 .. with wild swimming and especially this time of year, safety is paramount and I'm not just being a safety nerd, I am. Instead of just inspiring you to get in the water I want you to do it safely because there might be humans watching and I'd hate to think that I inspired people to go in and then they didn't come back out. So I just want to run through a few little safety things and all that boring jazz until I'm I'm going to submerge myself not knocking because we don't do knocking's now where hats these days and get me selling off it if I can for a little minute or two and then build a fire and cook up some grub and get warm so do it that way around which makes sense. Yes, so just a few little things on. I'll take my bag off shall I? Let's get should we get comfy? Should we sit down? If a cold water while swimming is something you want to be pursuing and I know it's quite popular these days with the Wim Hof Method and stuff. I just thought I'd run through a few of my safety tips and whatnot, but a lot of it's just common sense. And I don't want to patronise anybody or teach you to suck eggs or come across preach or anything. Occasionally I think it's important just to do a video like this just so you don't get too confident because people can get over confident watching other people. You can watch me jumping in cold water and free diving and doing all this and you might go out and try it and that'll be it because you have to respect it. You have to respect the cold mate as well. I know I go while swimming on my own lot but try and go with other people if you can. Especially if you're a beginner. I'm only speaking to you now if you are a beginner or if you've never tried it before. Go with some friends so that they can raise the alarm if anything happens or help you out. And go somewhere, there's no reeds and it's easy in and out. It's easy access in and out of the water. And don't jump in. That is critical. Do not jump. I'm a professional idiot. I grew up jumping off the ice house in Whitby and off the beacons at the end of the harbour and I've done a lot of cliff jumping and stuff. But even that one there I hit the water on an angle like that and my eyes hit. And just for the rest of the holiday I just had like a black and blue purple yellow. It was quite like a tie dyed ass I had from what bruising. It's no joke. Also if you're jumping in the cold can take your breath away. So you'll hit the water, the cold will take your breath away and you'll take in that first breath and it'll be water and then that's it. It's game over. As soon as you hit the cold the shock you can't hold your breath and you get an increased heart rate as well. And you want to acclimatise to the cold. It's something that you do get used to. So at first find a good entry point. You don't want to be going over slippy rocks or anything like that. It's really easy to get in and out and don't go out of your depth because at least you can walk back out if it's too cold for you. Easy access, easy in and out. When you do get out, if you're submerged in the cold, if you get out then you want to warm up slowly. Hat on, hot drink, fire, whatever it is. Don't get a hot shower because that can cool your core temperature more and be dangerous for you. So there's something that people refer to as the one ten one principle. You've got a minute to prepare so hold your breath, hold your nose, calm yourself, control your breathing. Prepare yourself for meaningful movement and to rescue yourself. You've got about ten minutes of meaningful movement to instigate your rescue. Otherwise you're going to start shutting down in the cold. This is all dependent on the temperatures. It varies. The final one is you may have one hour before becoming hypothermic and losing consciousness. A victim who knows they're going into the water should enter the water as slowly as possible. Attempt to always be insulated. Do not get your head wet and keep as much of your body out of the water as possible. I'm not particularly good at reading out loud. It's like when I read to my daughter and I can't read quick enough to go in to pre-empt stuff. I'm reading Harry Potter and I'm like, Right Harry, you must go find the blue crystal. Whispered Hermione, just ruins it. She's looking at me like you're a div or whatever you know. Come on Harry, come on Harry, we must go and find the Nimbus 2000. Bellard Hagrid, that sort of shit. So from me, just know your own body as well and please just take it slowly. Don't just gun hoe it. Just go up to your waist to get a feeling for it. Splash some water on yourself and then get out. Live to fight another day and slowly but surely build yourself up to it. Even take a coach. I was at home to get your body used to it because it is something that you can train yourself to get used to. But more importantly, just stay safe while you're in the cold water. Right, that being said, I am now going to don me trunks. I don't have them on under here because I was in a bit of a rush just grabbing everything and getting out. So I'm going