the daily swim 30

Didn't swim naked. Or in champagne. But I did swim out to the buoys where the water is really really deep (with my noodle). And because we still have guests who want to go down the beach every day it doesn't feel like an end to the project yet. I'll have one day next week - Tuesday - when I'll be on my own, just before we drive back to the UK, so I might make that my 'last official swim'. And that means the next few days can be my catch up days for the ones I missed.

It's been an enjoyable discipline, an exercise in being aware, and fun too.  I think there also might be some material in my posts that I can use for poems/short prose pieces. So that was an unexpected gift.

I won't make round 2 in August but will pop in to see everyone and find out what you're all doing.


L
x

the daily swim 28 & 29

I've been slacking on the blogging but not on the swimming. It's a joy right now with great weather and good company. Tonight I went into the sea just after 8... and it was still warm.

Can't believe that it's going to be the last one. How can I mark it, make it special? I'll think about that.

the daily swim 27

Someone stole my noodle. Okay, they 'borrowed' it. But they 'borrowed' it without asking. All day. Teenagers. Okay, they're not looting the local boulangerie, but there's still something about them that irritates me.

The Man says, 'How can you get annoyed about a bit of foam?' And I remind him how pissed off he was last week when his daughter ate his Galaxy chocolate.

So:
appreciation of childless state reinforced
one grumpy 16 year old
lovely noodle session late yesterday afternoon

the daily swim 25 & 26

I have a noodle. Today I just noodled around in the bay for 45 mins. I even went way out of my depth. I love my blue noodle. I wish I'd found out about them earlier but I can see an overspill of the 30 day project now I do have one.

the daily swim 24

• a toddler throws a small red truck into the shallows
• a white volley ball against a blue sky
• a woman on two lilos, placed at right angles to each other

A few things that I noticed straight away when I walked into the sea. Then afterwards, while I was lying on my towel and scribbling in my note book, I looked up to see a man leaning over me, dripping with sea water and smiling, and I wondered if he realised I was British and he was going to ask me a question, although there was something familiar about his face. And then I realised how familiar he was, 26 years familiar. It was my Man.

Did I jump! How can that happen? How can you look at someone you know and in that instant not know them? It was nice to lie on the beach together for half an hour and chat. It felt like a date.

the daily wobbles 22 & 23

Bum! The nearest I got to water for 2 days was the water cooler in the notaire's office in Mandelieu. And, because of someone else's last minute wobbles, if our house exchange is going to go through it won't until next Monday at the earliest. One of those things I can't do anything about so I'm programming myself to switch off for the weekend.

My second step-daughter is over tomorrow (when I moved in with her dad I was 26 and she was 20 and it felt like we were generations aparts but now we're 47 and 53 we spend our time comparing wrinkles and drinking champagne) so that'll be a lovely distraction and will definitely keep me on track for the last lap of the daily swims.

the daily swim 21

I count 100 strokes out and 100 strokes back. There are boys on each other's shoulders trying to wrestle one another into the water. A man floating belly down on an airbed. A young couple splashing and diving on one another. In the bay a double masted yacht I'd like to climb aboard. The Alpes Maritimes are covered in mist. It is strange being on my own here. There is a moveable frontier between alone and lonely. Sometimes they seem so very far apart, other times they wrap around each other. I'm not sure what I am at the moment. I think that the continuing wave of guests and negotiating the sale of the house (and thinking about the move back to the UK ahead) are combining to make me wobble.

the daily swim 20

Yesterday was the last day on the beach with 7 year old Oliver. He spent our time in the water diving under to touch the sand. I spent it swimming round him and counting how long each one took.

'On a scale of 1 to 10 how would you rate your holiday,' I asked him.
'100,' he said.

the daily swim 19

No problems today either - lovely weather obviously helps a lot. But the jellyfish issue is still a problem - they seem to like drifting in our bay. As I was swimming today a man waded past me towards the shore thrashing his arms in front of him like scythes. 'Les meduses?' I said. And when he looked blank, 'Jellyfish.' Ah oui,' he said,' c'etait l'accent.' So the way I say 'les meduses' is so weird it's harder to understand than the english 'jellyfish'? Merde. That's 'shit' for any french people reading.

the daily swim 18

Back in the (happy) groove. A swim, 40 mins on the beach, prawns the size of a baby's arm for dinner tonight, and a chilled bottle of champagne with my name on it.

The Man said, of yesterday's rat event, 'It could have crawled up on the bed and bitten one of us. It might have had rabies.' I guess he has a point. It was small-ish though. Had the look of one of those long and lean alley rats from Disney films. Really long tail. But I'm not a live rat fan so I kept the cat in last night which meant three in the bed and I got the least room.

Two more days of kid-zone, but I am also very proud of him because he ate snails last night for the first time. And a lot of kids wouldn't have even tried.

