Eight Swims for June 2014 - mid-winter in NZ

Hi there

Well, we have mananged eight (count 'em, eight!) swims for June.  There was a whole flurry of them around the shortest day (21 June).  J and I are kind of proud that the swimming total has been so good for what is officially mid-winter, even though we both know in our hearts and in our freezing limbs that July and August  are truly the coldest months for swimming.

I see that one of my five readers (hey, from England, woo-hoo!) has said that there was a record broken somewhere in New Zealand for the most people skinny dipping in winter.  Nope, it wasn't J and me.  Skinny-dipping?  I would have to be forty years' younger and many stone lighter to even contemplate that.

It's been a year since the terrible storm that caused havoc around Wellington.  The Hataitai Beach wooden steps leading down to the water from the deck  were completely shatterered (see last year's pic), the Breaker Bay mid-winter swim was cancelled, house roofs were blown off and falling trees blocked roads. 

A few days after the storm I wandered over the hill from Miramar to Scorching Bay.  It broke my heart to see all the silt, pebbles, and debris washed up onto the Scorching Bay beach.  Here's a pic I took at the time;  I never figured the sands would get back to looking pristine ever again.  But the beach is looking real nice again nowadays.

car parking ... mid winter swim 2014 Wellington

Hi there

Okay, here's one of my favourite hates, and my five readers know all about it, from an earlier blog.  

It really drives me mad when a car vroooooms in beside my car in a supermarket carpark - and it's usually a male driver , sorry guys.  The driver leaps out in a skidding hurry, as if he's on the way to conduct a life-saving heart transplant instead of after a bottle of blue-top milk at Countdown.

Doesn't this guy realise that it doesn't make him look cool.  Quite the opposite.  He looks like some sort of dork driver, a beginner who doesn't know how to park.

Here's the car beside me at the Countdown carpark, Kilbirnie, this afternoon (Wednesday 18thJune  NZ time).  I could hardly open the door to get into my car.  It doesn't look it in the picture, but the offending car is parked very skew-whiff.  The front is more or less where it should be but the back is way over the white line and close to my car.

Swims:

J and I have now completed three swims for this month at Hataitai Beach,  chasing our minimum of 4 per month.  It was quite nice yesterday.  I had a couple of weeks break this month because when I got home from one swim I shivered all afternoon, all night , and came down the next day with a terrible cold.  I wonder if the cold was coming anyway, or can a person catch a cold from being cold?

Oh, there is a mid-winter swim at Breaker Bay at 3 pm on Saturday 21 June.  Followed by a chance to change out of wet togs and, I think there's hot goodies, at the Breaker Bay Hall which is across the road from the beach.  I won't be going because I have something else going on this Saturday.

Breaker Bay Market Day, plus Hataitai Beach swim, plus Americas Cup-groan

Hi there

I had a stall at the Breaker Bay Hall yesterday (as I type this it is Sunday 3 pm NZ time).  My goodness, there were so many knick-knacks on the stalls.  It seemed like every stall-holder had decided to de-clutter.

What is it about hoarding?  As every month goes by, I get more and more  ashamed of all the Stuff that I have accumulated.  What on earth are my loved ones going to do with all of the clutter when I pop my clogs?    But do I stop buying silly little knick-knacks?  Not one bit of it.  All the determination in the world goes for nothing.  Yesterday, I went into the hall determined not to buy anything... and came out less $20.   The other stall holders were all seniors and all my friends.  I guess we just accumulate more and more stuff as we grow older, and never get around to getting rid of anything.  Maybe because of nostalgia.

A would-be-buyer picked up a 1920's plate that was labelled $30. One like it had sold on www.trademe.co.nz the week before for $52.

"I'll give you $10," he said.

"$20," I said.

"Nah, don't want it."  He walked away.  This sort of thing happened repeatedly,.

J and I completed our second swim for October this afternoon at Hataitai Beach.  There were four guys out there, too, all done up in so much wet gear that they looked like aliens from outer space.  Water wuzzes!  - J and I  felt infinitely superior in just our bathing costumes.  (Oh, the hole in the deck that I fell through 9 days ago has still not been repaired despite three phone calls and an email to Wellington City Council).

