THAT phone call

Last night, Thursday, I had just landed back from a successful client meeting in Amsterdam, had enjoyed a glass of wine in the lounge and an amusing chat with an old colleague, and was on the bus back to the terminal when my phone rang.

Sea Breezer Sarah Moralee was squealing down the end of the phone, and my immediate assumption was that we would be swimming the next day - more fool me for that glass of wine!! THANK GOODNESS her next words did not match that assumptions. "I've spoken to Mike and he's got us down to swim on Wednesday, the tides are good, the sea is calm, and we have to be down there for a 3am start on Wednesday 10th October, eeeeeeeeekkkkkkk" (or a squeal to that effect :)

After another excited girly squealing call with Seabreezer no. 2 Bridget, on the drive home, I was reflecting on phone calls and texts, the exciting ones and the terrifying ones. How many calls I have made and texts I have sent, in the last few weeks to precious friends and family to share the news about Dad, or to update them on the swim - certainly the bringer of news, just in different flavours. Now that the swim date is fixed (well unless mother nature has other ideas), then there will be the phone calls afterwards, sharing the story and the adventure we all had.

For now though the mood is one of utter excitement, and the challenge of getting the 4th seabreezer Niki back in one piece from Egypt in time to swim, she lands at 10pm tuesday night, talk about cutting it fine.

Fortunately our acclimatisation is still working, we went swimming last Saturday to remind ourselves of how cold water can be, after an hour in the Serpentine at 14 degrees and the shakes kicked in, as they did in the old days, sea temperatures should be a couple of degrees warmer, although starting in the dark at 3am the air temperature will be cold (see frost on windscreen thursday morning).

We took this picture during the 30 seconds that the body doesn't know yet how cold it is, I sent it to a friend who said we looked like the Latvian synchronised swimming team - am searching for a compliment somewhere in that statement :)

So now on waiting time to get the phone call that confirms we are off on Wednesday and until that, life goes on. To quote myself, and my little sister recently struggling through practicing our tribute to my Dad at his funeral tomorrow, 'Keep Swimming, Keep Swimming, this'll be one for you Dad xx'.