Saturday the 14th September was a beautiful, sunny, late summer day when four brave members of the Spires Cleft Centre took part in Swim Serpentine. As the name suggests, the event is held in the iconic Serpentine Lake in London’s Hyde Park .
The occasion was a feast for all the senses: an amazing mass of coloured swim hats combined with the nervous chatter of the competitors amongst the crowd’s applause as each ‘wave’ splashed into the bracingly cold water. It had been unseasonably cold during the preceding week, which resulted in the water temperature of the Serpentine plummeting from an almost balmy 20 degrees to a rather chilly 15.9 degrees – perfect for penguins!
It had only been a couple of months earlier that Marc had persuaded the three of us to join him in raising money for the CLEFT charity. For more information on the incredible work that this charity supports then please visit www.cleft.org.uk . Marc had fearlessly signed up for the magnificent ‘super six’ mile swim, whilst Nefer, Anna and Jane gamely decided to take on the one-mile event as we were all novice open-water swimmers.
We all found the event exhilarating and soaked up the amazing atmosphere amongst our fellow swimmers. Marc did staggeringly well, completing six miles in a tad over four hours and didn’t even look tired or cold at the end of it – the only proof being that after wearing his wetsuit for six laps of the Serpentine he developed a wetsuit-induced love bite on his neck that caused much hilarity with the theatre nurses the following week! Immediately after the swim he even managed a trip to the Barbie exhibition at the Design Museum with his small daughters – a truly fantastic achievement!
The Spires team raised over £3000 that will be put to immensely good use by CLEFT – thanks indeed to all of our many generous sponsors. We are also pleased to report that no arms were broken by feral swans during the execution of this swim. Roll on the 2025 Swim Serpentine event – do let us know if you’re interested in competing!
