My apologies for two posts in one day! If I don’t do this now, I’ll never get this blog up to date… so this is one more of the drawings I have been working on this year. Jean is Mrs November, for 2025…
“Jean and the Smarties”
You all know tow floats: they are those brightly coloured inflatable objects capable of invoking remarkably strong feelings amongst a subset of swimmers, though I’m sure the floats themselves do not care. And they have uses. We like them on a swim up the coast in a rough and bouncy Bristol Channel. You may believe we like them so we can be seen by boats, and to be sure this would be an advantage. But the company of a nearby friend’s tow float, and the simple reassurance it provides, that you are not the only one daft enough to be out there in the boisterous choppy brown water, should not be underestimated.
There are also boats on Ullswater, Cumbria, but I have a sneaky feeling that “The Smarties” like their tow floats best for simply bobbing about.
In this the Clevedon Faffers and the Cumbrian Smarties differ : we Faffers faff and talk, and faff, and talk, and eventually get in and swim, and then we get out and faff and talk again. The Smarties get in with surprising efficiency, and THEN they hang on their tow floats and bob and talk and bob and talk. It can be something of a culture shock.
They bob happily about in a freezing lake, you can see them right out across the water, tow floats like Smarties spilt on a massive grey glass coffee table, which is how The Smarties got their name. And one day, I shall draw a picture that better describes that scene, but on this particular grey glass day I spied Jean, not talking, simply bobbing in quiet bliss. This is Jean, and the Smarties.
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