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  • Nov 7, 2026 · 6 min read

    The first swim after the storm

    The sea was the colour of slate and I went in anyway, and this is what I found there.

  • Nov 2, 2026 · 6 min read

    Skin and the first minute

    What the cold does to the body in sixty seconds, and what I have learned to do about it.

  • Nov 1, 2026 · 5 min read

    Writing with cold hands

    Why my best sentences come in the car park, before my fingers are working again.

  • Oct 31, 2026 · 5 min read

    Twelve steps down to the sea

    How a short walk to a slipway became the part of the day I think about most.

  • Oct 24, 2026 · 4 min read

    What the flask is for

    A small thing that has nothing to do with swimming and everything to do with afterwards.

  • Oct 24, 2026 · 5 min read

    The long drive to the water

    Forty minutes of fields in the half dark, and how the road becomes part of the swim.

A road through a Connemara bog with peat stacks and mountains

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Cold Water Letters

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