Back in the swim

Taking a break from clay days

Since the river of life changed course a couple of months ago, we’ve been struggling to get back into the old current.

For several years, our retired lives have revolved around exercise and other leisure activities, but then the lust to make stuff out of clay took a hold.

In the past two months, it’s been a feverish round of activity, getting an exhibition together and setting up with a couple of retail outlets. That being achieved, we thought we were over it a week ago.

The joy of being able to give pots to all my near and dear for Christmas for the first time in more than 30 years provoked a dead-cat bounce and we soldiered on for another week.

This morning, we took the lid off the final pre-Christmas firing and went for a swim.

In the summer, all of our swim friends meet up at the beach, either at 7am or 7.30am (or a whole lot of other times).

We chose the latter, as our lack of recent activity has made us poor candidates for large challenges.

We clocked up a gentle 1.5km with some of our closest friends, while the 7am crew went off on a mission.

In these days of gps watches and smart phones, swimmers can map their courses, along with times, heart rate and other vital information we’ve now realised we can’t do without.

The challenge today was to make a Christmas tree.

The A team set off at 7am, clocking up more than 4km on their search for the ideal shape.

They did a pretty good job (thanks Hamish).

We arrived a bit late to know the plan, so mine was more like a wind sock, not helped by the fact that I forgot to turn my watch on for the first few hundred metres.

You might wonder that swimming can be a social activity. You put your head down and commune with a couple of metres of murky water for a length of time.

Every so often you reach a buoy, a boat or a rock and you all stop and chat. Then you carry on - not talking, not listening. It’s a good way to avoid awkward conversations.

Then you all go to a cafe. You may skite about what you just did, but on the whole the conversation is more mundane. You know you’ve had that shared experience - and that’s enough to form a bond.

Although we all start and finish at different times, we mostly end up at the cafe at about the same time. One estimate was that there were more than 35 swimmers on the water - and more were starting as we were getting out. The whole bay was full of wetsuits towing little orange or yellow floats.

Then we went home and finished unloading the kiln. It was all pretty good - lots of our ultra-reliable green.

Cathie’s been busy posting photos on Instagram

I’ve been packing, wrapping and mailing off pots here and there, but on the whole, we’re embarking on a rest period.

Tomorrow, we pack and on Monday we head south for a few days to spread some Christmas cheer with our near and dear.

More adventures to come. It’s a fine life.