to don me trunks and I'm going to go and dunk the trunks. And then I'm going to go and get a fire going and just cook up a little bit of steak and I've got some, I've got a little bit of a cheese saucy thing that I'm going to dip the steak in. Warm me cockles before, well before nightfall. And as always, before I go in, there's a feeling of like, it's a mixture of excitement and of like, oh I really don't want to do it. Because all you think about, well you try and I try not to but you think about the actual action of going in there and being cold and like that doesn't seem appealing. But after you do it so much, you start to think about the feeling that you get after which is just a feeling of elation, your body feels like tuned up, it's really like you feel invigorated. So you look forward to it. So cold water swimming, it can help combat depression, it can boost your immune system and it can help with circulation and apparently it's good for libido. But who knows, is it all just BS? All I know is it just feels good when I get out and it helps me to really just connect with nature like nothing else. Just being in a body of water. Whether it's a sea or a lake or even just you know when you're like, when you're a kid and you walk through a puddle, just that sort of connection with the water. It's nice. Anyway, let's get the baps out and get in there. And have your clothes ready to go when you get out. Top tips. You have to excuse me. I'm packing a bit of Christmas. I'm packing a bit of Christmas pudding around midriffdant boobs. But we're working on it. Let's get you down here. I mean, I can't lie and say it hurts a bit me. You know what I mean? It's pretty beautiful though. Look at it. You've just got to get in, man. You've just got to do it. Yeah, you can really feel that, man. I hope that swan's coming. I'm not swan-vindol. Right, it's freezing, man. It starts to burn. It's pretty cold, but do you try not to make a meal of it in 2020? We're just accepting it as what it is. It's cold, it hurts your feet. And your extremities. And it makes your skin burn and that, but it's nice, mate. Right, let's go in there. Let's go and get a fire going. We're doing it right this time. We're getting a fire going after we've been in. Let's go and get a fire going anyway. Cook up some warm food and warm our toes by the flames. It's such a lovely, cosy feeling, man. And the only thing that hurts, I mean, tips on my fingers and tips on my toes, but that isn't because... As I've said before, I got blasted with chemotherapy when I was in the early 20s, so it killed all my nerve endings off in my fingers and my toes. That's just... I accept that. That's just pain that can't be helped. So I just live with that, but the warmth coming back to the rest of the body is just lovely. Oh, mate. That feels good. And this is what you remember about while swimming in the winter for me this bit. They're getting all the feeling coming back in the warmth. Absolutely. Whoa, brand new, mate. And it's another one in wind column for duds. It's another W for... I picked up quite a lot there. Well done, duds. Where should we put them? I think we'll smash them on outside at pack, I think. When we get away from the water's edge and get up into the woods, find somewhere and we'll get a fire going. Let's go. What is that? What is that? Look at it. What's it doing, man? It looks like it's so white. It's like... It might even be... Oh, my God. It might be like a ghost or something, like a ghost of a chicken. I've just seen the ghost of a chicken or like some sort of angelic duck, like an overgrown angel duck. I don't know what it is. But it's quite beautiful, isn't it? Look at it in the air, look. Synchronised swimming on it. Oh, yes, mate. That's mint, that. That's the beauty of nature. You never know what you're going to see. I've got... Ah, what the f... I've got a long neck in that. Look at the size of its neck. Put in comments if you know what that is, because that's just... That's blown my mind, that. Everything's flooded, look. Oh, syncing. Look at this. This isn't even a... That's just floodwater, that. Oh, everybody's absolutely saturated. I'm going to go up there, try and get onto a bit higher ground where it's not so... so soggy. I'm going to lose light pretty soon, so... I think we'll just go here. I've got a nice view over this. But it's clearing now, because all the bracken's died by. On the top of the hill, so... it's a little bit dry everywhere. In the... in the valleys and stuff, it's just... saturated, so... This'll do. I'm only wanting a tiny little fire. I've only got a tiny bit of food to cook up and just warm my fingers and toes. So, I'll start. I've got some thicker... thicker bits on the outside, gradually get thinner, and then... if you nice got a 90 degree on the back of it, you can just push the last bit with 90 degree and create some really fine, dusty bits, plenty of them. There you go. And that's a... that's a one and done... fire, all in one stick there. There you go. One and done. The idea is that