I knew Freda would assign me a 6-hour swim today and she did. While all my cold baths have made it fairly easy to get in and swim, it doesn't much help after the first hour. I was getting very cold, tired, nauseous from the salt water and feeling a bit hopeless as I hobbled onto the pebbles for my 3-hour feed. Along comes Liam Cameron (thank you Facebook!) who kindly slowed down to swim with me. I sped up to keep pace with him - helping me warm up and keep going. Made it to 6 through the kindness of a fellow swimmer. Many many thanks, Liam!
Although this was a brutal swim (did I mention it was raining? And windy?), I'm so glad I did it. It's a huge boost to know I can get through 6 hours on jet lag and a half hour of cold acclimation from the previous day's swim.
Also, the feeds here are a little more conservative. We had to swim 2 hours before our first feed and then every hour after that. I'm used to a half hour schedule. Freda's soldiers brought a cup of warm Maxim and a treat to us as we slugged out of the water each feeding. The jelly babies were delightful. I'd read about them on a zillion English Channel blogs and it was fun to pop them in my mouth and wash them down with Maxim. One of the other treats was a chocolate bar. I discovered I don't care for chocolate bars while cold and nauseous.
You'd think after all that I'd topple off to sleep as soon as I stepped in the door to our rental flat, but the time difference is still giving me fits. I finally slipped into dreamland around midnight.
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