Just keep swimming…

There’s something about cold clear water that makes me feel at one with myself. Fully alive, and in the moment.

I’ve had an affinity with cold water since walking our golden retriever, Daisy, as a child around Hungerford Marsh. Back then, there was a swimming hole, locally called “the whirly pool”- now sadly dwindled to little more than a stony brook.

It was in this little pool that I first paddled and splashed as a child. Daisy would launch herself enthusiastically into any body of water, no matter how brackish, the waterways of the Kenner and Avon canal providing ample opportunity for her to dog paddle, shaking furiously on exit on whomever happened to be nearest.

In my dreams, I swim alongside her still, the locks and eddies offering solutions to the blockers and challenges of real life.

I’ve been lucky enough to swim in some of the most picturesque watering holes the world has to offer: shining emerald lagoons in Thailand, glittering waterfalls in Venezuela and azure lakes in Corsica, all manner of seafronts, and of course, East London’s local open water spots. None of them have ever come close to the lake we’re staying on in the Swiss Alps.

We’ve visited the French Alps many times as a family for skiing, choosing the unthreatening and good value town of Valberg, up the mountain from Nice. , for its picturesque little town and family friendly resort. It’s an area Tom knew well in another life, a previous wife with whom he owned an apartment in the South of France.

We visited Switzerland once before, to ski when I was a total novice, the imposing mountain range was at odds with my fear of heights, my dyspraxic incapability on skis, not to mention the cost of baked beans up the mountain.

Jonah visted once as a tween with the Scouts, a pre Covid trip to the movement’s headquarters from which he returned sunflushed and exhausted, a good deal more mature than he had left.

Despite the views, the officious and profligate excesses of Switzerland (not to mention the technical fashion) had never much appealed as a destination. So, when Jonah, on his gap year and swanning around Europe’s climbing hotspots all summer, mentioned he wanted to go to Magic Wood, in Switzerland, I paid little heed.

Tom on the other hand, is a facilitator, and it was with little fuss and a few attempts to show me some pictures in Airbnb that I found myself at this stunning spot in Walensee.

I really don’t need to say much more because the pictures speak for themselves. Suffice it to say, I’m truly very happy right now, and Tom can pat his sunburned self on the head for being a holiday hero and giving everyone what they really really want (for him that’s a massive bbq and some bratwurst, which he cooked with his usual aplomb.)

Today, deep in Magic Wood, Jonah is climbing and I find myself perched on a friendly rock, dipping in and out of crystalline waterfalls, and generally dunning myself like a goddamned mermaid. The only catch is that Tom told me he packed food. But his idea of a picnic was half a packet of Pringles, some melted chocolate biscuits and a salad with no fork. Oh well, fasting is good for the waistline, of not my temperament and there are ‘wurst’ places to need a little snack!