Church Cove & Falmouth

Saturday was another beautiful day in Cornwall. We started the day by popping to Church Cove for a dip in the sea. Church Cove is just a few miles away from Gunwalloe, where we were staying, but as we were short for time that day we drove rather than walking the cliff path. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the beach it became apparent that the sea was much more suited to surfing than swimming – ie. it was very choppy. But, we did dip our feet / ankles / lower-legs in. Well, when I say ‘we’ I mean mum and I did, and dad took some photos.

There we are, at a distance (dad took some closer photos of both of us but don’t know if mum wants me to share them online!)

So here is one just of me, because it’s already been shared on Instagram and Twitter anyway.

The actual church of Church Cove.

I sat a while on the beach reading my book but it was soon time to head back…

Because my next stop, leaving the parents to go off out without me, was Falmouth where I met my bestest buddy, Lauren. She came down from Exeter, Devon, to stay for the weekend with us. We had a lovely, somewhat nostalgic, day in Falmouth visiting old haunts and sighing at how much Falmouth had moved on without us – we both went to university in Falmouth, if you didn’t know that!

First of all, we had pasties on the pier. Mine was goat’s cheese! I know, what?!

Pasty-hand-selfie.

We went to check out the new Falmouth town university campus (used to be called Woodlane).
It looks crazy different (better!). We were wondering if they’d let us come back…

And then walked through Fox Rosehill Gardens towards the beach. More bamboo!

Good old Gylly. Lots of people (although perhaps not pictured here), lots of seaweed.

However, we didn’t stop at Gylly, because we decided to walk around the coast path to Swanpool.

And I had yet more Cornish ice cream (plus chocolate coated ginger, that isn’t so visible here)
and an apple and green tea drink.

See the previous day, Porthleven, Land’s End & the Minack Theatre, here.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

I have been a keen swimmer for most of my life – although my mum does like to tell me tales of how it was difficult to get me in the water as a really young child. At some point, longer ago than I can remember, I must have decided that I did like to be in the water after all…

Through primary school I had weekly (term time) swimming lessons, although I’m not sure I ever got further than my 100m badge. Possibly I made it to 200m? 400m? (I wonder if those badges and swimming certificates are still around at my parents’ house…) Although I stopped those lessons when I reached a certain level, I still used to go swimming for fun with friends sometimes – most notably after violin classes on a Saturday morning. Violin I did not keep up, but swimming I did.

In my second year of university, after only swimming sporadically in the first year, I had an annual membership to use a hotel’s gym and pool facilities. I only used the gym a handful of times but often I would swim maybe 3 or 4 times a week. The hotel was less than five minutes walk from where I lived so that helped – and being a student, apparently, meant lots of free time! Unfortunately the pool was tiny – only 12 metres in length, at the longest point (it wasn’t rectangular either) – so I’m not sure how much distance I actually covered.

PHOTO: Alice Douglas-Deane, fellow graphic designer and sea swimmer. (I’m second from the left.)

Then there was sea swimming. I didn’t start properly swimming in the sea until the end of second year – when I presumed the water to have warmed up a bit. By third year, I was an avid sea swimmer. I swam every Sunday without hesitation as part of the CSM Sea Swimming Club. But it was more of a social thing and an invigorating ‘makes you feel good about yourself for running into the freezing cold water on a Sunday lunchtime like a crazy person’ kind of thing. I’m going back to Falmouth in just over a week (I can’t wait!) and I’m planning on fitting in at least one dip in the sea. My body will need to do some serious re-acclimatising to the cold.

Before I moved from Milton Keynes, I used to swim at Middleton Pool in Newport Pagnell. It was conveniently on my way home from work and I used to try to go once a week – although more often than not, that didn’t work out. That’s when I started using an app on my iPhone called Splash Path so that I could keep track of how much I was swimming each time (yes, I count lengths as I swim) and try to consistently improve.

It’s only now that I’ve moved to Bedford, properly signed up for a gym/swimming pool (Robinson Pool – also 33.3m in length, like Middleton, which is handy) and have been going consistently once or twice a week, that I am starting to really appreciate being able to visualise my swims. It’s encouraging to see my swim streak weeks figure going up, as well as my general distance improving. I started swimming in Bedford doing a measly 20 lengths, or 666m, but now…

My swim this evening – 40 lengths of 33m.

