Learning to swim

Now, I'm at home with Pixie Mae and Elsie. My big achievements of the day are a 2 hour sleep and convincing Elsie to say "Mama, wee wee". This time last year I was training for the Shark Island Swim, a 2.3km ocean swim held annually at Cronulla. It was pretty choppy on the day and there were heaps of little jellyfish in the water. I struggled out after 51 minutes, having swallowed buckets of water. Most of the old ladies and little kids had already finished. I didn't know whether to hug Luke for making me do it or kill him for the same reason. 

The funny thing is, I didn't learn to swim until I met Luke. I grew up at Lord Howe and pretended to swim. I went to boarding school in Sydney and pretended to swim. I must have been good at pretending - I even got my Bronze Medallion.  Luke is a good swimmer. The first time I went swimming with Luke he noticed that I was holding my breath. I would turn my head to the side and breathe out. There was no time to breathe in. I would never have worked it out on my own. 

These days I love to swim. I have become a swimming convert and, like all converts, I can bore people for hours. No one is safe.  

  

Pinetrees is just across the road from Lagoon Beach and most mornings I can duck across the road and have a swim, a quick shower in the boatshed and get back to work. 

It would be good to have a Lord Howe Island ocean swim next year. Who knows?