Yes.djewesbury wrote:You went swimming in Loch Snizort. Very bracing at this time of year.
We walked out of the hotel, along the river, looking for somewhere to swim. A local was seen, and later another, to both whom I marched briskly and asked ‟if, hypothetically, somebody wanted to swim in the river, where would be best?” They would look me up and down: boots no socks, swimming trunks, hoodie branded with ‟Coney Island Polar Bear Club”. As the wife caught up the reply, both times, started ‟Hypothetically, !”. Mrs W. thought that the ‟Hypothetically” must have been a local affectation until I explained.
So we went to recommended place (just east of where the A850 crosses the River Snizort), and in I went. After starting swimming across, my spotter started hollering about being carried downstream in the current, which was indeed quite swift. So I swam back to the edge, and decided that honour had been satisfied for that day.
Wednesday I chickened out. However Mrs W did go for a run, and remarked on a candidate swimming place adjacent to a church which was near where the River Snizort widens and starts becoming the sea.
Thursday, following the night of the big storm, and during a lapse in the morning hail, we left the hotel in the same clothing as before and walked to that church. The tide had gone out, so I would have had to scramble over 30 horizontal feet of slimey mossy rocks. No, I didn’t want to do that. Let me be quite clear about this: the decision was nothing to do with the resumption of hail, nor was it anything to do with the strong wind causing the hail to move almost horizontally. It was the slimey rocks.
So we returned to the A850 bridge, and in I went. Immediately after which Mr Horizontal-Hail was joined by Mrs Horizontal-Hail, their children, and quite a selection of cousins, aunts and uncles, all with the same hyphenated surname. As I was struggling to get on my boots, my back was being abraded by fast-moving sharp hail. Ouch!
We returned to the hotel at about midday, when the shower water was somewhere between lukewarm and cold.