My second ever winter swim at Kings Cross pond was a bit crap. It’s Monday, early afternoon, most people are in work and I have a spare hour to get a swim in. So far so good.
But sadly a lot of those people who are working at that hour are working in massive machines, cranes and trucks on the building site that is outer Kings Cross.
They are on a mission to turn the area in to something very high-end and lovely I know, but the air pollution there today was pretty bad with all those engines going.
I’ve never wanted to be an under-water breathing mermaid as much as I did swimming in the pond, so I wouldn’t have to keep coming up for filthy air.
It was 7 degrees centigrade in the water, it had heated up three degrees since I was last in. So I thought that idea of going pond-sauna-pond today might not be so jarring on my thermoregulatory system.
Some fellow sauna-loungers asked if it was easier to get in to cold water again after being in almost too hot air. It’s different. To me the water felt fresher (I’m running out of words for cold) and that made it feel nicer.
I definitely had the natural high by that point so once I got talking to them about the joys and quirks of open water swimming all my etiquette of calm, polite chitchat with half-naked strangers in public places went out the window. They may have wished they never asked.
Lessons learnt from this trip: silicone swimming hats insulate against overpowering sauna heat quite well. Locker keys, on the other hand, heat up very quickly and should probably not be worn on your wrist in air temperatures over 70 degrees centigrade.
mermaid lifestyle 