will receive a message stating a place, followed by those three portentous letters. He must then make his way to the specified endroite by as close as possible to noon on the next day; there follows twelve hours of drinking. Yesterday, he jumped ship mid-afternoon, and headed from Cambridge to, I think, Camden. I have yet to hear from him.

I, likewise, seem to be honour bound. I must drop everything when one of my friends (and the only people for me are the mad ones, quoth Kerouac) sends me one simple word: "swim?". So it is that at quarter to seven on a warm but distinctly overcast evening in early May I am heading to meet Blackbenz, Blair and Braude, to submerge myself in the Granta.

It is a Sunday, afterall. What better time for worship?

Aqua Vitae. Uisce Beathe.

Anon.

Jordan.

xXx

New Season...

Back in Cambridge, and a first trip to Granchester meadows today. Into the Granta, of course... two brave friends to thank for such an early swim. We turned a vivid pink, but happily not blue. The swans I saw nesting last year are not in the same place. Or perhaps it is too early for them? Also, Gloria accosted me in a supermarket. We must book those flights.