I am not a cold water swimmer. I have deep admiration for those who are. I am so inspired by Jessica J. Lee whose frigid dips are memorialized in her swim memoir (swimoir??) Turning, and am astounded every single day when I log onto Instagram and see my Team Mermaid pals swimming in 2 degree lidos. But cold water swimming I am not.

And so, imagine my dismay, when I landed into my favourite near-annual weekend retreat with plans to finish the novel I've been writing, interspersed with swims in the pool a few floors up, only to jump into the shallow end only to realize the heater was broken.

I tried to channel my inner mermaid, but alas, I could not and I only it eight lengths before retreating to the sauna.

It was disappointing to say the least, but there was a glorious blizzard outside and I ended up wandering in the snow instead, which was a pretty lovely alternative.



P.S.:This was my first glorious swim-retreat. So! Much! Fun!

It has been a minute, well 245,100 minutes actually, but my computer was so old I couldn't upload photos, and though I was swimming up a storm, all my words were funnelled into novel writing, and kids' book writing and then the fall happened and transitioning Kid #1 to kindergarten was much more exhausting than I anticipated...Excuses, excuses. I have been writing blog posts in my head every time I swim and now that I've got a fancy new computer, it's time to write them onto a computer.

I don't know if it's the grey skies and the slushy puddles, but I've been dreaming of  last summer's exceptional swims – three of them primarily: a road trip swim date with my oldest kid at this lovely swimming hole, a dip off Hanlan's Point in August with my tow float from my UK mermaid pals...



...and our first tear-free family lake swim even later in August. I was worried the water would be cold as the morning's clocked in at a chilly 8 degrees, but the water was so warm. There was a mama bear spotting at the point I usually swam to, so I switched up my route and stayed closer to the cottage after realizing that swimming bear encounters are my ultimate fear.


Over the Christmas holidays, my not-always-into-swimming kid declared he wanted to go swimming, so of COURSE I dropped everything, dug out our suits and flew up to the pool for a morning family dip. The family swim times don't always jive with kid naps, but we found a morning slot and had so much fun! On our winter fun list is more family swims!

And with this renewed collective love of swimming, I started plotting summer swims. We're renting a new cottage this summer (on THIS lake, that I grew up swimming in!), and I've already put our Island swim/picnic adventure into the calendar.

To summer swimming, even if it is still February!