This summer was truly was a banner summer for swimming.  

I mean, summers are always good for swimming, but this summer, I decided to pack three summers into one and jumped into any and every body of water I could.

 

In May, I was back to swimming with my beloved swim tether and June was filled with "Mama swimming lessons" and a return to outdoor City pools on the weekends. 

July was packed with swimming—with dips in Toronto pools while my kids learned to swim (!), chilly Georgian Bay swims, and two weeks on Twelve Mile Lake, which is the longest I’ve been on any lake since I was a kid. The water was rougher than it usually is, until one day when the water was like glass, and it is the swim I will hold onto deep into February.

 

I swam with loons more times than I can count, and my kids went out for swim one afternoon, only to find themselves paddling around with a crew of 14 teenager loons. Definitely one for the books!

August was the most swim-filled month, maybe of my life, with a visit to the ocean-like waves of Lake Ontario at Sandbanks Provincial Park, and a luxurious afternoon in the Gatineau River. Two of my very favourite people live on its banks, and we spent the day in the rich, silky black water that is rich with tannins, like oversteeped tea, from the decomposing logs on the river bed. It was such a beautiful swim (and my kids’ first river swim!) until we were leaving and my oldest saw a water snake—my worst nightmare, his absolute delight!

Our week in Ottawa that was supposed to be chock full o’ swimming, was thwarted by a non-COVID-related plague that struck our friends’, but the delightful consolation turned out to be my best swim of the summer on Lake Kennebec, near Perth, ON. Our city neighbours just bought a cottage there, and we were thinking of stopping off for a quick hello to break up the drive. They were having none of that and insisted we stay for the night, which meant not only did my kids learn the technique of a “monsoon” – the most epic cannonball that was ever created (sort of a cannonball/stride jump hybrid), they also saw the Milky Way for the first time, and, with bellies full of s’mores, we watched the Perseid meteor shower. It was, perhaps, one of the very best moments of my life. 

 

And then, just to gild the lily, my beloved friend Jess and I decided at the eleventh hour (aka the last day of August) to resurrect our annual swim day that had been on hold during the pandemic and we met up at Kelso. It was rainy and chilly, and after huddling on camping chairs with coffee and cookies, we decided it was time to swim. It was the perfect end to a swim-filled summer. 

I pulled my suit on the other morning at the pool, only to find the top band had entirely unattached from the rest of the suit. The stitching had totally disintegrated. I was so frustrated—this suit was pretty much brand new, I fumed.

Except, then I realized it wasn't. It wasn't brand-new at all. I got it right after my son was born, which makes it over 4 years old now. My pregnancy had stretched out my former suit so badly, all the seams had ripped open (ALLLL of the seams, ahem) and this bathing suit was my post-pregnancy treat to myself. Except getting it meant:
a) going to a mall
b) going to a mall with a baby
c) trying on bathing suits a few weeks post-partum (in a mall, with a baby)

So, not awesome. I remember grabbing a handful of Speedos (my suit of choice...not sponsored, though I'll take a bathing suit sponsorship any day! Holy smokes, they're pricey) in a handful of sizes because post-partum body and the sizing on my last suit had been bleached right off of the tag. It was March, or maybe early April, so the selection was terrible and I bought the first suit I managed to wriggle into. It wasn't pretty. It was blue and green in some strange zig-zaggy pattern, but it was a flattering cut that wouldn't slip off my shoulders, or ride up my butt.

And then I wore this not-so-pretty-but-very-servicable suit 3-4 times a week (at minimum!) for four years (minus the few months I wore my patched up old suit when I was pregnant the second time). That's over 700 swims. And so, I forgave the stitching that had disintegrated and thanked this workhorse of a suit for its years (!) of service.

(A friend has a 45 Wears project on Instagram, a project that promotes wearing clothes longer and celebrating clothes that last. I think I should submit this suit - it deserves a mention 15 times over!)

And so, I'm back to bathing suit shopping, which is still dreadful. Is a plain, solid colour suit so much to ask for? Yes. Yes it is, apparently. I have two issues (three if you count the awful change room lighting): 1). people swim-swim year-round. I get that fancy bikinis are more of a summer thing, but racing/swim-swimming suits aren't just a summer thing, and yet no stores carry them "out of season" and 2). WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE SWIM-SWIMMING (as opposed to lounging) SUITS HAVING BOOB PADDING? Are people really so horrified by the potential of the outline of a nipple? The last thing I want is a pair of wet sponges dragging me down. Bah.

And so, I'm going to pull out my sewing machine and zip-zag stitch the top of my suit back together until I can find a workhorse for the next 700 swims.

