Guessing the time

 

The clocks have changed and so my schedule or my itinerary or my sequence of what I do in the morning has been changed too.  The timings are the same, but the circumstances different.  To be specific – it’s the sun.  As I am now swimming an hour ‘later’ than I was last week I can no longer time myself by sunshine.

I have a needlessly complicated way of swimming.  Not my stroke, that was, is and shall be (if I say so myself) a reasonably elegant crawl – though that looks like an oxymoron, now that I’ve written it.  Anyway, owing to the evils of capitalism one of the apps on my Pebble watch has ceased to be supported.  Pebble is by far the best value of smartwatches, with the longest battery life and an always-on screen.  But, alas, the tense in that last sentence is non-operable as the whole enterprise of Pebble was sold to Fitbit and they seem to have supressed the make in favour of their own productions.  Not one of which, I might add, matches the value of the Pebble!

So, my Pebble, that used to count the lengths of my swim and give various other pieces of information that I never used, is now non-operational.  I therefore rely on time.  Even if I am swimming with little enthusiasm, I manage to get my 1,500m or metric mile done in a few minutes under 40, so to swim for 40 minutes ensures that I complete the full length.  I do not, however, like looking at my watch to see how much I have completed.  Instead I use my internal clock and make a laboured game of guessing when the 40 minutes is up.

What I do is set a point that I choose when my body tells me that the time is almost up and, from that point, I swim an extra six lengths.  In the penultimate length of that six, I evaluate how well and fluently I have swum, judge my physical well being, respond to the tell-tale aches and stitches that suggest whether I have exerted myself enough or not.

 

In the last of the six lengths I try and estimate the time – having noted the time at the start of my swim.  So, I add on the 40 minutes to get the time I should finish and then I guestimate the actual time.  Well, you have to understand that swimming is not the most intellectually stimulating form of exercise and you have to find interest where you can!

The number of times that I have been spot on with my guestimate is very limited, but I count it a success if I am within five minutes of the actual finishing time.  I tell myself that I should be able to work out time from experience and from those physical indications that I (as the body’s owner) should know.  Sometimes, I am woefully out in my estimates and that just goes to show that the state of a person’s body is in a constant state of flux.

Sometimes after a rare day’s absence, or an even rarer two-day absence, I can tell that I have been lazing rather than exercising as the effort needed is appreciably more than if I had been more diligent in my exercise.  But, oddly, after a period of time not swimming I sometimes swim with an ease and fluidity that seems to benefit from abstinence!  Bodies are complex things, god wot!

Getting up at the ungodly hour of 6.10 am, in darkness, I at least had the experience of swimming into daylight which, when the light was strong, I knew that my swim was over.  Now, my swim begins as the light is dawning – my body or brain is now forced to find other indicators (apart from the watch on my wrist) to guess the end of my swim.  This uncertainty adds a certain something to what is, after all, a tedious form of exercise.

I am still coming to terms with my ‘extended’ day, and in that rush of activity concentrated into the first three hours of waking, I find that I have done my household chores before the shops are open!  I then feel vaguely guilty if I am not up and doing for the rest of the day!

My poetry is languishing.  I have notebooks full of ideas but they are waiting for me to make something of them.  There are two books that need to be prepared for publication and extra pieces of writing that are stubbornly not flowing out via the computer keys.

I am still using the inexplicable non-issuing of permission (indeed the complete lack of response from the requisite authorities) to use reproductions of paintings in MNAC as a reason to delay the whole book that should have been published by now.  This is not satisfactory and I know (and I am telling myself here!) that I should simply plough ahead and take the consequences!

And that is good advice!