Catholic swim

Last Friday I had a real Norwegian feeling at the end of the lunch break. People got up to go back to work, and one of them said "we should talk about running next week" and another one said "we should talk about swimming next week". Yay! Colleagues want to engage in sports activities with me! It took a year, but now people say such things, instead of only "let's go for a pint".

The weather forecast for Wednesday was good, so I proposed to use that day for swimming. Not that you need good weather; you get wet anyway. But for the view, and for the changing before and after, good weather can be nice. So Wednesday we went!

Federico, for he was the swimmer, preferred swimming in daylight, and he wanted to be back in time for a meeting, so we had to go early. And I don't normally leave work early, but now, with all sorts of deadlines looming, I basically work anytime I don't have something specific to do otherwise, so I could just take a swimming break and then work into the night. So at a strange hour I biked home, tossed my swimming kit in a bag, tossed my bag in the car, and crawled my way through traffic to the campus, to pick up Federico. Traffic out of town was even worse, but we got to the beach, which was lying there beautifully!

We changed into our respective wetsuits and got into the water. It was lovely! Waves to have fun with, and a great view. Federico had his own thoughts about the abundant sea weed, but that couldn't kill the fun. He even raced me, but I think he won't do that again, for he is about twice as fast as I am. No challenge there!

The plan had been to go and have dinner in the nearby cafe after the swim, and then go back to the university where he would have the meeting and I would just go back to work, but things were complicated by that I erroneously thought the cafe was closer than it really was; it turned out to not only not be close but also closed; the next pub was closed too; Federico normally calls for help from Jon in such pub-related cases, but his phone was out of battery power; and finally by that mine wasn't, but Jon didn't answer anyway. We were saved, however, by that the road back mainly followed the route from me to Dave (or back), which I evidently know very well, and which I knew would lead us past the Plymstock. They were open! And it was a bit later than intended, but we did get excellent food there, and it was all pleasant. Good, as I had often biked past and wondered what it would be like to be inside. Now I know!

All in all I returned Federico to the campus a little too late, but that didn't seem to matter too much. And instead of to my office I went to the pub, as we had a new doctor, fresh from her viva, and that needs to be acknowledged and celebrated. But an hour later I was in my office after all, and I was glad I had let my calvinistic spirit be overruled by a sporty catholic, because one can work at any hour, but one cannot go for a sunny swim at any hour! And after such a bath one is quite refreshed and more productive than when just staying in the office all the time. Perhaps a good idea to keep it up! And the running, as well...