This summer I went swimming

This summer I might have drowned

But I held my breath and kicked my feet

And I moved my arms around

The Swimming Song, by Loudon Wainwright

I went swimming the other weekend. The first time I’ve been immersed in anything deeper than bathwater since… well, I think since about 1993.

Since we moved down to east Kent, around the end of 2013, this swimming malarkey has been on the cards. Every time we went wandering along the beach at Ramsgate or Broadstairs, I’d be thinking that I really ought to splash out.

The trouble is, I’ve never been comfortable about turning out in any sort of bathing costume. My BMI has always been off the bottom of the scale and I’m not a sun-worshipper. In anything less enveloping than an overcoat I look like the ghost of a skinned rabbit. But I was determined. Earlier this year I bought a pair of trunks (a fetching blue-and-white check, since you ask) and promptly put them away in the drawer.

Then on a sunny Sunday afternoon I found myself at the causeway that winds out into the Swale at Oare marsh, listening to a man called Richard, who has the good fortune to live just up the road, explain the lay (as it were) of the waters.

The causeway at Oare march, at low tide, with the Isle of Sheppey in the distance. I went in around high tide, when the water was lapping at the bottom of the photograph…

So spectacles off. Look round to check that nobody’s giggling. I stumble down the causeway, shuffle across to the line of seaweed that marks the edge and sort of flop into the deeper water.

The good news is that I can still swim. I potter along, parallel to the water’s edge, in a sedate breaststroke. I roll over on my back. I kick my feet and move my arms around. I lie back and stare up at the brilliant blue of the sky.

There’s part of me that’s looking for some sort of transcendence. You know, at one with nature… all that crap. Never mind, anyway. I roll over and breaststroke on.

After a hundred yards or so, I figure I’ve gone far enough. I turn round and start to swim back. This is harder work, against the tide. The current isn’t strong, but it’s perceptible and I’m travelling a lot more slowly than on the outward leg.

And I’m having to work. It’s not my arms or legs: it’s the breathing. Maybe it’s the water pressure (at a foot?). Who knows? Anyway, I’m just not getting the breath I’d like and it’s a bit of a struggle. I’m not in any sort of danger: I’m in about four feet of water and I stop a couple of times to put my feet down into the mud and… I don’t know, reassure myself.

I made it back, obviously. Not tired, just out of breath. Pleased with myself, though.

I guess it’s good for me. I might do it again one day.

By the way, the definitive recording of The Swimming Song is by Kate and Anna MacGarrigle