Toot toot

With Brockwell lido closed not only on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the winter timetable, but also on Wednesday for New Year's Day, come 2nd January we Icicles cracked under the stress of cold-water withdrawal and succumbed to the bec and call of... <sharp intake of breath>... Tooting Bec Lido. It's beautiful, it's huge (91 m) and above all it's cold. It's also home to the South London Swimming Club, whose experienced, steely winter swimmers make us Icicles feel rather silly and inadequate (but we don't mind).

We convened in the Tooting lido carpark at prespecified hour of 8.45am, and were joined by Jonathan of The Swimmer fame, who is official Race Director of SLSC and therefore practically a celeb.

Once Red Leader Guy had arrived we only awaited Marc - and await we did, for about 15 minutes, before giving him up for lost or over-sleeping. Upon entry, however, who should we see blithely bobbing along with the whole damn pool to himself?!

Splitter

With the sun shining and the air beautifully crisp, we wasted no (further) time and hastily donned the togs in the chilly concrete changing rooms.

Boys are wimps

Ed opted for wetsuit to enable longer swim, attracting pointed stares from Tooting regulars. He was also proudly sporting new prescription goggles, which presumably allow him to stop and read the papers during those longer swims. I must also record that I spied Jonathan casting about with a questing look in his eyes, muttering "must have left my goggles inside", at which point I gleefully pointed out that they were on his head.

I'm getting slightly concerned for newcomer Tim (pictured above applying three hats), who seems to become incrementally more neoprene clad with each passing week...

People don't tend to talk about the water temperature much at Tooting - no doubt such details are for amateurs - but I gather it was something like 5.5 degrees. Anyway in we hop and off we go:

I begin with a steady front crawl and swim for what feels like 10 minutes, admiring the leaves, eventually popping my head up when I start to feel tired and discovering the end is still several meters distant. I opt for a conservative 2 lengths, partly because I can't work out what 91 divided by 50 is to apply my 1-Brockwell-length-per-degree formula.

Meanwhile David looks more at home in the water than out:

Next stop: the sauna! A glorious wooden hut of hilarity right by the pool. On opening the door you're hit by a wall of warmth and greeted by two neat rows of beaming swimmers' faces:

We swapped swim stories with some of the regulars, discussed Guy's questionable new swimming trunks, and admired one chap's ingenuity in bringing his clothes into the sauna to get changed. Toasty warm inside and out, we went for a quick icy plunge back into the lido, before returning to the brutal changing rooms ("like a gulag", as Helen put it) and then heading to their little self-service cafe, where Candy gamely hopped on teapot duty...

"Would you like ice in your tea madam?"

With winter membership a mere £25 if you join after 1st January it seemed rude not to sign up. I confess I feel a bit guilty for cheating on Brockwell but, well, a girl has needs - and this girl in particular needs to swim 7 days a week. So it's mean but I think Tooting might just become my standard deviation.