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Sometimes we can be swept along in a current that we intuitively feel is wrong for us, daunting and overwhelming. Maybe the river is flowing where we want to go but this little section of it is too much, to disturbed.

I feel a little like that right now. In my quest to write, and for my writing to receive some validation, other than it feeling good to me, I have been swept back into the world of social media.

Maybe it is just a crisis of confidence, but I am finding the constant notifications from Facebook already overbearing and I’ve only been using it a few days.

My dilemma is that people keep telling me that if I want to get my writing out there, I need a huge social media following…can that really be true?

Reading an article in Breathe magazine written by Kate Orson, the words struck accord.

“The mind can sometimes rationalise behaviour, even when it leads you away from your values.”

I certainly don’t want to give up pursuing my writing but I just don’t feel comfortable being held captive to endless social media platforms. The article goes on to say

“Whatever you choose, let it emerge from a deep sense of intuiting what’s right for your whole person – body, mind and soul.”

So my decision is a compromise, keep the website, keep Instagram and ditch Facebook. Now I have made the choice my heart feels lighter, I am no longer spending wasted energy worrying about it. It feels right, comfortable and more me.

So with stripping back a little in mind I feel the only way to swim today is stripped back, raw and totally connected to the real elements that matter, the sea, the sky and air.

Its surprising how little cold you feel when stood naked on a beach in March. The wind is fresh and gusty and yet I don’t shiver, just enjoy the sublime feeling of the air brushing across my skin and the cold water as it swirls around my body.

Scratchy brown seaweed scrape over my limbs but feel inviting not frightening. Luckily today Great Par was deserted. There is nothing more free and wonderful as a skinny dip, probably my last one for a while as the Island welcomes back visitors.

All in all I feel more relaxed, more ready to keep on flowing with that river.

Today is the blogs first birthday…hip hip hooray! One year ago I tentatively posted the first of my blog entries about my experience of sea swimming. It was also the start of me writing for others to read, very scary. A big thank you to all you patient and encouraging folk who continue to read the blog, you’ve made it a lovely experience.

What a year it has been. The blog has become part of my life, this capturing of thoughts and feelings, experiences and challenges.

It has kick-started an almost lost creative me, I now read, write and paint regularly, and goodness it feels so good. The anticipation that fizzes inside when I sit with a white piece of paper just calling out for words or colour.

I have completed the “writing a journal for well-being” course, I have joined Lapidus International words for well-being, become part of a writing group on Scilly, Island Writer, and attended my first writing retreat.

It has certainly felt like a birthday today, a day full of lovely things. The sun has shone, the skies have been blue, and of course it all started with a swim.

As Martha and I left the house for the school run, gulls squawked and swooped, their angular wings guiding their flight. The birdsong an orchestra of tiny trumpet fanfare, clicks and chatter. Sparrows flit and flutter, thruming through the air in cheeky groups.

I thought it was to be a moody morning of deep colours and shifting light.

But by the time we had walked the sandy track to the quay, the night had edged away, surrendering to a beautiful, if chilly, morning.

I am so lucky to be able to walk Martha to the boat, wave her off and jump in the sea, without a car or stressful journey in sight.

At the quay the wet, cool sand is littered with heaps of seaweed and shells, stranded after the last high tide. I pick my way through towards the steely-blue water. Air is like a blade against my bare skin, fingers and toes are pink and pinched and painful.

A deep breath, lungs stretching, I dive down and skim across the seabed. My whole body prickles with the cold but my swim soon becomes a magical world of cascading silver bubbles and ethereal green light.

With the white sun one side, so bright I have to close my eyes, or see the white glow burnt onto my vision, and the brightest cornflower blue the other, each breath is a feast for the soul.

I have to admit the cold never leaves me and my body is numb and raw to the wind as I reach the sand once again, but what a treat of a swim.

The day continued to be a happy day with bee-keeping, apple-tree pruning, and planting seeds in the lovely warm greenhouse.

