27th July

Heard of Orcas

 27th July
Heard of Orcas

I’ve never had an easy time with wetsuits. In 1982, in the sixth form during a canoeing trip, the zip jammed on my wetsuit and despite the combined efforts of those gathered, we couldn’t unjam it. When my PE teacher gallantly stepped into the rescue and wrenched open the zip he was smacked in the face by my escaping bosoms. It was hideously embarrassing for both of us; although I daresay he learned a valuable – and perhaps career-saving - lesson about adjusting the swimwear of teenage girls.

On another, later, canoeing trip, a canoeist revealed to me that weeing in a wetsuit is the secret to keeping warm in a fast flowing icy river. If he’d kept that practice to a fast flowing icy river, I’d have been fine, but I swear that on more than one occasion while sitting on the riverbank, I’d detect an expression of glazed contentment steal across his face. He denied it, of course, but I was never quite at ease, sitting where he’d sat. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about that if you have to share the driving on the way back from Ross-on Wye.

So, you’ll understand that when I learned that if I want to be certain I’ll be able to swim on the 21st August, I have to be in possession of a fully functioning wetsuit, I already have a range of traumatic wet suit related incidents stacked up against me, without dealing with the most crucial question: is there a wetsuit in the world big enough to fit me?

Undaunted, I type ‘wetsuit, large lady’ into my internet browser only to discover there’s a whole new world out there waiting for me should I ever choose to cast off my inhibitions. After staring fascinated for a moment, I return to Google and rephrase my enquiry.

‘Custom made wetsuits’ provides me with the kind of thing I’m looking for. There seems to have been a revolution in neoprene within the last decade. On the internet you can buy anything fashioned in wetsuit material, up to and including a Mr Blobby wetsuit. This image lingers long enough on the screen for one of the kids to notice and issue a stern warning, and glancing only briefly at the wedding dress section, I move from ‘novelty’ to ‘triathlon’.

Once I’ve picked the most suitable model, the next step is getting measured. There are 25 separate measurements – 26 including glove size - to be taken in order to furnish me with something both accessible and close fitting. My friend Kate is the only person I know who owns a tape measure, and I go round to her house to acquire the vital statistics. The last time I measured myself, I was something understandable. Perhaps not 36-24-38, but something that looked like a recognisable human form. This set of statistics looks very far from being a recognisable human form. In fact, it’s so far from being a recognisable human form that I’m worried the man at the made-to-measure wetsuit centre will return the measurement sheet with request for the dimensions of all the legs on my horse.

Finally, I have to choose the colour scheme. ‘Don’t get black and white,’ advises Kate, ‘You don’t want to get mistaken for one of those Orcas that separates from the herd and ends up in the Strathclyde Loch.’

Even though, I’m pretty sure Orcas* don’t swim in herds, and, indeed, that Strathclyde Loch is landlocked, I take her point. I go for a combination of black and purple, send off the chart and a cheque and wait.

*They don't: they swim in pods.