An update from Garden Museum Director Christopher Woodward, halfway through his 100km sponsored swim in the Peloponnese in support of Lambeth Green:
The church bell on Hydra rings seven o’clock. Time to get up for Day Four and 19km of the Sponsored Swim, although I am so bruised from tip to toe that I feel as if hit by a truck and reversed over. And after close to twenty hours in the water my mouth stings like a coral reef.
But yesterday we passed the halfway point in the 100km swim, rounding a Cape to a distant view of Poros. Today, another seven hours of swimming.
The week began with a group swim at the Kardamyli Literary Festival, a spectacular event which sells out even more quickly than the Garden Museum Lit Fest – and with many familiar, cheerful faces. Four swimmers raised an extra £9,000 on behalf of Lambeth Green: Rosemary and Lizzie Campbell-Preston, Tania Compton and Caspar Giorgio Williams. And a dozen more joined us. A crowd of bobbing, darting hats in the water – and a crowd cheering for the Garden Museum on the jetty. The Swim was around Meropi Island: Rosemary, founder of The Plant School, gave me a botanical lesson from the water, identifying the trees which grew wild on the rocks. The idea of this swim is to celebrate flora of Greek origin which will grow in the new garden, as Matt Collins writes in this week’s Plant(s) of the Week.
That night we drove over the Mani peninsula to begin the big swim at Spetses. ‘We’ is John Coningham Rolls, founder of SwimQuest, and who I first met in the Greek islands twenty years ago when he had just begin the new idea of swimming holidays, together with fellow SwimQuest guide Paul Parrish. Each takes turns to watch the swimmer, while skipper Charles Hood leads the route; Charles is based in Newlyn and we met when on the sponsored swim to Tresco four years ago. He has come out of retirement for this trip and his skill makes all the difference to the day.
After four hours that afternoon Paul jumps in for the last hour; it is a lift just to follow his stroke. It is hard to compare one sport to another; a Channel swimmer like Paul or John might point out that more than twice as many people have climbed Everest as have swum the Channel. Another rule of thumb is that one mile swum is four run, the energy expended in swimming 10k is the same as running a marathon. But to tell the truth sometimes it is harder – as when you are against the current on a dreary shore – and at other times it is bliss. The next morning (Wednesday) the water was like being lapped in blue silk, and I did my first eight kilometres in three hours. Then, a sandwich: a spongy, cheesy baguette. Delicious.
The Iliad tells us that the Greek heroes must choose between Nostos (the contentment of home, from which the word nostalgia comes) and Kleos (glory, or fame, which requires the rejection of home). Achilles chooses Kleos at the gates of Troy; Odysseus by contrast chooses Nostos and makes his way home to his family through these islands.
I am Nostos all the way: all I want to do is complete the swim, raise the funds for this next stage of the new garden, and come home. When I went to Cornwall for the last swim, in response to the pandemic, our son Max was a few months old; now, Caspar, the next is just four months, and I am very grateful to my wife Geraldine for letting me vanish. So, today, another 18,000 turns of the shoulder – and kick of the leg – but turning the corner to Poros to go is swimming home.