I have also set up my own website from which I hope to start new writing projects, take a look, wildwriter.co.uk, I’m just going to see where it takes me. In this first year I have discovered it is hard, writing. Firstly the process of putting meaninful thoughts to paper and then controlling them. Secondly being out here on Bryher can feel quite isolating, far away from other writers, courses, workshops and support groups. Hence the birth of Island Writers. It is a big world in which to try and find your place and I am still not sure of the route I should take. I just know I love to write and after reading an article in the Lapidus newsletter I felt encouraged to keep pursuing the path.

“Remaining open to new opportunities and possibilities is one of the cornerstones of a creative life.” Casey Bottono.

It is ok to be on a path that you do not know the route, that’s life after all, so I’m just going to plod along and see where it takes me.

I wonder what the next year of swimming, writing and farming life will bring?

The past few days I have been snuggled up in the perfect winter bolt hole to write, read, and catch up with friends. A little bit of me time.

I’ve been staying in an old fisherman’s cottage in Newlyn. It dates back to the early 18th century and is packed full of wonderful old features and character.

The very wide staircase used to be a passageway in which to barrel loads of pilcahrds were rolled through from the harbour, which had originally been much closer to the cottage than the present harbour.

Having all this lovely cottage and time to myself, I have been able to get stuck in to some writing, and feel I have made progress in both my current short story project and my plans for future scribbles.

It also gave me the opportunity to meet up with a group of sea swimmers in Penzance, lead by Katie Maggs. She is a true inspiration, starting Tonic of the Sea, after her own battles with poor mental health and discovering the benefits of cold water sea swimming.

The group always meet at 7am either along the prom or in the harbour at Penzance, hats off to them for always swimming that early!

As I had no transport it meant that I set off from the cottage at 6:15am kitted out in dry robe, swimming cossie and bobble hat, to march along the prom in the dark.

I had thought that I wouldn’t really see anyone but I was soon swept up in a group of about thirty school kids that happened to be on a geography trip to the Newlyn fish market. I heard one of the say “my mum wears a coat like that, she’s so embarrassing “.

It’s scary how one comment can totally undermine someone’s conviction. I immediately began to berate myself for being me and doing something that I enjoy, just because someone I don’t know made a comment.

I quickened my pace and continued along the prom and soon the sight of the dark sea, the twinkling lights of the harbour and town and the sound of the waves dragging the pebbles about like ripping Velcro made me forget my insecurities.

After a nervous few minutes waiting for the group to arrive (of course I was early) and desperately looking for anyone in a dry robe and swimming hat, a few smiling faces began to appear.

Soon we were all stood at the side of the road, stripping off, goggling up and giggling about how cold and windy it was.

Its not just the cold water that lifts the spirits, it is the great friendship that is within the sea swimming community that has such benefits to well-being.

So on this dark, windy and pretty chilly morning (water temp 6°) we all swum and splashed about, laughing and enjoying each other’s company.

Despite the chill as we all padded up the slipway and huddled back in the doorway to dry off, the warmth of the group and the feeling of being energised and inspired to enjoy the day left me buzzing.

This week the Eggins family are on holiday! And where better place to go than half a mile across the sea to Tresco. I can still see Bryher from our bedroom window, and if I walk a little way up the road I can see home, and yet I feel that I am a world away from the mud and routine of the farm.

It is true that I felt a pang of homesickness last night whilst watching Countryfile and some saddleback pigs, I couldn’t be without my animals for long, but I am blissfully absorbing the time to read and write and spend time with the children.

Outside of our little cottage haven, Storm Dennis has been battering the islands, sand dunes are building up against the windows downstairs and a small layer of dust-like sand carpets the floor inside our bedrooms french doors, the wind finding any tiny little gap it can to push the gritty grains through.

Sitting by the windows I wonder at how amazing glass is. Sheltering me from the wind and rain with barely two inches of thickness. I imagine I could almost push my hand through it’s liquid form and out into the cold outside. I can hear the drips of rain, feel the draft flow through the gaps and yet I am safe and warm and cocooned.

However lovely that feeling is I know I will become frustrated soon and long to be outside, feeling the storm, living the weather not hiding from it.

I am torn between walking, that lovely steady pace where words tumble in time to the rhythm of my strides, or follow the family on bikes. In a happy chaos we all set off on the bikes for a circuit around Tresco Abbey before heading to Blockhouse for a swim in the bay.

