/Arvicola terrestris/ of the Isis,
It's a New Year and resolutions made, such as swimming every month of the year outside, are being called in. After an exploratory dip on the 2nd January 2012 we are now ready to continue our quest to the end of the Thames. Initial plans suggest we could be at Maidenhead by the end of 2012, a 100km down stream. "A swim of a 100 klicks begins with a single stroke." /Lao-tzu// (604 BC - 531 BC)/.
We will make a easy start to the year with a swim of 0.85km, from Donnington Bridge to Iffley Lock. Meet at 11.00am, Sunday 15th January 2012, at this car park:
off Meadow Lane, Oxford, second-left after the canoe club. Meadow Lane is the last right turn off Donnington Bridge Road before the bridge from the town side, or the first left from the Hinksey side. The car park is an unkempt wee council number with plenty of bushes for changing in. It was free in December but bring a couple of squids just in case.
We'll jump in the Thames just next to the car park, swim to Iffley Lock and, to warm up, walk back to the car park and get changed.
Afterwards, we propose a pub lunch at the Isis Farmhouse, just before Iflley Lock - a must-visit on the pubs of the Thames tour that we are also engaged in - the same one we visited in December.
If you listen hard enough, the river chatters, "a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea," as the great Mole once recounted in the days before he learnt to swim, and twas in these waters that the Water Rat saved the gaolbird Toad and fell asleep to the Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Prizes for anyone who can retrieve the picnic basket.
Outdoor swimmers and romantic heroes, a river (/The/ River) is calling you for the First 'Swim the Thames' of the year 2012!
Yours
Sef & Jeremy and the Wind in the Willows of the Isis
PS. This swim is the third, and final, part of Swim 30 in Michael Worthington's I ? the Thames. PPS. Watch out for weasels.
e-mail: Oxford@outdoorswimmingsociety.com http://ety.com
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Jeremy Wellingham