Splash Path – now known as Speedo Fit (I assume because Speedo give them funding to make the app) but I still think of it as Splash Path anyway – at its most basic level gives you the function to record how many lengths you swim at a certain pool, at a certain time and therefore how far that is. But it does other things too:

• Set your goals, track your swims and keep motivated with virtual swim challenges.

• Track every swim, monitor your progress and personal statistics.
• Keep motivated by setting yourself a virtual challenge like Escape from Alcatraz.
• Join the swimming community – share and compare your progress with friends or swimmers at your local pool.
• Find pools wherever you are with the UK’s most comprehensive source of local swimming pools (including Ireland).
• Check pool opening hours, swim timetables.

I’m currently ‘swimming’ across the Irish sea. It is a long way but I have completed all the short challenges.

Hopefully I’ll be upping my days swim streak from 1 to 2 tomorrow, by going two days in a row. I usually tend to go Mondays and Thursday but the bank holiday threw me off this week. Plus I didn’t go until Sunday last week (my one and only swim of the week, but it was a good one) due to not wanting my freshly henna’d hair to turn the pool water green prior to that.

You can get Speedo Fit from the Apple app store here, for free.

Friends of Bude Sea Pool

“The Sea Pool at Bude was created in 1930 to provide a haven for safe swimming for local residents and the thousands of people who visit the area each year.

The Sea Pool was threatened with closure and demolition following funding cutbacks. A local charity, the Friends of Bude Sea Pool took on its management in 2012. FoBSP must pay for the Pool’s staffing, restoration and maintenance from memberships, donations, sponsorship and grant funding.

Please join FoBSP and help to save Bude Sea Pool!”

Over the past couple of months I’ve been working on re-designing the Friends of Bude Sea Pool’s leaflet and membership form. As a keen sea swimmer I have visited the sea pool at Bude several times – after being introduced to it by my [university] sea swimming club, in 2012.

I offered to help them re-design the leaflet – for free of course, it’s a good cause! I wanted to make sure the leaflet was visually appealing and eye-catching on the outside, as well as functioning well as a form inside. They provided lots of great photos for me to use, many of which can be found on their Facebook page.

Above is a poster version of the front of the leaflet, and below is the leaflet when viewed flat.

Outside

Inside

And as the leaflets haven’t been printed yet, I’ve attempted to simulate it (badly).

Join Friends of Bude Sea Pool today!

Why is the sea so far away?

The weather in Britain is wonderful at the moment. Sunshine makes me and everyone around me happy. But I am missing the sea/seaside terribly. Although, admittedly it’s only been just over a month since I was by the sea (North Devon)…

When you go from three years living walking distance from the beach and the harbour back to the middle of England, it really is quite rubbish. Don’t get me wrong, I love the countryside – working in the beautiful Bedfordshire countryside is really great – and I love woods – I love trees, of course I would [wood]. But there’s just something about the sea. The smell, the sound, the feel…

I’ve been trying to work out where the nearest coast/beach to Milton Keynes is. I always assumed it was Hunstanton in Norfolk, but if you take into account the time it takes to get there and types of roads it might be easier to go somewhere south. Either way, it’s nearly 100 miles – by road, rather than as the crow flies.

That’s pretty far from the sea but by no means the furthest place in Britain from the coast. After a little Googling, BBC News tells me that in 2003 the village of Coton in the Elms, Derbyshire, was confirmed the furthest point in Britain from the sea. Although this discussion mentions Aylesbury, Tring and Leicester among other places. All of which, the first two especially, are pretty close to Milton Keynes.

I might run away to the seaside, any seaside, this weekend. But if I don’t, I’m going to Brighton the weekend after so I should survive.

North Devon

I’ve travelled a lot of miles this past weekend, well from Thursday really, and for once I actually did all the driving – no trains involved. Joined by Richard (all the way from Australia!) and Beth, we drove down to Falmouth on Thursday but it was a short stay… On Friday we joined the Sea Swimming Clubbers and headed up to Bude – sea pool! – and then on to North Devon for an amazing weekend of sunshine, camping and, of course, sea swimming.

Falmouth, briefly.

There’s no photographs of Bude as I was a little stressed out after Foxy had an accident (flat tyre/busted wheel). This is Foxy’s good side at the campsite in Ilfracombe.

Secret beach.

Woolacombe.

Pirate crazy golf is the best!

I had a go in these myself, great fun.

Monkey Island was hard and there was no three-headed monkey.

Valley of the rocks.

Watersmeet.