School trips and chilblains

Winter swimming is now in full and freezing swing with Brockwell lido hovering around 6 degrees - yowee! BUT as I have mentioned before (not once but twice), our dear lido sadly does not open on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the winter - it's torture! Unable to cope without our daily fix this Thursday, four fellow Icicles (namely Red Leader Guy, David, Peter and Tim) and I decided to venture into the Wild Wood that is north London and Parliament Hill lido. Well if that cat won't play the mice will go away...

We know the drill by now - all aboard the 8.01 train at Herne Hill, casting pitying looks at all the commuters on their way straight to the office, poor fools.

Dennis the Menace of First Capital Connect

I think Tim has designs on David's hat..

...and who can blame him?

Trit-trot from Kentish town and yippee we've arrived!

JOY

Swim costumes on in slightly brutal concrete changing rooms (instinctively opting for red-coloured cubicle over blue for impression of warmth), then a friendly welcome at the poolside by the nice man in charge, who obliged in taking a group photo, complete with our shiny new and exciting Brockwell Icicle swim hats (which you can't really see at this angle, sorry - next time):

Icicles at large

 Next up dry dive for Guy, Peter and David (mentalists):

Warm up before splash down

Unfort Peter comes a cropper on the slippery side

...leaving Guy and David to take the glory

By this point my feet were starting to freeze to the thin layer of ice on the ground - nothing for it but to join the boys in the silvery, bitingly crisp and blissful waters for a few incredible laps.

The changing rooms might not be up to much but the showers are amazing! So powerful and blisteringly hot!

Rapid farewells, sprint to the office and slink in a mere 20 minutes late with dripping hair. Success!

In other news, I recently got chilblains, gaah! Little blisters on fingers and toes caused by going from very cold to very hot too fast, I suppose a bit like a glass cracking when you take it straight from hot dishwasher and run it under cold tap? According to wikipedia this condition is commonly confused with trenchfoot! Speak for yourself Wikipedia!

Anyway here are some pics that I am hoping will get head-hunted to be a case study in the Lancet:

Figure 1

Or rather:

Figure 2 - gross huh?

So I have since worn my swimming gloves and booties, don't want digits falling off. But they're cumbersome ungainly things to swim in, and tend to fill with water and slow me down and generally detract from that amazing sensation of slicing through the water like a knife (albeit a palette knife in my case). I'm hoping to find a non pathophysiological solution to this problem...

Must get to bed now as I need to be up in just over 6 hours for the December installment of The Swimmer! Four-lido binge - woo!