The Abbey Drive takes us through a canopy of Amazonian type plants, tree ferns, walls of succulants and dappled sunlight through the verdant undergrowth.

The air in my lungs is cold, fingertips are cold even though I am puffing and using muscles not often worked. The wind as we struggle over the headland and along the western coast, burns the nose and blows tears from the eyes. But the view is stunning, Samson dark against the silver sea.

Across the island is a heady mix of woodsmoke, salt and scented narcissi swelling a warm feeling in my heart and a wide smile to my face as we free-wheel down the hill.

At the little bay which arcs its way towards the old Blockhouse, the soft white sand is strewn with limpet shells. The Blockhouse, an old fortress castle, is an enchanting mix of forbidding solid stone and fun-filled hours of hide and seek games. The sea changes from liquid mercury to turquoise to green to blue as if beating in time with a metronome. The sun and any warmth it brings dips in and out of the fast, scudding clouds and the surface of the sea is flurried and harrased by the breeze.

Quite a tidal pull swirls me around the bay, dragging me out then pushing me in and I just go with the flow, lazily floating about.

Once out of the water and dressed, there’s quite a knack to that whilst the wind and sand are blowing hard, we cycle our retreat back to the snug and cosy cottage. The perfect balance of fresh air, activity and comfort, my perfect holiday.

Gale after gale seems to be testing the resilience and strength of both islanders and island to the limits.

Night after night I lie in bed listening to the windows clatter and bang and the roof stretch and creak, wondering if the tunnels are still up, the bees are still there or the old apple tree is still standing.

Each winter there comes a point when I wish it to be over, for the constant howl of wind and lash of rain to cease. Now is that point. I long to be out working in the fields, planting and picking fruit and veg whilst the warmth of early morning sunshine softens the skin.

I long to escape the frustrating confines of the quay and swim further and longer, but right now that’s the safest place to be.

These are my first thoughts of the day, as I lie in the dark and cosy cocoon of my bed.

Then I remember a quote from author Ali Smith, talking about her book Winter, and it gives me a kick up the you know what.

“In the dark is where we work out what the light is, and in the winter is where we work out why we want spring and in the lack of hope is where we make hope.”

I have always loved the weather, it’s raw and powerful beauty, it’s variety. I love the way it can effect your body and mind. Living here on Bryher you need to be able to love the weather, we can have such extremes, such wildness, and you have to accept for good or bad that really it’s mother nature that dictates our lives.

So I leave my bed and head out for a swim. In his book Cool Swimming Jonathan PD Buckley writes,

” Cold water swimming is a particularly vigorous meditation on the elements of each new day. Preparing to enter the water, the mind focuses on the here and now. Yesterday’s cares and the trials to come dissolve in the play of light on water and the shock of entering it.”

When I’m old and sitting dead in body and skull I will have no choice, I will not be able to be outside in the weather, be connected to the wild nature around us and to swim, so out I go and embrace winter.

Once again I swim at Quay where even here the sea was wild and swirling and the tide, yet still two hours from high tide is huge.

Alongside the track the sea rolls the granite rocks as if they are merely marbles in its palm, they grind and knock together.

The swell around the steps is so big I decide it’s safer just to jump from the quay and I’m soon submerged into a grey fog-like water full of chopped weed and sand.

Of course it feels lovely to be in the water and I am proud of myself for getting in, another day in February ticked off. Spring will be here soon enough, thank goodness, and I will love it even more for having swum through winter.

This place.

My place, my place within this place.

This place within me.

Over the past few weeks I have felt an insecurity, a fragility with my writing. I have questioned my motivation to write, my ability to write, even my right to write. I have felt unsettled without really being able to put my finger on the feeling. Until last night whilst I was at a Yin yoga class, the teacher was describing this fragile feeling that can be felt when learning something new. It suddenly made sense, I am once again pushing the boundaries a little, giving myself a new challenge a new ambition and it can feel scary and unbalancing.

So how to feel better?

Listen, to trusted friends for their kind words and advice. Listen to something inspirational. I heard a small extract today of a recording of Ted Hughes talking about place. Here are a few of his words;

“Capture it, grasp the full delight of it. The deepest feelings of the place. Landscape, a source of freshness and new strength. Have observant eyes and accurate words.”