I miss swimming. I type that out and it looks so small on the page, but it feels enormous. I really miss swimming. I miss it so much that I stopped my bike the other day just to watch U of T's swim practice (which of course made the missing worse!) My local is closed until next week and it feels like an eternity.

I read something the other day about a swimmer feeling like she's a plant without water when she hasn't swum in a while and I will admit I had the pinpricks of tears in the backs of my eyes, nodding. Yes. Yes. I am a plant without water, a swimmer without water.

Melodramatic? Yes. But also true. It's been 12 days since my last swim and I am at a loss. My body feels different, my brain is so cluttered.

It's partly because I had such an incredible summer of swimming. It was such a scorcher and I was in the water at least four times a week, if not more. My body has never been so strong. My hair has never been so permanently matted. I explored new pools and stuck with my favourites. The missing peaks on the hot days like today where nothing would be better than a dip, and an hour or so of lengths, back and forth and back and forth, the meditation I crave more than anything else.

I've been out walking (my dance-injuried version of running), but it's not the same, even with the sun on my face and podcasts in my ears. I know what I need to do is swim (and I will! Monday! MONDAY!), but in the meantime, I'll be tweeting with my new UK Twitter chums – Tanya of @lidowriters, a writer-in-residence at the UK's oldest outdoor pool and Clare (@loveswimming) – both swimmers and lido* aficionados (my people!!). They're both going to a lido conference this weekend and man oh man, I wish the teleporter was working!

So, until Monday, I'll be here, two-piece packed away until next summer, scrolling through old swim posts, and the turquoise blue-tones photos on my phone...




* Lido = pool! I'd never heard the word before this summer - for us non-Brits, it's pronounced lie-do!

I must begin with the caveat that summer is not over. I REPEAT, SUMMER IS NOT OVER. But as it's the last week the outdoor pools are open in Toronto, I figured it was time to celebrate some of our swimming accomplishments in embroidered badge-form:

This summer's grown-up swimming badges (clockwise): 
- Laura Queen of the Docktail's Swimming Sommelier Badge (featuring a perfect vinho verde, a boozy watermelon rosemary lemonade, an aperol spritz and an epic red).
- Patrice's Swimming Sustenance Badge (featuring her roadtrip clambake)*
- My Jumping-In Bravery Badge (because this summer marks the first I haven't hung off the ladder for HOURS)
- Rhya's Director of Underwater Photography Badge (because of her hauntingly beautiful river photos!)



And I couldn't let our epic Swimming Holes We Have Known collective cliff jump go unrecognized! CLIFF JUMPING BADGES FOR ALL!


Check out last summer's badges here!



* please note the French knot shrimp. THEY KILL ME!!

*SEE NEW UPDATES BELOW!!!! The fanmail keeps coming!*

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Original Post: July 15, 2016:

I have THE best people in my life.

Last summer, one of my early swimming hole posts here on this blog featured a photo that my friend Carmen took of me at her pond, the Schoolhouse Riviera. I was about to undo my hairdoo to jump in. It's a wonderful, arty, dancey kind of shot. Can't plan this kind of thing. It's just a moment.

I had no idea that this was the shot that would inspire a knockoff, let alone a series.

Instigated first by my clever friend Rob... these started showing up oh-so-subtly on Facebook and Instagram and other places I would bump into them.

I laugh so hard looking at them.

And I feel, weirdly, just SO HONOURED. It's the best.


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Side Note: incredibly it was almost a year ago that we 3 swimmers started this blog. Today we are embarking on our FIRST EVER group road trip together. We're going RIVER SWIMMING in Gatineau with another dear one. So many of our favourite things all in one weekend. I'm so excited I might burst.

Stay tuned for the Road Trip Report!

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UPDATE JULY 29, 2016:

The fanmail keeps a-coming... from all across Canada...



UPDATE AUGUST 7, 2016:

And now all the way from Texas too!




UPDATE SEPTEMBER 8, 2016:

And a few more...!




 xo Lo

*SEE NEW CROWD-SOURCED TIPS BELOW!!!!*

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Original Post: August 3, 2016:

I am no expert, but having just arrived home from a week at a cottage with a very curious toddler, I picked up a few tips that I feel is my swim-loving parental duty to share:


1). Dock + a pack and play
Fill it with a thousand toys and snacks. Then enjoy your morning coffee/docktails. (Note: this was the biggest game changer. I can't recommend it highly enough!)


2). Docktails + baby monitor
Game changer #2: Charge that monitor up and as soon as the kid is asleep, head down to the dock for docktails/dinner/skinnydipping, etc. Freedom! I have never been more careful about not breaking the baby monitor as I was last week.



