I am slow on the uptake

[triskellian]

I have been living here for thirteen years, complaining about how far away we are from the sea, and I'm only just starting to realise that we've got quite a lot of river, and some of it is swimmable.

This afternoon, as part of a colleague's leaving do, I went on a walking tour of Oxford, and then back to said colleague's house for some eating and drinking. Her house faces the river (we were picnicing on the grass right beside the water), it was hot, and we'd done quite a lot of walking. I didn't have my swimsuit with me, but I quickly decided I was prepared to swim in my shirt and pants*, so while my colleagues drank beer and ate pringles on the bank, I swam in a little bit of the Thames alongside the riverboats :-)

*Speakers of American English: I mean underpants.

Comments

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

O-kay. Well, watching all those episodes of House will come in handy when we need to diagnose you with Lyme disease...

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

At last, a reliable way to tell you and triskellian apart!

Q: Ask the test subject whether she would like to swim in the Thames.

* Enthusiastic bouncing and squeeing indicates a triskellian.
* Look of abject horror and/or fleeing indicates a secretrebel.

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

LOL!

Well, quite.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

And there was Weil's disease in the Cherwell, dunno about the Isis (but you'd want to watch out below the confluence I guess), when I was living in Ox.

[triskellian]

Weil's disease, schmiel's disease. "130 cases of Weil's disease in England and Wales from 1990 to 1999", according to this article.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

That's 130 more than I'd like to have myself ;-)

[pepper-field.livejournal.com]

Ignore the doom-mongers! I think it's a lovely thing to do. Just don't swallow any of the water. Or get run down by an out of control punt (they're DANGEROUS!).

[triskellian]

No punts in that bit of river, although a motor boat went past not long after I got out of the water. Still, I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed in plenty of time...

[chrisvenus]

Funnily enough this comes a mere few weeks after a friend of mine took up river swimming... I think he mentioned having joined facebook purely because there is a group there to organise this sort of thing... Want me to look up details?

[triskellian]

As it happens, I already know who he is, because I spotted someone else joining that group, went to look, and saw someone in Oxford with whom I have mutual friends ;-)

[chrisvenus]

Ah, excellent. Well that saves me a certain amount of effort having to go look things up anyway. :)

[kissifa.livejournal.com]

Could the details be given to those of us who didn't know the Isis was swimmable and who know not of this group which sounds like good fun? :)

[triskellian]

I've "shared" the group with you on Facebook.

So are you up for some Isis swimming? I've been assuming I'd have to go on my own for repeat performances...

[kissifa.livejournal.com]

I'd be scared as unholy hell and probably need a fair bit of prodding and assurances I wont be dragged to my death by malignant hidden reeds and mud before I tried it, but yes. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Chris having passed me a link to this thread, I'm the random person Chris knew about who goes swimming in the Thames. Only a sample size of one, but so far I've not found any of those deadly reeds (just friendly ones) and the mud has been quite soft and kind to the toes. Generally if it gets a bit shallow, muddy, or reedy I just float on the surface and let the current carry me on my way. It does help if you're a reasonably confident swimmer in the first place, though, and as comfortable in the water as on land.

The scariest thing so far was the entire flock of Port Meadow geese being chased into the water by an enthusiastic dog yesterday and coming to a very loud honking landing right next to me. The most painful was not paying attention to where I was going and walking barefoot through a patch of nettles, which has to be a pasttime especially invented by sadists for masochists...

--Tim