These are the good old days

A morning swimming and being buried on Brighton beach

I have finally deleted Instagram and gone clear from social media. That said, I love to hear from readers and get feedback, either here in the comments or over email. Proper connections, rather than an endless scroll for a hit of dopamine. So please say hi!

It’s been a while. A month, to be precise, since I last waded into the English Channel for a swim without the promise of the heat of the sauna on the other side of my ablutions. Today, though, the sky is bright and clear, the sun sending watery beams onto the beach. Close your eyes, forget the cold and the thermal layers and this could be July, honest.

At least, that’s my narrative in order to get myself from supremely cosy in down jacket and multiple jumpers down to too-tight swimming shorts, neoprene hat and surfing shoes. I am not alone. That is, I have company to watch me get changed and wade in. My wife K and my kids, M and E, are with me, bags stuffed with towels, tupperware stuffed with just-warm croissants and a flask of hot chocolate.

As I begin the process of disrobing, M and E comb the beach for sea glass and shells respectively. E hands me shells, one by one, and asks me to throw them to the mermaids beneath the waves. I happily oblige.

‘Are mermaids real?’ she asks, looking up at me from beneath her knitted rainbow wooly hat, her eyes full of wonder, he need to believe palpable.

‘They are if you want them to be, my darling.’ She is four and the time for disabusing her of such notions is not now. She lives in a world of rich imagination, where her teddies look after her dollies and they all enjoy time spent together making pictures. Who am I to steal her joy?

Shells dispensed to the depths and clothes bundled on the pebbles, it’s time for me to get going. My happy crowd of three cheer me on as I go. There’s a gentle swell today, a hangover from recent storms. Breakers rear up over the high ridges of the beach and slump noisily onto the beach. I hold back, let one hiss around my ankles and send a shiver up my thighs and wade forward and in.

Post sunset, Brighton Beach, Jan 2025 © Joe Minihane

With no gloves on my hands, the sea instantly renders my fingers numb, tingling. A month of sauna-based plunges and paddles is no preparation for this. The temperature has slid into single figures. I manage to calm my breathing and swim in short circles as the kids wave and K looks on from our winter picnic spot.

There are no herring gulls on the wing above me, the only sounds I can hear are the waves breaking and the rumble of traffic. It feels visceral and centring. I’m in for no more than a minute before I begin my swim back to shore. My acclimatisation is gone, but I know I will feel good for this special moment. The winter pull of the water means I have to ride the waves gently before being deposited back on the stones and striding towards the warmth of my towel.

I dry off speedily and stick on layers over clammy limbs. The kids’ hot chocolates are ready and they happily squirt cream on top, the hiss of the can filling the air. This before, inevitably, they squirt some into their mouths for good measure. I sip on a creamless cup myself and plough through a croissant in record time. Even the shortest of swims send my appetite soaring.

My core warmed through, I obey M and E’s orders to lie down and close my eyes against the sun. It’s all throbbing oranges, reds and yellows in here. This isn’t a rest though. I’m told I am being buried. Let’s be clear - Brighton beach is a very stony affair, the only sand visible at the lowest of tides around full moon. So I am to be covered in pebbles. E immediately gives me grief for not resting my head back. When I do, she drops a handful of small stones across my forehead. It feels oddly calming. M takes the opposite approach, balancing larger pebbles over my legs before depositing what can only be described as a rock onto my kneecap. It hurts like hell, but he cracks on anyway.

In this repose I am able to contemplate life, even as I’m slowly disappearing into the beach itself, at one with the shingle, the plastic litter and the dried seaweed that marks the tide line. I’ve never felt as in thrall to the moment as I have since turning 40 a few years ago. I have given up on the concept of, as Richard Linklater writes in Dazed and Confused, ‘servicing the future’. It’s all about now, this moment and then the next. And right now, these are the good days. Times like these, simple times, are what make me feel alive and what make life living. The people I love, the proximity of nature, the cold of the sea deep in my heart.

In the past I was a big fan of nostalgia. And still there are times when I hear music, watch a film or read a book that take me back to a place or time, sometimes happy, sometimes sad. I am not, however, naive enough to believe that it was always better. That way madness lies. There is much to be worried about now on a global level, too much for me to write about here. But by creating a ripple effect from myself and my family through to my community and beyond, I believe I can, and we can, try to remain hopeful and optimistic in the face of huge challenges. Now can be beautiful and it doesn’t need to be grand. Just a few moments on a beach, coated in pebbles, shivering, the taste of hot chocolate on my tongue, the sound of my family on the breeze.

I’ll leave you this week with this song, These Are The Good Old Days, by Courtney Marie Andrews