Swimming is going well this year. We have had some gorgeously warm days, which have made Canterbury U3A‘s weekly swims at our caravan particularly pleasant (this post has a bit more info about U3A). There is the initial chill when we go into the sea on a hot day, but it’s lovely once properly in.
We had a bit of an alarm the other day, however. Peter – a regular swimmer – brought his wife Sue for the first time. She seemed to be enjoying the water until suddenly, her ring fell off. Peter carefully took stock of where she was, looking to land to establish where she was in relation to the steps and from side to side to note which of the breakwater posts she was in line with. As usual, we were swimming at high tide: half a dozen steps and we’re swimming.
After the swim we all repaired to the caravan for a cuppa as is our wont, sitting outside in the sunshine. Once everyone else had gone home, Peter, Sue and I went back to the beach to see if the tide had retreated sufficiently to look for the ring. Peter said no – it would take another half hour – so he and Sue went off for a walk while I washed the cups in the one-person kitchen.
When we met up thirty minutes later, I thought we would be in for a long evening searching the beach. However, we had been looking for about two minutes when Sue waded in and pulled out her very lovely ring! She said she had had a certain feeling that she would find it, and she was right!
It’s not the first time something a bit like this has happened. Three or four years ago, after swimming on the beach, Peter returned to his clothes lying on the pebbles and realised his car key was missing. There were a couple of young lads mucking about on the sea wall nearby, and Peter was convinced that they had taken his key while he was in the water. He decided he was going to keep an eye on his car in case they stole it: meanwhile two other people volunteered to go to Peter’s home to get the spare keys from Sue.
An hour passed and the young lads disappeared, so Peter went down on to the beach to look for the key, and found it where we had been swimming. He had unwittingly gone into the sea with the key in the pocket of his swimming shorts and it had fallen out. The two young boys were blameless!
The most amazing bit of this story is that Peter then went to his VW car with the electronic key, which had been submerged for well over an hour, and clicked the button to open the doors. The doors opened as usual and everything worked perfectly.
I haven’t lost anything on the beach yet – although we have found quite a few things. Jae’s boys were particularly pleased when they found a pirate’s sword washed up on the tide line and I actually found some sunglasses while looking for Sue’s ring. We left the sunglasses on the sea wall on top of an abandoned sock, in case anyone returned for them.
I removed my engagement ring after my first swim this year, as I realised there was a risk of it coming off because I am so thin! Who knew you could lose weight on a finger? After KiliClimb is over and the weight goes back on again, as it inevitably will, my ring can go back on again.
I will not be taking anything I need to worry about losing up Kilimanjaro: no watch, no phone, no camera, nor any form of electrical equipment. I sincerely hope that nobody else in our group loses anything precious while up the mountain, as one thing is absolutely certain. If I make it up that mountain, there will be absolutely no chance of me going back up again to help them look for it. This will be a once in a lifetime experience, as far as I am concerned!