Friendship Ended With January—Now February Is My Best Friend

Bobbing Along #1

Well congrats everyone, we made it. But I've got to admit this January has felt a little different to years gone by. Feels like there is something in the air—some kinda collective energy, or maybe it's just reckless abandon. Either way I think 2025 is shaping up to be one of the all-time years.

Speaking for myself I've felt a serious amount of zest, and that is in part due to some really exciting fresh swells that are washing in here at Le Watermelon.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about a seemingly basic question—what are we? (I mean as a brand, although I am a sucker for existential thoughts.) The "what" is in fact very simple—we run the most social swim club in London and we make seriously banging towel ponchos and other garms.

But when it comes to brands it is the "why" that really matters. So why are we doing this? The answer is connection. Not to get too deep but I can be a real sensitive soul, and one of the things I am very attuned to is feeling disconnected—be that from other people, myself or even the world around me. That sounds quite heavy but it has a beautiful natural corollary, which is that I love bringing people together. Throw in the fact that I am a hardcore water baby / soggy fella and this whole thing starts to make sense.

What have all these big thoughts amounted to? Well, our website has been totally revamped and you may have noticed a shift in our socials towards a focus on the seriously vibey community we are building around our London swim club. I'm also going to be spending a lot more time writing newsletters and blogs like this—covering all kinds of stuff from tidbits on wild swimming, sauna lyfe and generally wet things to musings + anecdotes on the madness that is life in London. If that sounds like your jam you can subscribe to our emails here.

Social Swims—Some Real Chilly January Dips

Three brave social swimmers (inc. me). Chaos at Rowans. Cosy vibes.

I really was a little concerned that January might be a bit of a dry month for our social swim club, but how wrong I was. Not only did we have a proper knees-up at the Finsbury Park institution that is Rowans Tenpin Bowling but we also had TWO social swims—our usual slot on the second Sunday of the month and an ad hoc hangover swim after Rowans.

Major props to everyone who came down, especially for the first swim where we arrived at West Reservoir and the surface was literally frozen over. The water temp was a Baltic 2.8 degrees yet all eight of us just slid in there with absolutely zero fuss. (We all agreed that the post-swim coffee and pastries tasted particularly scrumptious.)

My intention with these newsletters is to provide dates for all social swims and side quests for the upcoming month, but I have to admit that at the time of writing things are particularly manic and I simply haven't been able to lock everything in. We will definitely have our usual social swim at West Reservoir on Sunday, 9 February plus I am hoping to do a midweek sauna session at a cool new place down in south London. Just drop me a message via our Insta or website if you'd like to be added to the WhatsApp group for the latest info.

Spread The Word

As you can probably tell I am very excited about where things are going and I want to get as many likeminded people involved as possible. If there is anyone out there who you think might be keen to join our social swims or anything else we've got going on I would be v appreciative if you could please share this newsletter with them and/or our Insta and Linktree. Even in our tech-saturated world word of mouth still reigns supreme, so thank you.

That's all for now and I hope to see you at one of our social swims or side quests soon!

Sax