Sidestep

In some ways, Covid precautions - avoiding crowded places, trying not to shop when it's busy - come very naturally to us, and the life we've increasingly lived since retiring 15 years ago (Lord - so long!) looks like a model for social distancing. Yesterday I had that swim on what was a quiet stretch of shore relatively close to home; it was quiet because it's not a wildly picturesque spot and the pebble beach is murder to walk on. But - and I'm sure I've blipped this before - I don't reckon to have fulfilled the demands of summer if I've not had a visit to - and preferably a swim in - Ostel Bay.

When we were first told about this place some 40 years ago, it wasn't well known or well frequented. More recently, and I suspect partly because of social media, it's become much busier, and the queue of cars along the roadside has so much exceeded the area originally used, where the verge is wider, that cars passing it have dug a huge channel in the mud to such a depth that allowing two wheels to drive along it threatens the axel of your car. And this year, of course, it's far worse, we heard. The hot weather, the holidaymakers denied a trip abroad, the encouragement from everyone from Johnson down to enjoy a holiday in Scotland - all this has resulted in the kind of crowding that is enough to put me right off.

But I had a plan. Once, when I was teaching, the weather grew hot and lovely just after we'd returned to school in August, and I was desperate to go for a swim, to pretend we were still on holiday. So we drove the hour or so over largely single-track roads and arrived about 5pm at the road end. I've always remembered it as a delightful occasion, not just for the swim but for the peace. So today we pretended we'd been working, and it worked. We got our peace; I got my swim; I'm happy. 

Blipping the reedy lochan that we can see as we walk the mile or so from the road to the beach - ducks were clucking away in the late afternoon heat (24ºC) and the water glistened in the sun. My extra is of the beach, taken after I'd dressed again, looking over the deserted sand to the distant hills of Arran. I walked halfway to Arran, I felt, to get enough depth for swimming - always a problem here. The water was warm, though there was more of an onshore breeze than yesterday.

We didn't sit down to eat till 9pm. I still have some sand between my toes. I have that scratchy sensation of the salt on my shoulders and back, and I'm utterly exhausted. I reckon I'm not really taking the passing of the years seriously enough when it comes to getting my sea swim fix.

Summer is definitely improving even as as it draws to an end. And I've not said a word about exam results ...