The White Cardigan

                                  

The photo above is my mum, Winifred Rose Peace. It is thirty five years ago today that she died having been in a hurry to join her beloved Billy, who had died eighteen months early. I think of them both every day and thank them for my tough, very strict upbringing, through war time and beyond. They are together and at peace now.

The poem below is one of my early ones since my mum and dad are always in my thoughts. It is not great but it is heartfelt. Mum always wore a nice bright, hand knitted White Cardigan. I have the one she is wearing in this picture, in a cupboard at home. Love never dies.

 

A white cardigan before my eyes takes a place

above it there’s an image of my mother’s face.

Then, even then, the memory can be harsh,

she won’t go away now for a little while

and thinking that thought will make me smile.

 

It was a big thing with her, I remember it well

ingrained deep in her past, you could tell,

a bright white ‘must have’ was what people saw

a brand-new white cardigan for every year

her clothes worn thin, but one must not sneer.

 

Listening to the radio, knitting on a winter night

plain for herself, and mine a much prettier sight.

Mum’s sometimes a ‘V’ neck and mine

buttoned to the neck with a pattern or cable

worn only for best, when we were able.

 

There I am cardi on, in photos somewhere

squatting in the chicken run with frizzy hair

but wrapped in long sleeved white wool

unkempt halo of dirty blonde locks

taken with the old family Brownie Box.

 

Far too quickly for Mum’s pocket I grew

the old one was passed on to a friend I knew.

One day had she switched to a new design

a fluffy angora bolero with bobbly edge

“Watch your cardi on that jagged ledge”.

 

Bolero years lasted those childhood ways

warming me in my junior school days.

Gathering admiration for her neat stitches

it looked like shop bought but for less cost

a slap round the head if my best one was lost.

 

The hug-me-tight then came into my young life

ballet class gave mum one more piece of strife;

Wrapped around the front and neatly crossed over

with two long tails that were neatly tied

slipping them through a little slot on the side.

 

“White goes with anything”, said Mum’s firm voice,

but for myself there was not any choice;

you would think I had said a really bad word

when I asked for a pink one or pretty green

horror on her face was for a moment seen.

 

So, you see now as the brochure page I turn

the white one pictured is not what I yearn.

Mum’s white cardi on the model gives pause.

There she is again, words I almost say

once more her dear face will not go away.

 

She still wore them into her old age where

nothing changed bar the shade of her hair.

Silky white permanently waved tresses

as she lay, small and still on her death bed

“Perfect match to my cardi”, she would have said.

 

All in a day’s training

Early enough Saturday’s morning, having already worked on my Duolingo Italian course for an hour and a half, well before Steve woke up.

He pretty soon, started to hassle me to get into my bike kit, since it was looking like a nice day for a ride again.

If you live in England you have to grab the nice days as they show, because the next one may very well not be tomorrow.

We worked hard on our ride, that is rarely about admiring the scenery in racing season, it was just a little short of thirty miles but useful enough to help with the growing stack piled under the belt, considering the events that we still have a fingers, legs and eyes crossed for in hope that they will go ahead.

 After a quick coffee in the garden with the cat on a lead, who only likes to be out in the garden when we are there too.

Otherwise, as soon as I put her out for a wander, she will start belly aching like kid shouting, “look what I’m doing”; which generally will be stomping over my geraniums or it seems like deliberately getting herself tied in knots around the table or a plant or Steve’s lounger, (I do not lie in the sun, not with my skin problems).

She knows that I will come and check what the problem is, and so mews loudly until I un-tangle her.

I have explained to her that this trick will not makes me ever let her go, so that she can climb over the garage and get either run over or kidnapped.

Ain’t gonna happen.

I can only be manipulated to a certain level, and after that I just take her off the lead and bring her in and feed her, after which, she will join me while I work on my Italian.

She finds this quite soothing and quickly falls asleep as close to me as possible.

The course keeps me from going completely ‘Gaga’ and I hope will be useful when we go to Ironman 70.3 Venice Jessolo that must be an outside possibility to be held at the end of September.

 

 Back to yesterday’s activities. So after an hour at home to gather swim kit and clothes for the planned time spent with friends after our swim.

We stuffed the ‘after clothes’ into the van and set off for the beach in our cozzie’s. Our usual beach is directly in front of the Littlehampton Wave Swimming and Sports centre.

Steve and I sat on the sea wall until our club swim friends Michelle and Brian arrived.

 

When I sea swim with Steve, I would have mentioned before, that I wear flippers and that helps with the difference in our swim speeds.

 Stephen quite a bit faster than me.