There was a very scary face just before this stage, and another one when he first put it in his mouth. But he ate it anyway. Good kid. I doubt I'd have done the same at 7.

the daily swim missed for 2 days

The weather stopped me yesterday and grumpiness stopped me today. Grumpiness edged with tiredness and the morning beginning with a dead rat at the end of the bed which didn't augur well for the rest of the day. Ah well, there's tomorrow.

the daily swim 15

Hey - half way through. Last night's swim was under a cloudy sky with Oliver, 7-year-old grandson, who said he didn't need my help as we swam out of his depth but within 30 seconds was gurgling, 'I think I need help.'

Today's swim is likely to be postponed as the morning started with a thunderclap that nearly turned the cat inside out and the rain is not letting up.

As much as I like, for the most part, my inherited grandchildren and my nieces and nephews, and great niece and nephew, I remain pleased that I didn't have my own kids. One, it is mind numbingly boring having to tell someone what to do all the time. Two, they don't come equipped with on/off switches. And three, I would be in prison by now for having have sold one, or given one away, before they were 5.

Gone off the subject there, although keeping my head above water might be an apt metaphor for living with a kid for a week.

the daily swim 14

Jelly fish. Les meduses. Not that I've actually seen any but I've met people who have. And I've seen people staring at them in the sea. They are, depending on who you speak to, brown and speckled, white and clear, the size of a fist, the size of a big marshmallow. Whatever, everyone agrees that they sting.

The water is warm. Today I played valleyball, which is knocking a white football back and forth in the sea with a 7 year old who misread 'volley'.

the daily swim 13

My swim timetable has changed. I was on the beach by 10.30 this morning: kids and leisurely late in the day swims don't mix. And I saw fish - little silver ones swimming about my legs. And a bird - like a smaller version of a cormorant, diving into the sea between people's bobbing heads and re-appearing a few yards away a minute or so later.

We've also bought a paddling pool - for 7-year-old beach relief. It's a biggie (6 ft by 2.5 feet) though I refuse to count a dip in that as a daily swim and will persevere with the beach. But now, after 13 days, it feels less like and effort and more like something I'm looking forward to.

the daily swim 12

Quick trot down to the beach, a short swim and back to the house for the arrival of step-daughter and step-grandson for 10 days. Their Easy Jet plane flew over, heading to Nice, while I was in the sea - a strange feeling of knowing they were right above me, starting their descent, but they didn't know I was watching. Connected to them but divided by so much at the same time.

I have new inflatable toys for the beach tomorrow: a kick board and a tyre. Yay!

the daily swim 11

After two calm and warm days the water is so clear I can see my feet when I've waded in up to my waist. I count a 100 strokes out to sea where I can still stand up and there's a little boy swimming with his mami, like a little turtle with his head poking up above the water, and who suddenly heads towards me. What else to do but grab him under the arms when he arrives smiling, and turn him around and launch him back towards her.

Vous etes anglaise? she asks me. And I say, Galloise, taking care to pronounce it clearly so I describe myself as Welsh and not a french cigarette.

I have a habit of attracting little children, cats and old men over 70. Tony says it's because I'm only about 6 years old myself at heart. But that doesn't explain the cats and old men.

the daily swim 10

The water a little cool tonight but I found the angle to swim along the path of the sun across the surface of the sea. Lovely.

the daily swim 9

Got back on track yesterday - weather has returned to seasonal expectations and the beach is Sardine-land. You daren't leave your patch for more than 10 minutes because someone will park up really close to you... close enough to see the hairs in their nostrils when they fall asleep in the sun.

A family to my right had the best idea. Come down early and stake out your plot with a tent, an inflatable armchair (I sooo want one of those), sandcastles and a whole herd of children's beach toys. It was like a small village.

The water was pretty cold though as was more than evident from the Man's shout when he waded in,'You haven't got any bollocks,' he said in response to my encouraging: 'It's fine once you get under.'

It was the first time he'd joined me. It could be the last. Today he has a cold. Sorry, flu : )

the daily swim 8 - washed out

Or drowned to be more accurate. Rain and more rain and more frigging rain and thunder and it's so cold I have to put on a sweater in the house. Okay, I know everyone in the UK has been wearing sweaters all summer but this is the South of France and it was 34 degrees two days ago.

Another catch up day tomorrow as me and the cat venture out of the house for the first time in 24 hours. Not with the same intention of course.

the daily swim 7

It was a bit chilly stepping into the sea today and I thought briefly about a paddle instead but womaned up and slid into the water. The temperature had dropped during the night and a cooler and frantic wind had been blowing all day from inland out over the sea. It probably has a name - all winds in Provence have names but I only know the sirocco and the mistral and it wasn't either of those as there was no desert sand and no heat.

The post-swim 'sit and dry off and scribble in my notebook' spell was punctuated by me telling a woman that dogs weren't allowed on the beach. It takes me some courage and effort to complain in a foreign language and I don't like being an enjoyment-squasher but a big bouncy black lab and soft sand and little kids playing on it don't work together. And there's a panneau on the promenade that distinctly has a picture of a wolfy thing with a red line across it.

I watch a little boy leaving the beach with his parents. He stops to fill up his Crocs with sand.