GREAT WHITE! (eyebrow hair)

Check out these bad boys

Ranulph Fiennes

Sir Edmund Hillary

Peter says "No-one wants to see that on  your blog!!!" And he's probably right. But I needed a better title than "Sunday Swim" (yawn) - and I did notice a great white eyebrow hair this morning, reminding me that us older adventurers do tend to get them, as modeled above on the august faces of Ranulph Fiennes and Sir Edmund Hillary. I actually googled Chris Bonington and found to my surprise that despite his age his eyebrows are kept very neat.

That's the excitement over. The rest you know from other weeks. I was dreading going out today. The forecast was for a dark cloud sharing a rain drop and a snow flake and the wind was to be 18 miles an hour gusting to 31 and Bleddy Baltic. The sky darkened alarmingly as I was setting off and cold, wet stuff hit the windscreen. "Oh here we go" I muttered to myself, but then, happily, the sky cleared, and there was no more precipitation until I had made it back to the Berlingo after my dip.

I was just going to run 4 easy miles to give my legs a rest. I ran 14 yesterday, which, while not far, was further than I wanted to go, and I was achy today. But then the harsh cold wind and the intense, low, winter light spread a kind of spell over everything and I found myself opting for the 6 mile route because I knew it would take me round the more dramatic parts of the shore.

The stinging wind offset the pain inside my legs and kept me moving. I ran much more quickly than I had intended to.

Today I was test-driving a new waterproof camera, which I was excited about. It's a skinny, light thing but still has X3 zoom.

Come time to suit up once again, in the back of the Berlingo, I was up for the challenge. I had the radio on playing orchestral versions of Christmas Carols. Squeezing yourself into a wet-suit in a restricted space challenges your flexibility and warms up your muscles. Some brave soul was already out in the sea on a wind-surfer.

It's quite good having something to divert the mind while getting in the sea. A camera somehow adds distance to what you're doing. On the tiny plane to Lukla bobbing about in the updrafts, I found as soon as I put my camera to my face I was no longer frightened and I was able to look at what was in front of me. The same happened today. Wading into the sea but playing about with the zoom and looking through the view finder, I forgot to notice how very cold it was!

My very first underwater selfie.

I managed 50 strokes, in batches of approximately 12, before my face and fingers froze (my feet had been gone for some time), so I got out and ran up the beach to warm up.

The next bit is never easy. Someone had parked their granny and then abandoned her in a car right next to where I was getting changed. I tried to show nothing that could cause offence while clumsily getting changed with frozen hands in a huge hurry to get out of the wind.

So I'm still sat with my duvet jacket and hat on. I should be showering and all that. I love my new camera.