Day 3 (21st August)

No water.

Day One: Sunday19th August

20 lengths (yay!) in my local pool - Marston Ferry in Summertown, Oxford. 25m length pool, so my first 500m completed

I learnt to swim a doggy paddle as a kid, and a passable head-above-water breastroke - very useful for wildswimming. I have always enjoyed mucking about in water, but thought I'd never learn to swim properly until this year when I decided learn a proper breathing technique for the front crawl. It's working!

Day Two: Monday 20th August

Swam 25 lengths of the outdoor pool at St Edward's outdoor pool, Oxford. this is a 20 m pool, so that's my next 500m, so the first Kilometre completed! only another 137km to go!

Today was fun. I was accompanied for some of my swim by Katie, younger sister of my son's best friend. She is 8, swims crawl faster than me, but I beat her at breaststroke! She can do butterfly! I think that is a Never for me, but then I used to think that about front crawl.........the lifeguard saw how hard I was working on my crawl and gave me some really useful feedback on my leg kick technique - I did some practice using a float and only kicking, and now I actually move forward instead of backwards!

Oxford to Cambridge swim

All started as I swam in the Cam at Grantchester on Saturday: this is where I would like to end up - hopefully when my daughter and her family have achieved their goal of moving here from Norwich. I drive/train/bus from Oxford to Norwich every other Sunday, to see my family and help a bit with childcare. Cambridge is significantly closer than Norwich, but even so it is not an easy journey. No direct trainline, a tortuous bus journey, and driving is - well driving! The long way round via M25 is 170km, the more reliable long way round to the north is 162km on the A14, and the shortest, as the crow flies, is 138k involving so many roundabouts the bird must be as dizzy as me!

I've taken up swimming recently; I'd been about to sign up to do a charity 'Swim the Channel' - 22 miles (or over 1,400 lengths of a 25m pool) but had realised that it would take me so many months to complete that I'd miss the sponsorship window. So why not set up my own, even if it is going to take me 2 years instead of 6 months!

This is how it works: every bit of swimming I do now is towards my swim from Oxford to Cambridge: lengths in the pool are to be counted and recorded. I am also going to do as much wild swimming on the journey as possible; so: I am looking for tips and recommendations for outdoor swims between the two cities. And if you know of any private swims - pools in back gardens? please ask if I can swim them and let me know. Also: I have decided to raise money for KEEN a charity and joint organisation of Oxford and Oxford Brookes Universities, which provides sporting and recreational activities for young people with special needs in Oxfordshire. www.justgiving.com/LizTreasureSwim