Taking the plunge

With swimming pools closed due to the pandemic, there are enthusiastic groups in Herts who still take to the water – swimming our rivers and lakes instead

- Holly Louise Eells

I first got into wild swimming about three years ago when a friend invited me to Nackareservatet, one of the largest and most stunning nature reserves in Stockholm, Sweden. While living there, swimming outdoors was a norm for me, addictive perhaps, a place I could escape to and feel invigorated again.

Many of us know that being around water makes us calmer. Although we don’t quite understand why water makes us feel this way, it just works. With the year we have had so far, our wellbeing –physically, emotionally, and spiritually, is vital and we should all try to be doing that bit more self-care.

Swimming in the outdoors is totally normal in the Nordic countries, so much so, the term wild swimming is somewhat of a strange concept – it is just called a swim. They have the advantage that the Stockholm archipelago offers more than 30,000 islands, so it’s tempting to take a dip.

While it’s still quite a novelty in the UK, over the past few years wild swimming has increased in popularity. More people are embracing the idea of taking a dip in natural waters after years of swimming up and down lanes in chlorine-filled swimming pools.

‘I think I’ve been going wild swimming for around three years and I generally swim from late May to the end of September,’ says one Hertfordshire advocate, Clare Gittings.

The 66-year-old swims a couple of times a week with her friend Barbara in a stretch of the river Beane in Bengeo, Hertford.