“A mere ditch that shall be leaped”
I can’t believe it’s been 13 days since I received all of the responses from the google group. Where has the time gone? I really have not been slacking, but I wish I had blogged each day so that I’d know what I had been up to. Maybe aliens abducted me.
Pilot
I did decide on a pilot, which is huge. Conquering that particular fear – facing it down and finding the ways to make a decision – was not easy. I am embarrassed about this incident, but hopeful that it has built some fear-facing character that will save me from future incidents. My motive was desperation, and I am sympathetic with the self that saw that as the only way forward at the time. (More on that in this post)
That the decision was so difficult was due in large part to how utterly amazing these Channel pilots are. It was so hard.
Cold Water Swim Camp
I also decided on a camp… sort of. Many are full, and I’m waiting to hear back on one that might be (I emailed again yesterday), but I have back-ups and a plan.
** Update – if you are looking for a swim camp, you can get a huge jump start using my Cold Water Swim Camps Comparison Chart. I so wish I’d had this back in November.
Where to live in England
Bournemouth, London and Dover are top in the running right now for places to live (with a vocal minority having supported Ireland strongly). Dover is apparently very polarizing – people felt strongly about it and there were a lot of no votes. I was not that concerned until someone told me it wasn’t a good place to live with kids. I’m set to talk to one of the guys from the Bournemouth group next week, and I’m keeping the idea in my head that I could do part of the time one place (London?) and part of the time another.
As you can see, I am still riding the train of the Google Group email – I talked to people that led me to talk to other people – People really are the key to all of this.
Working on Blog and Website
I started seriously working again on getting the blog ready for the website (which also needs work, but one step at a time, and this is the one I feel capable of today). In reading through it, it is astounding (and totally predictable) how much my perspective has changed in such a short time. I’ve left the entries as were (with sometimes added commentary from my October 2019 and January 2020 selves) because I think that seeing the evolution from naivety to sophistication is interesting.
Going through my notes, I find more to-dos. I am now incorporating all of these into my English Channel Swimmers spreadsheet – easier than reading back through the entirety of my blog to find them 🙂
- Practice short feed stops
- Swim in ocean at night
Random thoughts of the day:
I hate travel insurance. I hate all insurance. Multinational corporations cowering behind legalese. I vent to you oh blog, lest I take it out on one of their defenseless wage slaves. (This after I spent crazy time looking into travel/health insurance for swim camps, and eventually England.)
“A mere ditch that shall be leaped” – I read this alleged Napoleon quote on Julian Critchlow’s summary of his swim on the CS&PF site – love it.
Julian also has good checklists – get his checklists.
The Quest
It is a quest, this. Very few modern quests are available to us, and for the last decade, mine have mostly been of the most prosaic variety. The quest to keep my children clean and fed. The quest to get them where they need to be. The quest to organize my (their) belongings. The quest to bring my dryer vent up to code so that we don’t conflagrate in our sleep. Important quests, no doubt, but altogether lacking in romance. The Channel is big and exciting and historic and romantic and satisfying.