{"id":4385,"date":"2020-09-16T05:01:07","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T04:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stuartpoetry.art\/?p=4385"},"modified":"2020-09-16T05:01:07","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T04:01:07","slug":"swimming-the-channel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/16\/swimming-the-channel\/","title":{"rendered":"Swimming the Channel"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>I had been living in St Margaret&#8217;s Bay for some months and had begun running as the weather improved<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It was then that I noticed a woman who must have weighed some 100 kilos swimming in the sea each morning<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>She was as naked as the day was clear which surprised me a little given the locality<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>One morning after swimming and getting dressed in what can best described as a tent she came up to me<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Molly was her name and she informed me that she was about to swim across the channel to France<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As I was a kind person I said that if she was serious then she could use my villa at the end of the beach<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>This would make life easier for her a she could leave her clothes and training gear in complete security<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>After a few days Molly said that she would like me to swim with her if I so desired as she was keen on her timings<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>We had been training for about a week when Molly asked me whether I would like to swim across the channel with her<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>At first I said that such a journey was beyond my endurance but slowly she convinced me and by July we were ready<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>On the morning of our swim I was introduced to an almost anorexic girl also called Molly who was to row across the channel<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In a small pea green boat and act as a marshal as well as a timekeeper she was also quite naked which I found a little strange<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I had expected the safety boat to contain various kinds of navigational equipment but apart from the orange life preservers<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It contained only three retro looking brown suitcases which appeared to have dated from the 1950s<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>When I enquired about these suitcases Molly said that when we arrived in France we would have to dress for dinner<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As even in these liberated times a small amount of etiquette was traditional when dining after a channel swim<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had been living in St Margaret&#8217;s Bay for some months and had begun running as the weather improved It was then that I noticed a woman who must have weighed some 100 kilos swimming in the sea each morning She was as naked as the day was clear which surprised me a little given [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4385"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}