Way To Go

This seems a great way of coming for a swim at the Lido on a warm, spring like February morning!

Georgie arriving in style ... with baby Thea

ready for a quick swim ...

.... in lovely sun shine ...

the water was hovering between 3.5C and 4C

while the air temperature was hitting double figures

Georgie really seemed to be enjoying her swim ... while ...

daughter, Thea, was having a peaceful snooze,

oblivious of her mother's bravery

reunited ...

..... and off to the sauna!

Leap Of The Day

Egg announce he was ready for a leap ! Immediately not one camera but 4 pointed in his direction! Carl (alias Mr.Ape), Alex (alias Mr. Bubbles), Jonathan (alias just Jono!) and I all got ready to capture Egg in mid air -

Leaping was the theme of the day ... Alex asked me to leap in after the sauna and Carl wanted me to take a shot of him leaping in (after the sauna)

Egg on the phone : early morning deals going down, down down ....

.... good news always leads to EUPHORIA!

check out Alex's take and Carl's take of Egg

on their blogs - not sure when their posts will be up ... just go by the date 22/2/12

the other side of Egg ...

Carl's post sauna excitement ... he also swam 12 lengths! (prior to the sauna)

Nando pushing off ...

and away he goes

It's Back

"It's back and I can't bare it anymore", were Stephanie's words this morning ... mind you, she did have a big smile on her face too ...!

In many ways, I do share Steph's sentiment ... ice, snow, winter .. yes, of course, it's part of the excitement at the Lido ... and, let's face it, we did have to wait rather long for the pleasures and the buzz that accompanies the drop in temperature ... but, come on, back me up on that one, we are past mid February, the days are getting longer and by now our sights should be fully focused towards spring and the pleasures seeing colours emerge again will bring!

surprisingly last night was cold enough to produce

a thin layer of ice in the shallow end of the pool

the ice was "thick enough" though

to bear the weight of my flip flops

lovely flower like pattern

Alex also tried to capture the unique pattern -

check out his blog entry of today to see what he got!

Sun catching the lens

David laughing at what I was about to photograph ...

Sue B. trying to record the "singing of the ice"!

The sound happens when water gets underneath the thing layer of ice and pushes it up which produces ice waves and a beautiful high pitched sound .. or "melody"!

sample of the very thin layer of ice which covered one third of the pool this morning ...

I reckon by 11am the sun will have all but swallowed it and lunch time swimmers will be able to swim lengths (again)

in fact David measured the water below the thin layer of ice to be 2C ... how is that possible?! It just IS!

Framed Apes

Taking a closer look at Mr & Mrs Ape's saturday water activities

two "Apes" on the prowl!

one Ape is waving ...

praying (under water) is one way of coping with the cold water ....

Ape no 2 in the background .. no prayer there ...

just fast, rhythmical freestyle strokes

Mrs Ape on her 2nd length

.... surrounded by lovely leaves

Mr Ape coming to the end of his 3rd length ...

not sure how many he ended up swimming -

suer he is going to tell us on his blog entry of today!

General Consent

Not sure what the water temperature was today ... but the general consent this morning pointed towards it being ever so slightly "warmer" than yesterday!

Alex swam 4 lengths and found the 4th to be "less painful" than yesterday - that must be a good sign!

I kept my tally at: a dive in from the deep end, one lengths and 2 widths ... followed by a long time in the sauna ... mainly chatting with Nadine - which was just as refreshing as my swim itself! Nadine is full of energy with a huge zest for adventure and an unquenchable yearning to experience all what life has to offer - Inspiring others and being inspired by others lies at the forefront of her daily activities - check out Nadine's own website! No photos of Nadine today as I was already in the sauna when she did her stint.

By the time we ended our conversation I was so hot I had to dive back in and swim another two widths - which Alex captured and put on his blog entry today!

Once showered and fully dressed again I got some shots of Pip and Laurie

setting off on his 3rd length

After length 4, Pip offered to swim towards me for a great underwater shot of him!

Vince brought his daughter Laurie who was keen to get in the water ...

having just taken my camera out of the freezing water and into warmer air temperature,

it fogged up which is why Laurie looks like she is in a haze!

seconds later the lens cleared

Laurie was still all smiles and keen to get in .... a toe seemed enough ... all Laurie kept saying was "it's freezing it's freezing!"

It will take a few years before she'll be as tough as "Father Vince" :)

Coffee Filtered

No blog for 2 days ... sorry !

yesterday I was away all day with a very early start which meant no swim ... and no swim meant no blog! :)

On tuesday, on the other hand, I had a bit of a mystery happen to my (beautiful!) images - they were all on the camera to see ... Alex and Ian are my witnesses ;) when I arrived home and put the SD card into my card reader, they were GONE .... shock horror!

To cut a long story short: what followed : lots of googling, reading photography forums.. finding a "solution" in a software that retrieves lost data .. which partly worked ... I saw the images in the software (yeah!!) but when it came to retrieving them again something went wrong ... oh so wrong .... shame ...! which resulted in no blog entry for tuesday feb. 14th ... probably a valentine jinx!

Anyway, before the mystery is completely solved and I know for sure whether I have a dodgy SD card or a malfunctioning card reader, I didn't want to go through the same "ordeal" (well, at least I didn't lose wedding shots or anything "really valuable!"), I resorted to using a photography software I have on my mobile phone instead !

Oh and I swam again too! ahhhhhh what bliss : 1 length and 2 widths was enough for me!

All shots taken with a filter called .. wait for it : "coffee" (what else!)

so what follows are for some coffee filtered images :)

Vince and his daughter, Laurie making the most of half term

Alex upped his game and swam 4 lengths - "3 would have been enough, according to Alex, but once up in the deep end at the end of lengths no. 3 I had to get back!"

Batch getting ready to swim, lengths I thought ...

Once in Batch changed his mind ... and swam 2 widths -

hiding his face, he didn't want to own up to the evidence:)

others were getting ready ...

... 4 in total

Vince, Chris, Nick and Clare

... for a game of "hand tennis"

against the wall

A creative moment for Batch

before settling down again, enjoying the sun

and a good natter with Hilary

all calm again ... not a single trace of ice left -

water temperature just below 2C

this empty cup was floating in the water when I swam ...

and miraculously found its way out ...

Unique Pair Of Spectacles

Although the air temperature seemed a lot milder, 2/3 of the pool was still covered in ice... We were still restricted to swimming in the deep end of the Lido ... The lifeguards kept an eagle eye on loose pieces of ice floating around - their efforts meant that a narrow path across the width of the top end of the pool as well as a narrow line at the top cubicle side up to the next steps were kept safe -

The water felt amazing again - I can describe diving in as a beautiful and almost surreal moment ... it takes a while before the message "that water is cold" actually sets in! and swimming 2 widths was actually "easy" ... others stayed in the water for longer .... they too enjoyed it!

Karen fishing out loose pieces of ice floating around the deep end

Although there was less ice in the deep end,

it was still considerably thicker than in the shallow end

Nadine getting psyched up before her swim in

(so David said) -1C water temperature

John on his way back to the steps in the deep end -

you can see how thick the water is

Nadine making her way down the steps

for a beautifully invigorating swim

out with a smile, feeling all the better for her swim

Nando, the Lido bomber from Rio is back

swimming to shore ...

... ready for bomb number two!

Chris "ploughing" through thick water alone -

sparring partner Sue R. is on skiing hols.

a huge layer of ice, albeit quite thin, is still covering most of the pool

the cover of ice

Nando stepped in the shallow end of the pool -

breaking the thin layer

in search of his own unique specs!