Okay, I better talk about the Americas Cup.... sigh.  We lost.  There was a big welcome and sail past for the team in Auckland on Friday.  I well remember, donkeys' years back, the very first time NZ participated.  We lost that time, yet we threw the guys a parade - and a foreign girl in my office was utterly perplexed.  She said to me: , "Let me get this right.  They lost...  And you're giving them a parade?"

Breaker Bay mid-winter Swim June 2013

Hi there

There is to be a mid-winter swim at Breaker Bay, Wellington on Saturday June 22 at 3 pm - at the beach across the road from the children's playground on Breaker Bay Road.

Afterwards, swimmers and fans can cross over the road to the hall at 150 Breaker Bay Road and there will be mulled wine and hot soup.    Gold coin donation.

If you hang around until 7 30,  or return later, you can watch the French/New Zealand rugby test on a big screen.

J and I will also be trying to get in a mid-winter swim on the proper day - 21 June - at Hataitai Beach.

***
2nd swim for June at Hataitai Beach - Done!

1st swim for July - darn cold afterwards!

We did our first swim for July today.  It was cold and to make matters worse I had a sore throat and a bit of a cough;  I didn't feel I could go to 'gym' because of it and so I stayed home.  However ......     Yeah, yeah, I shouldn't have hopped out of bed to go for the swim but J and I had to get it out of our systems and once we say those fatal words, "let's go and look at the water", the deal is all but set in stone.
And talking about 'stone', I think I've broken a tooth on a jelly baby - they should be called concrete babies!  Dentist on the agenda.
I was warm after a half an hour or so of getting home from my swim, but after eating about a full litre of ice cream (sore throat, remember?), I suddenly became so cold I took to bed in socks, tights, nightie, sweater and the heater on full blast.

Changing subjects:  I truly love the Miramar Peninsular (I've noticed that shops around the 'peninsula' spell the word in different ways).  I adore walking around it,  The peninsula starts at Miramar Wharf opposite the 'All Blacks' sign put up on the hill by Weta Workshop,  passes Scorching Bay, cuts across Seatoun village to the Pass of Branda,  goes through Breaker Bay, and finishes at Lyall Bay.   There are also lots of tracks and zig-zags, but more about them in a future blog.

June Swim No. 2 - DONE!

We've done our second swim for June, this one at Breaker Bay!  The residents have one every year.  There's a bonfire and, afterwards, mulled wine and soup in the Breaker Bay Hall opposite the beach.  I am so relieved that we've managed to get the swim in.  Now, it's two down, one to go before 30 June.   It's imperative that we get a day with no storms or hurricanes, or typhoons.
I didn't think the water at Breaker Bay was ultra-cold.  Maybe this was because we'd only been swimming the day before and were a fraction acclimatised to the cold winter sea.

It was hilarious in the water because there was literally no water!  Couldn't have been more than knee deep in most places and was so stony and seaweed strewn that it was all but impossible to actually swim.  I kept getting bogged down in seaweed, and J hated the stones.  Probably about a dozen people in the water.  They all seemed to be just quick plungers, however there were these two boys of about ten or 12 years old who, because of a $5 bet were trying to out-time each other in the water.  J and I left them to it.  It would have been nice to be the last out, but that damn seaweed really got to me.  Give me good old wonderful Hataitai Beach where we can just slip easily into the water from the steps, and there's nary a stone in sight.   Having said that bit about the stones, I must mention one huge stone at the bottom of the steps at Hataitai Beach that both J and I have tripped/banged/fell over at one time or another.  J turned her fall into the most graceful dive, whereas I just yelled out, grabbed my foot and hopped around like a wimp.

Swimming! - one down, two to go!

Finally, the weather has let up and J and I got in our first swim this month - yay!, pause to hear clapping and cheering!!!
  It was very cold but we managed to swim across the bay at Hataitai Beach and back again.  We were in such a triumphant mood as we got out.  We now have two more swims to do at the beach before the end of the month.  It's going to be tight, what with the terrible weather we're having.
Here's a pic of low-tide Hataitai Beach.

J is determined to go tomorrow to the mid-winter swim at Breaker Bay at 3 pm (Saturday23nd June).  The swim is on wet or fine.  If the weather's truly bad though I may stay home which would give J the advantage.  We're counting Breaker Bay (into our total of three) because the water there is colder than at Hataitai Beach.  If we were swimming at say, Mission Bay in Auckland, that wouldn't be counted because the water is warmer up north.   Goodness, we have so many 'rules'.!