We have done a number of sea swim this summer and last -time; I had muttered that my flippers had seen better days and were perished and cracking here and there.

Before you could say “Knife”, a couple of days later a brand new, pair of shiny fins arrived via Amazon.  

They are longer than my old ones, so this swim was also a first test of swimming in my posh new flippers that are much longer that the cast-off pair.

Steve had to help me get the little devils on, with the waves bashing my back.

High tide was at 1.30 yesterday and I prefer to swim before rather than at High tide in Littlehampton which has a ferocious current. 

 

 Soon we were all in the water and swimming toward our start point at the end of groyne, a basket.

I had swum outwards first and then turned to swim toward the basket.

Steve usually catches up to me very quickly.

 

I swam at my usual easy pace because I like to enjoy a swim not just go in and thrash away, those days are long gone.

So, then I am swimming away and every now and again look up and sight on the basket.

This is, head on against the current, which normally means that you get back in half the time to your outward route.

 

After a while, at a point where I could see Steve swimming on my right side, he breathes to the left, so that is what he likes to do to keep me in sight.

After a while I noticed that the basket was not getting any closer. Brian and Michelle had taken a slightly more different direct line… I don’t swim that straight anyway and curve toward my left.

I stuck my head down again and battled on but still not getting anywhere.

 

At this point I started to wonder if the new flippers were not right for me, a lot bigger and heavier than the old one’s and new of course.

I never did get to the blickin’ basket. I stopped and spoke to Steve, saying I wasn’t getting anywhere and he said neither was he.

We hacked on for a while but then Steve saw that the two other very good swimmers had not got that far ahead but at least made it to the frickin’ basket.

 

At that time, I turned in to toward the shore. We have all been swimming at that spot for over twenty years but the water was running so fast that none of us could believe it, and on what should have been a straight swim into shore we drifted way to the west! On our way through the last bit of the swim there was a family with a big paddle board out for a bit of fun. I was a bit concerned about them since the man had got into the water and was trying to push the board against the current and was also getting further and further back. He did in the end guide it into shallow water with his wife and little girl, who thankfully had a big life-jacket on and was sitting on the front. It always worries me in summer that the tourists allow their children in the water on their own. It is normally a strong current but for whatever reason it was much stronger than usual.

 

My thought as I was swimming that either the new fins did not suit me or that I had gone badly off the boil swim wise.

It was a comfort to find that our friends had abandoned their intended long swim too, saying that in all the years they had not known the current to run so fast.

 

We all got dressed ready to walk to the start of the Arun 3.8 km Swim.

Steve and I had seen our friends working with Raw Energy Pursuits, setting up the finish area for the event on our way home from our morning ride, when we had stopped for a chat having not seen them for ages.

 

When we got to the river mouth, having walked along the seafront to that point the river it was simple raging in, quite extraordinary.  A little further along we saw the huge gravel ship that is by far the biggest vessel to comes into the river to unload a little way past the iron footbridge. Again, we had seen it unloading this morning out on our ride. It is massive and hard to believe it can even get in and out of the narrow mouth of the river, so it is a good entertaining thing to watch. The footbridge has to open to allow it out toward the sea. Amazing skill to take such a giant out and into our seaside water.

 

 

 The four of us stopped for tea and cake on the way along to the footbridge, where we planned to watch the swimming coming toward the finish of their daunting 3.8 km swim.

 

The start had to be delayed because one of the buses taking the swimmers to the start point only went and broke down arrghh!

How frustrating for the event organiser at Raw Energy Pursuits Mick Dicker, who usually has his events running so smoothly.

For us, it I gave time to chat in our distanced way outside the café. There was still a longish wait but we were in place on the bridge well before the first swimmers came by.

The lead canoe seemed to be having a bit of a job guiding the swimmer along who was bent on trying to swim wide on the curve.

The swimmer who came second took a much better line and gained a bit but not enough to catch the leader.

 

By this time, after the late start of course, the tide had well and truly turned and so instead of the slack water period, which is unreliable anyway in the very naughty River Arun, that is after all the second fasted river in the UK. I think the times may have been faster than previous years because of this.

 

It was a really lovely day all told, and useful too having had a good bike ride in the morning, a challenging sea swim and then a fair walk to the view point up the river and then back afterwards it must be a mile and a half both ways.

 

I hope Steve has found these results for me correctly.

 

Men

1^st Chris Cook

2^nd Andrew Gowland

3^rd Archie Strowgel

 

Women

1^st Tracy March

2^nd Dee Harmer

3^rd Nikki Gatland