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

Open Season?

Today we've had the kind of early spring weather that might beguile the brave and the foolish to test the waters of the Granta; today, I spent trawling charity shops for a fancy dress costume - the theme is Wes Anderson, and I shall attend as a Tenenbaum.

Let me tell you about yesterday - when it rained, when the weather was grey, and when Ema and I decided to go running. The plan was to cycle out to Granchester meadows, run to Granchester and cycle back - I can't at this point in time remember WHY we were going running, so don't ask. Just before we pulled out of New Hall, however, I noticed that my back tyre was very flat. Again I forget precisely why, but we decided that, having not run in about a year, we should just go all the way to Granchester, on foot, from there. We did admirably well - by the time we reached the second meadow, Ema's left ankle, my right, her left knee, my right, were complaining rather loudlym or at least inducing us to do so. And then Ema, bright spark, piped up:

"We should have just gone swimming, you know."

Pause. A beat. Me:

"Do you want to?"

We headed back to the swimming hole, running to keep as warm as possible before we got there. Speed seemed important: the longer we took, the more time we had to talk ourselves out of it. We stripped to our underwear, eliciting cheery waves and side-long glances from dog-walkers, cyclists etc. I jumped in, landing up to my knees in slime and up to my neck in the coldest water I have felt since the Alaska Strait. Ema jumped in. I was laughing maniacally - so cold, so far from able to feel my skin, so very, very happy. We swam - Ema breast-stroking as I beat out a spidery crawl in an attempt to get some kind of circulation going - about half way round the first bend up-stream (I wasn't going to risk cramping and getting dragged into the deeper water toward the Newnham Riverbank Club) before we had to emerge.

There is nothing like the feeling of the wind on your body after a swim. It is so warm and, in a strange way, soft. Rain water broke more or less unnoticed on our strange pink all-over raincoats. We walked back along the grass and it wasn't until we stood still to change that my foot, cut very slightly climbing out, actually warmed up enough to bleed. We walked back to Newnham in running gear and wet hair (mine hanging down, hairband bandaging foot)to beg a can of coke from Alison and stay the risk of Weils disease - of which I continue, in Deakin's memory, to be terrified.

Back up to my house for curry and cake.

I don't think I'll return for a week or two - it couldn't have been more than fourteen degrees - but it all felt very wild, and very beautiful. Spring is here, and I have high hopes for the season.

J.
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

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.