I know, you’ve been waiting weeks for a new garden blogpost, sparkling with glorious pictures of flowers in sumptuous colour and instead I give you this – a grainy shot across a rough lake under heavy grey skies with a few indistinct limbs flailing about.

I took this picture walking towards my very first open water swim coaching session, shiny new wetsuit draped nonchalantly over my arm. See those heads and arms breaking the surface? I watched them as I hurried towards the jetty, late, trying not to think about me doing that in a few weeks time – if tonight’s novice session went well. I’d picked this lake for my first attempt – partly because it’s not far from home, but partly because I’d read that novices spend their first few sessions swimming around by the jetty to get used to it before tackling the open water circuit.
I was already half an hour late. This lake isn’t on any map anywhere and I had got myself utterly lost. I ended up somewhere on the wild side of Ashton-in Makerfield, (which is somewhere near the wild side of Wigan, which is in turn somewhere near the wild side of….).  After bumping back and to along a 5 mile long farm track for the best part of half an hour I decided it had to be down a muddy farm entrance with the assertive sign marked ‘Private – No Entry’. And there, tucked out of sight, were 30 cars and a dozen camper vans in a field above a long thin lake. I made my way to the wooden jetty covered with a corrugated plastic roof which served as a changing area, stripped off to my swimming costume and wriggled confidently into my new wetsuit, just like the guy showed me in the shop last week. I believe I looked as if I’d done it many times before…
A guy in a red waterproof was standing at the end of the jetty, gazing out over the water. A ragged line of black-clad bodies bobbed away into the distance to my right, vanishing around a spit of land and reappearing before swimming the length of the lake to a buoy on my left, just out of sight on this picture. I sucked my stomach in a bit and approached the chap on the jetty a little hesitantly. You know that kind of lean, slightly hollow-cheeked look of a man who looks like he runs up mountains for fun? 
‘Hi’, I said, ‘sorry I’m a bit late’. He nodded and looked over my shoulder at the buoy in the distance. 
‘My first time’ I volunteered, ‘A complete novice’. 
‘OK, well, there’s no novice session tonight – it’s a time trial. We do it every three weeks. I’m timing the swims.’ 
‘Ah – OK I didn’t know.’
‘It’s no problem. Just get a number from registration, get in and swim round the loop. It’s about 800 metres. I take it you’re a strong swimmer?’
‘Well, no….’ I did a quick mental calculation – 800m was about four times further than I had ever swum in one go before. 
‘It’s fine – the wet suit will help and there are marshalls all the way round. If you get in trouble, roll on your back and wave your hand in the air.’ 
‘How deep is it?’
‘You can stand up in most of it.’ He shot a look past me and shouted a time and a ‘Well done!’ to the guy just touching the jetty.
A kindly looking woman checked my name against the pre-registration list and wrote ’38’ on my hand in black marker pen. I stepped gingerly down the wooden steps and into the water – cool but not cold. ‘Calm, be relaxed and calm, SusanJane’, I thought. ‘You don’t know that you can’t do this.’ So I did a few strokes of breast stroke, then put my head down to settle into front crawl. The water was green, like a cool, thin pea consomme. And it smelt fresh and slightly herby. At first it was quite nice, but then I kept swimming into clumps of green weeds rising from the lake floor. I veered away from the right bank to evade them. They followed me, rippling through my fingers and snarling my goggles. I only breathe to the right so I could see the bank, but not where I was going, and I wasn’t going anywhere very much at all. Slowed by the weeds and a bit disoriented, my breathing got faster and faster until I was gasping, slightly panic-stricken. I’d probably managed 150 metres at most. The new wet suit felt tight and constricting round my chest. I knew I couldn’t make it all the way round so I turned for the bank to my right, slowly breaststroking my way through the weeds before clambering up the muddy edge. Oh, the joy of solid ground. 
I walked back to the jetty along the grassy bank and waited till the guy in the red jacket was between writing down the times of finishers. ‘That didn’t exactly go to plan’, I said. ‘I can’t breathe – my chest feels so constricted….’
‘Well – get back in and have another go’ he said ‘you’ll get used to it. There’s plenty of time, we have the lake until eight.’
Just next to the jetty was a small bay of still water. I slid back in. I’ll just float for a bit, I thought. Just get used to the wet suit if nothing else. So I rolled onto my back and lay there, watching the clouds scud by, thinking about relaxing. Relaxing. My legs floated reassuringly, effortlessly. I watched the clouds go by a bit more.
Without really thinking about it I turned on my front and set off again. Legs just trailing behind me in the water to save energy, swimming slowly, very slowly. When I got tired I rolled onto my back and watched the calming clouds. A marshall eyed me uncertainly as I approached the island. I figured I could make it to a jetty a bit further ahead, but this turned out to be a few rotting posts driven into the soft mud floor of the lake. I wrapped my arms around a post for a few minutes, waited while a couple of swimmers went by and waved at them reassuringly, got my breath back and set off again around the circular island. I can’t swim anti-clockwise, I discovered, so I got round it hexagonally. And then, oddly, it got easier. If the route had been a slow continuous circle to the right I could have probably have swum the rest in one go. As it was I zig-zagged my way to the final buoy, doggy-paddling around it nice and close, before putting on my best Total Immersion long, smooth stroke back to the start point. Just in case anyone was watching. 
A sleek powerboat was bobbing by the jetty. The guy in the red jacket was eyeing his watch. ‘Hope you weren’t timing that’ I quipped. 
‘Last one out’ someone else said. 
‘Did you enjoy that?’ he asked.
I almost hooted with laughter. ‘I can’t honestly say I did. Especially the weeds.’
‘Better than chlorine’ he said. And that is true, I had just been immersed in pure rainwater for the best part of an hour. 
I padded off towards my bag, feeling knackered but just a bit chuffed. A roar rippled out behind me and the powerboat took off down the lake, a waterskier behind, swinging fast and wide behind, taking the lake apart end to end and side to side in a matter of seconds. I gawped, awestruck. I remembered way too late that I don’t approve of stupidly powerful engines on environmental grounds. I glanced at my watch. 20.05….
Privacy for changing wasn’t much in evidence so I gathered up my stuff and walked back to the car in my wet suit. The deal seemed to be to get changed by wrapping a towel round yourself by the car with everyone else studiously not looking. Fine by me. 
So – I sort of swam 800 metres of mostly front crawl in a wet suit in open water tonight. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going back. 
There – that’s enough trauma for anyone to read through. Here’s a picture of our Himalayan blue poppies to cheer us all up…..
June 12, 2013