I’m writing this mid-November with a hot water bottle stuffed inside my cardy. It’s the first time this season that I’ve noticed my fingers fumbling with the zip of my anorak after a swim (yes, sea swimming in winter is a highly glamorous business) and I need my fingers for writing, as well as for swimming. But I’m here to talk about the positives of sea swimming, year-round, as far as creativity is concerned. I find a lot of benefits to sea swimming, not least that I enjoy it, that it puts me in a very good mood, and that I’m dead keen to get to my writing desk as soon as I’ve swum.
I’m a poet, it’s my job – a strange sort of job I’ll grant you, but then a lot of people think sea swimming outside of August is a strange thing. I’m quite happy to fit into both categories of oddity here.