You are going to hate me.

I’m afraid you are all absolutely going to hate me.

As I’ve established: here we are, some hours’ journey from home. In a fairly wild place. Near running water which, as we all know, is hugely good for the mental h.

(Isn’t it counter intuitive that it’s the negative ions that are so good for you? But there you are. As you are beginning to discover, this blog is full of the sort of useful scientific tips that you might otherwise have to search through a set of very cheap Christmas crackers suitable for five-year-olds in order to find. Let this be one of them:

Moving water is provenly more beneficial for the system than Prozac. Loads of research done on the subj. Which I can’t quite immediately currently put my fingers on right now this minute, but must be out there. Curiously, it’s not quite so effective if you simply stand under an overflowing gutter or even just next to a roaring kitchen tap.

For some reason it has to be Niagara or similar, for honeymoons and so on.

Anyway, back to my immediate environment…)

If I listen very hard at night, I can just about hear moving water in the distance. Sometimes. In my imagination. When there’s a storm rushing about.

I’ve also established that it is turning out to be very beneficial for us, being away from the run-of-the-mill ups and downs of what life had become at home.

For the first week or two here, so far so good…

Then, sadly, some business followed us and my PA, reading my emails for me, had to tell me that there was an issue asking for my attention.

Wham! Smack in the face, not so much with a wet haddock as a sandbag. Full of lead cannon balls. (Does one make cannon balls with lead? Or is it too soft? I seem to be having a bad morning: I can’t find my handy cannon-ball-making instruction leaflet either. Anyway, for the purposes of my story, these ones were made of lead. Or something equally contraindicated for the cranium, on impact, anyway.)

Lurching as I was, sick to my stomach as if I’d just been kicked in the nether gut in a pub brawl, I said to my exceptionally wise and smart eldest daughter, There must be something one can do to alleviate this feeling? Drink half a bottle of whisky, or something?

(To which my second daughter, the ill one, said, Yes! That’s how I feel almost all the time… How do I step out of my own skin and stop the screaming?)

There is, my eldest said.

Go for a swim, she said.

You what? I said. A swim? I said. It’s NOVEMBER!!

(Yes, ok, I know I talked about venturing in a tame swimming pool in the garden in September. But that was a long time ago and I’d since seen sense and put the winter cover on.)

As I tried to explain yesterday, this blog is not about discipline but desperation.

I also said I don’t use the word “unbearable.” This feeling, however, was.

Proof of this outrageous claim is that, not very much later, I found myself facing the wild water in a swimsuit and towelling robe, wondering what on earth I was doing there.

As did two passersby.

Well done! they said.

I may not get far, I said. Possibly just a toe, I said. But my daughter told me I had to, because I’ve just received some rather difficult news.

You’ve got to then, one of them said. If your daughter told you to.

And I plunged.

I even, actually, swam. About ten strokes. And even went under again. I appeared to be still alive.

As I came out I saw one on her telephone. Did you take a photo? I asked.

No, she said. But I will. For your daughter. You’ll have to go in again!

So I did…

Three times. I went in that November water three times.

There’s been a fair bit in the news over the last few weeks about the benefit of freezing swimming. I mentioned it in my blog about our daughter’s illness a year or two ago. Beats dementia, depression, all sorts.

My father swam in the North Sea till his late nineties, and died earlier this year aged a very alert indeed hundred and two. And a half. I once, as a child, saw him go in the sea when it was snowing. And considered him seriously nuts. But you know. Hundred and two speaks for itself. And a half.

That, and a tot of very cheap and nasty whisky every evening, with more and more water as he got older.

It was even on the radio this morning: Today Programme, Radio 4, just after twenty past eight. And that was cold swimming before dawn.

So please don’t hate me too much.

I didn’t really do it on purpose.

Think of it like self-harming: when you’re in that much mental anguish, you have to do something to take your mind off it.

But the truth is, it made me feel so fantastic that I’m now doing it most mornings, after my little jogette.

Ten mins pounding the pavement. Back to the house. Swimsuit on and out again and plunge. And then taking the dog out. Routine.

Certain rules here:

Not on Sundays.

Not when it’s dangerous.

No feeling of obligation.

And it’s not so much a swim, as a dip. Water up to the shoulders, just once, absolutely counts.

And honestly, you come out and your whole body glows. It really does.

My new friends, cheering me on from the bank, said after that first time, You’d better rush home: you must be freezing.

Freezing? Never felt warmer.

Or more on top of the world.

Outdoor Swimming Soc

Helpful book from helpful reader (with a tad more science than a Christmas cracker)