3). An adult PFD
We all know kids have to have lifies when around the water, but wearing an adult lifejacket made for much easier off-the-dock swimming with Jack. (My egg beater is good, but not THAT good!)



4).  Canoe snacks
I wasn't sure how canoeing was going to work with a kid who loves walking/running more than anything, but we timed our canoe rides around snack times and ended up having the best paddles. And it turns out canoe rides also put our kid to sleep – added bonus!



5). A chamois pullover
100% not necessary, but amazing. We were gifted one for Jack and I want one in adult size!



6). All the stairs
If your cottage is perched on high, getting your kid to do the 50+ stairs from the water to the cottage four times a day will make for SERIOUS naps.

And two extra bonus tips:
- wooden coffee tables make excellent baby gates
- bringing up child safety locks for the cupboards was a brilliant move and meant we didn't have to do too much curious-kid-proofing in the kitchen.

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UPDATE August 30, 2016:

Because people ARE AWESOME, we received a veritable deluge of toddler + cottage tips:

The August Long Weekend is HERE! What better time to release The 2016 Docktail Report -- just in time for your pre-weekend preparations.

I've been collecting my inspiration for this year's Docktail list for several weeks now, trying them out on friends and family. We 3 swimmers + one special guest star taste-tested a few on our recent river swimming road trip, and our resident connoisseur Rhya (aka Lady Beer Goggles) gave them the thumbs up.

If you need to review the original guidelines for what makes Docktail Hour truly special, you can refer to last year's report here.

Without further ado, I give you the 2016 Docktail Report:

The Blender Contenders

Given my inclination to be Fancy whenever possible, this year's list features TWO docktails that require special equipment -- but it's just a good old basic blender, so don't worry. Not THAT fancy.

1. Boozy Rosemary Watermelon Lemonade


My experience with this one is that you have to make sure the bottom of the blender jar is screwed on tight, or else you will have to re-squeeze all the lemons. Ahem. I swear I was not already drunkety when this happened.

You have to prepare a little bit in advance for this one -- make the rosemary simple syrup in the morning so it has time to steep and cool, go have a swim and some dock time while you wait, and then bust it out with the first round of snacks in the afternoon.

Here's the recipe. It's a winner. Lots of points for colour. Extra points if you have fancy straws.

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2. Summer Sangria Slushie


I couldn't find a bag of frozen white peaches, but I did find a bag of frozen peaches + mango + strawberries, and it produced this beautiful pinky-orange colour. The Littles were on hand to help push the blender buttons, and they got kid-friendly slushy docktails in Star Wars cups for their efforts.

Here's the recipe. This was delicious, and the icy-cold factor was a hit on the very hot day we made this. Tell your mom to go slow. This tastes like a delicious popsicle, but packs a punch!

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Pink is My Favourite Colour

3. Frosé!


Last year's list included just plain old rosé, but the game got upped when both Vogue Magazine and Bon Appetit declared Frosé the Drink of the Summer.

Frozen Rosé. What could be more magical, am I right? You need some freezer space to be able to pull this one off.

Here's the recipe. Thanks to my cousin Ike's ladybird Erica for being the mixmaster & photographer on this one.

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20 Points for Travellers

4. Dark & Stormy in an Adult Sippy Cup


What better way to greet 3 swimmers arriving on a road trip than with perfect Dark & Stormies -- IN TRAVELLERS!!! Reason #1,798 why I love these ladies is that they introduced me to the Adult Sippy Cup.

Arrive, unpack the car, get swimsuits on, walk to the dock with drink in hand, spill NOTHING, jump in, get out, and enjoy this classic cocktail on the dock. Rum, ginger beer and lime wedges. So simple. So yummy.

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A New Spin on a Classic



5. The Piano Piano G&T

Soon after it opened, I started hearing rumours about the G&T at Victor & Nikki's new Toronto restaurant, Piano Piano. Rumour had it that the G&T was OFF. THE. CHARTS.

So I went to find out what the fuss was all about, and it turns out their bartender Jeff Carroll makes his own Tonic Syrup. And so you mix a bit of that with a bit of gin and a bit of fresh lemon and a bit of soda. And boy oh BOY is it good. Best part about this story is that you can BUY a bottle of his Tonic Syrup and make them at home. I think Tonic Syrup is a thing now, so you can find it around, but if you have a chance to get the one made by Carroll & Co., I recommend it.

I did get it, and I took it to the Catskills to have on Bobcat Mountain, at my favourite pond in the world.

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That's it! Don't forget the potato chips. Or a plate of crackers and stinky cheese at the fancier swimming holes.

Either way, CHEERS!

