‘Swept Away’ – the 2016 Swimming Calendar – now sold out!

I have now sold out of this calendar, but I am delighted about how well it sold, so thanks toeveryone who bought copies, I’ll be doing a 2017 one in due course… If you wand to be kept informed, email me and ask to be added to my emailing list, or you can add yourself by clicking the ‘mailing list link above.

A year of swimming under the sky, and then drawing about it.

All drawings, text and design by Nancy Farmer, drawn and written from memory and first-hand experience.

Price: £12 each or £10 each if you buy more than one at a time
(can be combined with the Cats calendar)
Calendars may also be purchased from my Etsy.com shop click here. Please note I cannot offer the quantity discount very easily in the Etsy listing so instead I have tried to reflect a similar saving in the way I have charged for postage.

Format: Booklet calendar.
Dimensions – closed: 210 x 210 mm / 8.25 x 8.25 inch
Dimensions – open: 210 x 420mm / 8.25 x 16.5 inch

Images: click on an image below so see the calendar page-by-page as a slide show. You can also read the captions that way.

‘Getting In’ – My thermometer says it is barely six degrees (though discussions withpeople on site suggest it might be nearly as warm as seven). I will notsay getting in is the most difficult part of this undertaking, but still,there is that special thing you do with holding your arms up high as youget in, as if that will somehow keep them from getting wet.

‘Winter Sunrise’ – Vobster. On the water there was a light mist just hovering above the surface and the sun was rising through it. The water was about 7 degrees, the air about -3, and the two of us still managed our loop of the lake in about 18 minutes. Yes it was cold, but perhaps this drawing goes some way to explain why I do not just pop down to the local pool. And of course, there are the bragging rights…

‘March Winds’ – The weather was a little frisky for our swim today and I had to resort to front crawl on the way back from the far end to avoid being smacked round the face by a succession of waves and swallowing more lake than is necessary. But it’s still colder than it was at the start of January and front crawl is very cold on the face. There is only on solution to this ongoing problem of a pretty chilly spring: cake is compulsory until the lake reaches at least double figures…

‘Under the Arches’ – Clevedon Pier on an early April morning with me beneath it, just there, at the bottom. I think I may have made the waterline too low on the pier legs, but I wasn’t making notes at the time, I was ploughing through the strong current of silty salty water. When I stopped, to adjust goggles, I got swept away again. The second time I kept going, head down. A glorious 8 degrees, it’s getting warmer, I can put my face in and my fingers almost don’t hurt. Oh, hello spring, you’ve been a while coming!

‘Spring Greens’ – Spring has sprung in the lake. It gets in through the front of one’s swimming costume and collects where it should not. We don’t know what it is, but it wasn’t there through last summer, autumn and winter, so I am naming it spring greens.

‘Trouble with Tarns’ – Grisedale Tarn, the site of my least elegant exit from water. Anyone who has ventured into the chilly waters of a mountain tarn will appreciate the difficulty of getting oneself across several metres of slimy sharp rocks with cold feet, through water just a few inches deep. I imagine it was an entertaining sight but I chose to believe the whoops from the other side of the tarn were nothing to do with my predicament. Fortunately the other side is a fair way off.

‘A Bob at Clevedon’ – For a swimmer used to lakes, the sea can be a strange thing, especially that part of the Bristol Channel at Clevedon. The water was confused and lumpy, and we didn’t so much swim as go for a bob. Like three corks.

‘Still Waters Run Deep’ – Vobster. I have no idea what we actually looked like but I was inspired to draw this because when I look down I am always struck by the look of remarkably pale legs reaching into the greeny-black gloom of a 40 metre deep lake. Only the divers know what’s really down there.

‘The Bringer of Shoes’ – That was my brother, wandering down to see why, having swum the length of Wast Water, we had failed to actually get out. A salient, one might even say pointed lesson in Exit Strategy

‘Beneath a Hunter’s Moon’ – Vobster Quay’s ‘Glow Swim’. A deep dark lake with over 100 other people, all wearing little glow sticks, the buoys marking the course all lit eerily from within, and everything outshone by the moon when it came out. I was amazed at the colour of the moon for a whole circuit around the lake, until I remembered that I was wearing orange-tinted goggles… but still, I have put it in as bright orange because that is what I saw. To the left are the branches of the half-fallen-in tree which tries to get me every time I pass it. Who wouldn’t want to be here beneath a Hunter’s moon in October?

‘The Race’ – Whether we dress in a rapid flurry of efficiency or a slow-motion hypothermic clumsiness l cannot say. For me, the experience of dressing after a proper cold swim has that closed-in concentration of a drunk person going home: still capable of the essential task, but extremely vague as to the actual passing of time. And there are times when I am simply not prepared to deal with the profound logistical challenges of a bra…

‘The Recovery Position’ – This is the recovery position for winter swimmers, not for drunk people. Though addled brains, an inability to speak in long sentences and a tendency to throw your drink all over the place are common to both conditions. You probably haven’t known shivering until you have known winter swimming, And still I persist in finding it strangely amusing.

If you would like to order any calendars please send me an email: mail@nancyfarmer.net, telling me:

• How many calendars you would like.
• Which shipping destination you require: UK / Europe / Everywhere Else.
• How you would like to pay: credit card via paypal, cheque (UK only), etc. (please don’t email me your card details).

I can then respond with your total including shipping.

Calendars may also be purchased from my Etsy.com shop click here. Please note I cannot offer the quantity discount very easily in the Etsy listing so instead I have tried to reflect a similar saving in the way I have charged for postage.

Please DON’T leave your order as a comment on this page – it makes it difficult for me to contact you.
Shipping costs:

Quantity of calendars	Shipped within UK	Shipped to Europe	Shipped everywhere else
one	£1.19	£3.70	£4.75
two	£1.51	£5.15	£7.45
three	£1.51	£5.15	£7.45

I can post more than 3 calendars but I haven’t worked out the cost yet – please enquire.

This is a lovely short print run of calendars which I design myself. The calendar is a folded booklet when closed, opening out into a wall calendar which can be hung up. The advantage of the booklet format, apart from looking nice, is that it is a lot easier to post since it uses only half the paper of a spiral-bound calendar and it folds to half the size. Weight: 120g approx.