Just a few inspiring words can make such a difference to your day.

What better way to keep moving forward with my writing, than to write about this place. For it is this place that I love. This place that moves and inspires me.

I head off to Green Bay, book and pencil in hand to try to capture a tiny place and space in time.

There is a sharp easterly wind that cuts flesh from bone. The beach is exposed and unprotected. Strewn over the granite pebbles are thick kelp stalks. Once nourished and full of life they now lie decaying, ancient, mumified and skeletal.

That sharpness of air also brings clarity. Colours so acute the eye struggles to take in each hue and shade. Deep shadows are thrown by bright light. The green of the land in contrast to the white of the sand, in contrast to the blue of the sea.

Emerald green waves roll playfully in, whipping ice around ankle and shin.

Flashes of white gulls fly quick and daring, their speed looks exciting to my ground-locked eye.

I feel a slight sense of trepidation. It’s going to feel chilly, the wind will be harsh on my bare skin, but I also know it will feel good, revitalizing, re-setting. I will feel better once in. The seascape and wild swimming always seem to be able to ground me, give me perspective. As Ted Hughes said it brings freshness and a new strength.

So in I wade the waves lapping cold against my belly, it’s better not to dither, just go for it and swim. The beauty of the colours, the light and the movement of the water, instantly take my mind off the cold. Sunlight dances and dazzles on the broken surface, I feel as free and playful as the waves.

And then it’s time to leave behind that watery world and retreat to the warmth and comfort of home. I return with a renewed sense of determination to just enjoy my writing, acknowledge how cathartic it can be and keep putting pencil to paper in what ever way feels right. I will find my place within the world of words and as I so often do with my swimming I just need to go with the flow.

So here I am, sea swimming in February once again. Last February’s memories of swimming are still vivid in my mind, it was my first winter swimming in skins (no wetsuit) and I had started keeping a swimming diary.

At the very beginning of my first notebook I wrote; “swimming has inspired me to try to put into thoughts and words the feelings and experiences I have when out in the sea. There are so many aspects to life on Bryher that I could write about, ponder on; the psychology of island life, the community spirit, the age-long grudges, the effects of climate change on our delicate ecosystem. The positives and guilts of bringing up our children here, the struggles the joys. So much that I find it a little overwhelming and therefor seem to write nothing at all. Maybe I will focus on one thing at a time, and at the moment my soul is captured by the sea, the swimming, the total immersion into a force much greater than myself”.

And there began my swim diary.

I thought I would put on the blog one of the entries from February 2019, only this one isn’t about swimming. We were staying on Tresco for the half term week, which we will be doing again this year. There were spring tides making high tide very high and low tide empty.

We adventure into uncharted territory, seabed mid-channel, sand our strides have never covered. Rock pools of mysterious purple shells, pink, green, orange seaweed. They are exposed to a world usually unknown to them too.

The children giggle and shriek as razor clams squirt salty jets of water into the air before retreating into the pale sand. It makes me think of Icelandic geezers or pavements in city squares that shoot water at people.

We wade through lagoons of lazily drifting kelp, wet boots, wet toes. The wind cools our March against the tide.

Our arrival at Puffin Island is heralded by mass squawking of gulls and we feel intruders on their normally deserted island. A quick sustenance break and then back, mindful of the now incoming tide.

I love reading back through my old diaries, I remember swims, places and people as well as being reminded about why it is I am still swimming.

For February is a hard month to swim in. The darkness has been here for months now, as have the cold winds, the rain and the icy sea. The water temperature is just about at its lowest and although not quite the sub 5° the amazing loch and lake swimmers up north tough it out in, it’s cold enough.

Images of twinkling turquoise seas and hot dusty days cooled by silky swims invade my mind more and more.

Today the animals are fed, the girls are baking in their favourite Sunday attire…pjs, and the boys are pottering with jobs. I’m off for a swim.

The gritty tracks are strewn with soggy leaves and twigs, wind-blown and hedge-cut. Smooth, muddy channels that last night were tiny rivers of rain, slide across the paths spilling into the grass.

