Swimming along

After many years of abstinence, I recently rediscovered the joys of swimming. Over the years I have dabbled: Dragging my sorry carcass through the chilly waters of a couple of Switzerland's many pleasing Freibads, coupled with the occasional attempt in the Hallenbad to get serious again. But a recent change in my daily schedule provided me with the opportunity to reengage in swimming like I had not done since my teenage years. And the opportunity to confront some of the neuroses that developed in between times.

As a child, like any kid with the advantage of enlightened parents, I was taught to swim from an early age. The weekend trips to the pool with my father and sister were moments of great pleasure and togetherness for us as a family, made yet more memorable for the rare treat of salt and vinegar Monster Munch crisps which followed the successful completion of our natational exertions. As I grew, I recall attending swimming club for many years to follow, acquiring the various, multi-coloured milestone badges of swimming aptitude, which advanced in 100 metre increments to 1500 metres, and thusly attained were diligently sown on to my swimmers by my mother. The well-meant but shrilly piercing tones of encouragement emanating from our swimming coach, the bespectacled and short-haired Mrs. Kemp, still ring in my ears, I have discovered, whenever I pull myself up and down a pool.

At some point, the combination of an increasing consciousness about my developing body and the urge of other activities, curtailed my swimming activities. Once I had achieved a certain level of competence, I am sure that the need for a Kaizen-like continual improvement was deemed irrelevant. Since those years I ventured only occasionally back to the water, but I retained this sense of myself as a swimmer, able to carve through the water and effortlessly swim 1.5k. What confidence those little badges could bring to a person!

A moment of crisis however, was reached one year when I travelled to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and took part in a scuba-diving trip, without much in the way of preparation or training, which was to haunt my swimming for several years. Under water and unable to think straight, I tried to speak to a colleague while using breathing apparatus, resulting in a moment of panic that unsettled me and left me with some strange neurosis about swimming underwater and being able to breath properly while out of sight of dry land.

After slowly easing myself back into the water with some gentle breast-stroke sessions at my local pool, I have over the past two months built up my stamina and muscle tone, such that I am able to hack through 1k of crawl in something between 25 or 30 minutes, depending on how much effort I want to put in. First to return was the muscle memory of the crawl arm movements, the windmilling motion rendered effective underwater by the paddle-like positioning of one's hands and the s-curve movement beneath the body to the thighs, and then the crooked brush-past of the ears that leads to the gravity-assisted plunge of the pointed hand back into the water. Next came the rhythmic breathing, allowing myself to relax back into being in the water and underwater, and giving me a neat 1-2-3 stroke style with breaths stolen from beneath an arched upper arm on alternating sides of my body.

The leg movement was slower to reemerge from my mind, first manifesting itself in a demure, knees-together flippering that was ineffective in propelling me forward with the vigour of the Ironmen with whom I share my busy lunchtime swim sessions. Later the wider stance and full use of the legs and thighs helped to take some of the effort off my upper body, and helped me to start to understand how swimming can effectively deploy a host of muscles across the full body in a way that other sports cannot.

While the results of this regular swim are kind of immaterial, I do enjoy the feeling that 30 minutes spent in the pool (and the other 30 minutes spent get there and back, changed and showered) are more effective than a similar amount of time spent jogging or cycling. More muscles feel to be under tension more often in either sport and yet the impact on the joints is significantly lower, than at least jogging. While the dog can't join me in the pool, much as he would like, it is otherwise an ideal sport -- with the added benefit of reconnecting me with my past and helping me to over come some of my lingering inhibitions.

On Winter

Winter is a frame of mind. It is as cold or as unpleasant as you want it to be. The old saying that there is no such thing as the wrong weather, only the wrong clothing, is one that I have come to appreciate in my decade or so of living in Switzerland. And not just because of the Alpine winters. But rather because of the apparently mild winters of my home country.

In all my years of living in the United Kingdom as a child, I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the times when I really experienced snow. As a small child, I have a distinct remembrance, no doubt shaped and enhanced by what people have subsequently come to refer to as Kodak memories, of the snow on my parent's driveway coming up to the waistband of my down, all-in-one.

The clumping dry and sticky snow that clings to the fibres of your woollen mitts was a rare occurrence, but when it did come we made sure to make the most of it. Snowball fights were hand. Snowmen were made. Leaving patches of green lawn exposed as the two centimetre dusting of white was commandeered to create a dirty, grey Michellen man with a carrot for a nose.

And yet for most of the winter, the snow wasn't to be found and instead one experienced a cold, damp and biting kind of weather, the likes of which only the UK can serve. With winds said to blow unbroken from the Steppes and Siberia to the East and Northeast, further weaponised by their gathering of moisture over the inky North Sea, the winters in the North of England can only be endured. Once the wet cold penetrates the layers of one's outer clothing, the chances of reheating are reduced to such a point that an evening spent in front of a roaring fire, wrapped in blankets are less a romantic idyll than a hard reality.

Switzerland's preparedness for and efficient delivery from the plague of the white stuff is quite a revelation for someone like me who comes from a country where an entire motorway can grind to a halt overnight with the merest dusting of the stuff. Not only are the authorities and airport operators, the church wardens and farmers, all equipped to handle the annual occurrence with ease, but private home owners too. Shovels, snow scoops, and snow blowers are as much part of the experience of homeownership in this country as the garden grill and chair-set.

This year the snow has fallen sooner than anticipated. Six inches have fallen overnight and settled across the garden as a blanket over a snoozing form. The blood red blooms on our climbing rose are now smothered in white, caught out by the rapid shift from a balmy 14 degree day of sunshine on Thursday to Sunday's damp and grey atmosphere, with clouds heavy with more precipitation.

For all that, I refuse to see winter as a downer. One member of our household, at least, Walker the dog, enjoys this time of year better than any other, celebrating the opportunities that snow presents him to sniff scents deep under the surface of the snow-covered fields and paths that surround our house in Glarus. Walking him is a boost given the pleasures it presents. And with temperatures skirting around freezing point, that is saying something.

With a felt hat, solid shoes, and a down jacket of the appropriate quality, the Swiss winter can be enjoyed and celebrated. Which can hardly ever be said of the damp fug of the United Kingdom. Another winning argument in Switzerland's favour.