Hampton Pool: morning swim in the winter sunshine

Two books to stir your imagination

I HAD a great swim this morning down at Hampton open air swimming pool. I like to get up early, write some stories, sort the emails, and then go off for a run or a swim somewhere between 8am and 9am – when I can.

And today the pool was quite lovely: all steamy mists rising from the pool surface while the winter sun cut through the cold air. My son Matt came with me too this morning – a rare pleasure (and a benefit of schools being shut down)!

In fact Matt gave me a great book for Christmas: Wild Swim by Kate Rew. It details a whole series of wild water swims around Britain, from easy beach swims to more difficult stretches in the Scilly Isles which require boat cover. I first came across this book in a series of videos on the Guardian. It all looked captivating. And now I’m planning my own wild swims and where to start this year!

The other book I’ve been reading over the Christmas period is called British Touring Car Racing – the crowd’s favourites from the late 1960s to 1990 (the tail end of which when I was a BTCC reporter for Autosport). Published by Veloce and written by Peter Colins, the book is mainly pictorial