Swimming hole season fast approaches. (Laura has already been in for the year's first dip!) We swimmers have some amazing near-Toronto road trips planned this summer (like this one!) and these days I'm constantly scanning maps for nearby blue.

Swimming in lakes/rivers/quarries is one of my very favourite things to do, and I always forget until I am mid-swim how many things terrify me about swimming in bodies of water that aren't pools.

It began with the shark-shaped driftwood under the floating dock at my grandparent's cottage.

And then my dad told me that pickerel have teeth. (Of course, I imagined piranhas and a National Geographic photograph of a cow's thigh bones picked clean).

I am still afraid of pickerel, all fish, really. And I have to not think about them when I swim, singing this song to myself instead.

And seaweed, because what if it tangles around my feet and holds me under the water.

And leeches. (Shudder!)

And loons. I love loons, their song, their speckled backs, their solid, not hollow bones, their calm, but after they slip under the surface, who knows where they go, with their razor-sharp beaks and red eyes.

And bears. Crazy, I know, but there was a cottage, once, and I had a hunch there'd be a bear on the far side of the lake. It made my daily swims terrifying and fast (and apparently, there were bears spotted exactly where I imagined them!!)

But the murky greenish-blue that filters the light in diagonal beams, the sun-warmed surface and the floating in the middle of a lake, staring at the sky, trump all of the things I'm scared of.

I am off to find a swimming hole or two this weekend, leeches and seaweed be damned...

I can’t take credit for the name. An old boyfriend in Muskoka coined the term and I have borrowed it ever since. Then again, maybe he didn’t coin it — he was the kind of guy who claimed to have a friend who invented putting the fries in the top half of the Big Mac box too. Hmm.

Anyway, Docktail Hour begins anywhere from 3pm on. It depends if you had lunch or not and if you need a mid-afternoon snack to tide you over until late-afternoon snack. So really, anytime you need a snack in the afternoon is pretty much an acceptable time for Docktail Hour.

To do Docktail Hour properly, you need to consider the colour of your drink and whether it will look amazing with the sun pouring through your glass. Like awesome enough to make your friends yell “Oh come ON” at their Instagram when you post it.

For this reason, here is a list of my top recommended Docktails, in no particular order:

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1. Aperol Spritz (see photo above. This one is a total winner at sunset.) You need Aperol, Prosecco, a splash of soda water, and if you do things CORRECTLY, as they do in Venice, you’ll make it a dirty one with a couple of high quality green olives. This is proper, in my opinion.

2. Rosé. Yes way, rosé. Pink drinks in a glass glass can never go wrong. Plus rosé is extremely refreshing. You need a good crisp dry one though. My favourite local rosé is Malivoire’s Ladybug, but otherwise, the Provençal ones are almost always a sure thing.

3. Pimmers. This is what we fondly call the particular blend of lemonade and Pimm’s with 3 ice cubes that we rock at Shepville, my sister’s cottage on Limerick Lake. This is also an absolute friggin’ delight when frozen in popsicle molds. It is an extremely sneaky way to get your mom tipsy as well, because you can pass it off as an Arnold Palmer, which she thinks is iced tea and lemonade.

4. G&Ts. A classic move. Can’t go wrong. But, given the extra points for colour noted above, you  should use Hendrick’s because it goes best with the slice of cucumber that you really should have in your glass.

5. The Kiddo Version. In our family, the Littles require a docktail at the same time as the adults, sometimes sooner. Lemonade base, and then whatever pink or orange soda pop you can convince their mother is ok for them to have a little splash of. Then you have to promise to run around with them to work off their sugar high. Parents are not responsible for this step if you are the one bringing the docktails.

6. Margaritas. High effort because lime squeezing and shaking things in a shaker is involved, but this one probably has the biggest bang for your afternoon bender buck.

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Docktails are best served with good old salty potato chips, or at fancier swimming holes, a nice board of charcuterie and smelly cheese.

Cheers.

I can trace each summer back to its swimming hole: 

• Twelve Mile Lake, across from the marina
• weed-and-leech filled Six Mile Lake
• the lake outside of the motel we stayed in somewhere between Vancouver and Calgary
• Lake Tanamakoon and the smaller lakes I never learned the names of in Algonquin Park
• a quiet bay on Lake Manatouwabing
• a deep Nebraskan quarry
• a tiny finger of an inlet of the Gatineau River
• a wide lake on the Quebec of Ottawa
• an isolated lake near Bancroft that was also the swimming hole for a family of black bears
• a waterfall in Newfoundland
• another lake in Haliburton where the fish swam right up to the dock
• And this year, the Gatineau River again, but this time from the rocky beach near the poison ivy and the sailing club.