The Hebe is in flower, as are the succulants at Veronica farm.

The sun is frosted behind shifting grey cloud, the sea silver and St Mary’s a hazy faded shape on the horizon.

On Green Bay strandlines of high tides past wiggle their way along the sand, the next high tide in twelve hours time, now the sea slowly ebbs away. Lacy white froth on wet sand comes and goes. Here then gone, there, not there.

A fresh westerly breeze hurries the sea along, seemingly to push it around the rocks on my left and up towards Bar and Cromwells castle. But once in the water I can feel the suck of the tide, pulling me in the opposite direction, down channel towards Samson. I slowly make my way around the little rocky headland. With my back to the sun the sea is now a grey-green, little glass bubbles spreading from my fingertips.

It’s a short swim and my bobble hat stays firmly on in an attempt to keep the chill at bay, but I’m in once again. February for me is just about keeping on going, not giving up and despite the cold, the gloom I always feel wonderful after my swim.

My blog today is more about a pondering walk rather than swimming, although I did enjoy a rather refreshing dip first thing this morning.

I am realising how lovely and important it is for me to write outside, whatever the weather, it’s all part of the charm. If I ever feel uninspired or struggling for words, going outside with notebook and pencil always helps. It’s here in nature that my thoughts tumble over each other, words wanting to get out, and it feels like luxuary to be able to write them down.

I start my walk meandering across Green Bay. The tide is far out, the channel an empty expanse of wet clay-like sand and heaps of weed. The colours and shapes of the weeds are beautiful.

The rain, which is light as dust, settles on the paper, threatening to disolve my words. It blows in and out like breath, the breath of the sea-mist creature.

I wander parts of the coastline I don’t normally go to, looking for treasure, searching for words. It’s raining properly now. Thick, still, grey mizzle all around me.

I scramble off the beach over the smooth granite bolders and up onto the coastal path that circumnavigates Samson Hill. The sun comes out all light-hearted and warm. The wet ground glistens, the path is mossy and muddy in places and my feet slip ever-so-slightly in my too big for me boots, them in turn sliding in the mud.

Pale sand banks and dark rocks are slowly submerging beneath the incoming tide. I sit for a while and write some thoughts and ideas for future writing projects.

Heading toward home now, back along the beach at Great Par, where hundreds of By-The-wind Sailors have washed up, along with several Man of War jellyfish. Their irredescent colours gleaming in the sunlight.

I return to the farm feeling calm, full of fresh air and plans. Nothing beats a lovely walk with a notebook…well apart from a wild swim of course!

7:50am

It’s a battle of wills this morning. It is still gloomy dark, no bright-lit sunrise to enthuse the soul. The only lights are those artificial twinklings of the airport on St Mary’s and the ever-present two red dots of the telegraph tower.

From the warmth of the kitchen I look out of the window into the gloom. Semi-naked in a swimming costume and towel I can already feel the chilly air on my skin when it hits the cold wind outside. Mind over matter I tell myself, steeling my resolve, it will be to wonder at the bodies ability to cope with the cold, the minds ability to cope. Luckily I have Ruthie for company, it’s always easier when there is someone to coax you on (she feels the same, neither wants to wimp out).

The water is clear glassy grey, no waves, and bone chillingly cold. Toes and fingers soon ache and look like little pink sausages before thankfully numbing. I have to make a conscious effort to exhale the lungfulls of air, blowing streams of bubbles into the sea. My body’s desire is to snatch at the breath in constricted reaction to the cold.

Quickly that first shock dissipates and we can enjoy the skin-prickling sensation of the sea against our skin.

The quay is a hive of activity today and we watch like seals from the water as the children catch their boat to school. The cargo launch arrives bringing essential supplies to the island. Men with tractors and tractors line up to sort and collect goods. Two of the islands fishing boats chug into the bay, Emerald Dawn and Tradewinds, the fishermen preparing them to be taken out of the water for winter maintenance.

The energy in the water and on the water is buzzing and after a reluctant start, Ruthie and I leave the sea feeling energised and alive, ready for whatever the days brings. All we leave are footprints in the wet sand, we take with us so much more.