Swimming in the Thames

The heatwave continues with temperatures here in the Cotswolds of 31 degrees C. It’s so hot. We stayed in Cirencester on Sunday and walked down to the river, had drinks in a lovely pub garden and relaxed in the tiny garden of our mews cottage, which is covered in climbing roses. 

On Monday we decided to do a combination of a walk (James) and an outdoors swim (me), because this worked very well when we met up with Jenn and Russ. We did this by driving half an hour to the village of Lechlade, then two miles along the road to the tiny hamlet of Buscot. Here the Thames widens out beneath a weir into a large natural pool, before turning and travelling onwards towards London. The pool is surrounded by trees and a grassy field and really looks idyllic.

We set up camp in the shade of a big beech tree and James went for his walk to Lechlade and back, which took him about an hour an a half. I spent ages in the pool, which was beautifully cool and deep, and I swam all around it. There were other people sunbathing and swimming but it certainly wasn’t too busy, probably because the English schools don't finish until Thursday. Following the example of a group of teenagers (not necessarily the best thing to do now I come to think about it!) I climbed up onto the lower part of the weir and sat feeling very cool and happy as the water cascaded around me. There were fish around my feet, swimming against the flow so that they appeared to hang stationary in the rushing water. 

James arrived back from his walk very hot and sweaty, and read his book under the shade of the beech tree. It was an excellent afternoon.

Later on we went out for dinner to a brasserie we had noticed during our walks around the centre of Cirencester. It was cool with all of its doors thrown open to the air and we had a tasty meal. When we got back to the cottage we also threw all of our doors and windows open to the slightly cooler night air.