I’m writing this from the lounge at Mauritius airport, waiting for a night flight home. I didn’t think I could let the last day go past without a photo so here’s a quick snap from the beach earlier.
Tag: Beach (Page 1 of 2)
You might have seen on Twitter that I was off swimming in the sea yesterday. With the water temperature at 5 degrees and the air temperature not much higher, I wasn’t going to be hanging around on the water’s edge taking photos of my legs so this photo was taken on holiday in Cyprus a few years back.
But I wanted to make my post this weekend about swimming so that it also fits with the SWAP revitalise prompt. Because, oh my goodness does swimming revitalise me! I have always loved swimming. I learnt young and took to it instantly. I remember my swimming teacher asking me whether I wanted to try for my five metre badge (who remembers those 1970s and 80s swimming badges?!) and by the end of the lesson I’d earned my five, 10 and 25 metres badges.
Over the years swimming is pretty much the only exercise I have done and enjoyed consistently. There’s been gaps, of course. I don’t remember swimming while I was at university and when I was running more than I can be bothered to these days I swam a lot less. But overall swimming has been the consistent. I’m lucky that for 24 years I’ve lived in London I have always lived or worked within 20 minutes walk of a pool. In fact at one office I could see into the pool from the kitchen.
Swimming looks after my head like no other physical exercise. I think clearly while in the water. Solutions to personal and professional problems reveal themselves. I work through break-ups and make-ups. I relive happy moments and process sad ones.
More recently – like every other woman approaching perimenopause! – I’ve started outdoor swimming and I absolutely bloody love it. The sharp bite of the cold see water and the delicious tingling that takes over your whole body. The smell of petrichor as we get the woody end of the lake on a Monday morning. The incredible Welsh landscape when I’m swimming in the lakes on visits. Every outdoor dip makes me feel so alive.
Three years ago when it was the Diptych prompt @19syllables and I had just been to Botany Bay and the result was Flotsam and Jetsam. Quite by chance, the Triptych prompt just after we’d spent the day on another Kent beach. I love serendipity.
It’s probably a fool’s game to be reminiscing about summer photo adventures when we’re staring down the barrel of three months of 2020 extra time. But plotting new adventures for the times like this that will come again is likely to keep me feeling positive through the gloomiest days of winter.
I’m spending bank holiday weekend in Cyprus with one of my oldest and closest friends. I had thought we might get a photo adventure at some point – find some quiet beaches and spectacular headlands for some creative fun. Turns out that quiet beaches are something of a thing of the past in Cyprus and sneaking off anywhere when you have an energetic and effervescent seven-year-old in tow is impossible. Still, where there’s a will there’s a way and although today’s beach was four deep with sun-loungers and teeming with families it didn’t stop me wandering down to its far reaches where the sand turned to a rocky headland and sneaking a quick holiday snap.
When I told Exhibit A that @19syllables and I were off on a photo adventure to Botany Bay he quipped: “Well I hope the post is going to be called Bottomly Bay.” Last week’s post was all about the legs but I made sure we got one that could carry his title!
Carved by time and tide,
Every pebble a sculpture,
Assuredly whole.
@19syllables
The wonderful thing about beaches is they accommodate so many interests. Whether you want to run, sleep, read, build sand castles, picnic or swim, there’s enough space and freedom to accommodate everyone.
Some people visit them to take nude photographs, others visit them to hunt for treasure. The thing is, some people are so absorbed in their own interest they miss the treasure right under their nose…
“The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.” Haruki Murakami
I might be more excited about posting this photo than any photo I’ve done yet. This is my amazing friend of almost three decades, looking out to sea in the North Wales town where we grew up. She had two vodkas before and about five afterwards, but how amazing does she look?!
This photo has obviously had the colour and contrast pushed in the edit, but not quite as much as you might imagine. The clouds were moody and the sky a deep inky blue with just the faintest patches of light left. The real luck was that the beachside fishing tackle shop had forgotten to turn its fluorescent strip light off and the light through an open window was bright enough to light my friend from behind.
On Friday I took a walk along the South West Coastal Path from where I was staying to an area of sand dunes that I’d read were popular with naked sunbathers. It was a long and occasionally precarious walk which didn’t always play that well with my fear of heights and vertigo; at one point I was stuck rigid to the spot with the cliff dropping away to my left, unable to move until a couple appeared from the opposite direct and pride forced me to take a deep breath and move on.
But when I got to the beach and found my hidden corner of the sand dunes the view made it all seem worthwhile. It was my first naked sunbathing experience away from my own garden and I’m sure it won’t be my last. I did get the train back though!
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