the... the little fine bits of dust will catch pretty easy and it'll gradually make its way to the thick ones on the outside and hopefully that'll... that should maintain. But yeah, we're only keeping it small today. I just want to be in and out. Yeah, that's your fire, look. One stick fire. Goodness, I am looking forward to this. Shout out, dusting for spork. Look at this, mate. It's just a ramekin of three different cheeses, herbs, white wine, garlic, organic grass-fed sirloin, and some... just some leaves and some chive to give it a little bit of an onion-y... onion-y vibe. Mmm. Wow. Oh, my word. My word, especially after being in... after being in the soup, look at that. Just dripping in the cheese, mate. One of the best. One of the best meals that I've had outdoors. Or in... or in... or anywhere. I have me bonts, look at that. Might not be to your liking. It's cooked perfect for me. It's my first meal of the day and it's almost three o'clock. I've warmed me... I've warmed me extremities by the fire. And just prepping stuff. It's that old adage of who preps the fire warms himself twice. Who dunks the junk needs to warm himself up. Last bit, mate. If you were here, hand on heart, I'd let you have it. I appreciate that. Tremendous. Now to wash it down with a cup of tea. Brought my little tea strainer cos I didn't want to have any coffee because it's getting late in the day. A bit late in the day and I don't want to not be able to sleep, so... I brought some fresh tea. Lovely. I picked this up for next to nothing. It's like a little metal egg. A little holes in it. And... I'll just leave it in my kit now. I'll just have it as my little tea maker. Cos I like the ritual of brewing up fresh tea leaves and different blends over the fire. A lot healthier than coffee. And also I thought that when I come in to the woods, you know, you can... get pine needles and put them in there, chargar, goose... gos... I'll call it goose grass. The little balls on goose grass can make coffee out of that. But you know, put whatever... there's all sorts of things that you can make tea from in the wild and you can pop it in there. Even mix it with a bit of tea or whatever flavours, Camomile, anything you want. Rose hips orange peel. Knock up your own concoctions and brew it up. It's a nice little thing to do around the fire. Right, thanks for joining me on this wild swimming cooking sort of a video. But I've enjoyed myself. And that's it. I know a few people didn't like it when I did a no talking video recently. As everyone does a no talking video. But from my point of view it's nice to... If you capture some... capture nice footage and you like editing as I do it's... Every now and again it's nice to tell a little story without words. I know you don't like it because you perceive it as jumping on the bandwagon of people who've done it before. Or you just like to aim in all the accent. But... It ain't going to deter me because it'll deter me. I've got one planned. I want to do one with Joey D whittling a spoon from start to finish. And just do it real cinematic. Get his hair just in the moonlight. All that sort of stuff. And if it's not your thing don't watch it mate. Free content in it. You just go and watch somewhere else. Just go and watch a cat fighting or something like that. I don't know. Whatever you're into. Whatever's on YouTube go watch it. Play safe around open water. Especially at winter. We've talked about that so I'm not going to repeat myself. Look after yourselves. I know it is winter and it's January, February which can be tough times but if you just... These are the times where it's good to get your get your shit together for spring and summer while everyone else might be just putting on like winter fodder and I don't know. Everyone else might not be. So this is a good time for you to January and February can be trying times especially I work outside so it can be real trying especially February no man's land. So it's good to use it as a time I find to work on self-improvement work on little bits about yourself that you want to improve like your fitness or your mental health or learning your skill sharpen up skills you've already got read a book All these little things that you can do are best to do in winter when you're hibernating and then in spring you can come out fighting fit because you've read Harry Potter you've done 18 sit ups you've had a bit of broccoli and you've had a Diet Coke where you're McDonald's I'm not very good at giving sensible advice a lot of the time because I've never really took it when I was younger myself but it's a circle of life isn't it I feel like now I've learnt a lot and I just want to pass it on to if anyone's watching and they're into wild swimming and this sort of stuff then I feel it's my duty just to give you both sides of the coin and I want everyone to be safe in nature so we can enjoy it without perishing so look after yourself take care namaste get blood flowing stop messing about I'll see you later love you bye I'll be walking I'll let backones be backones