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Simon is back from one week in Italy (camping, farm work, and a proper test of an air-conditioning-free apartment), while Lee has rediscovered swimming in the Dart, a habit lost somewhere around COVID and indulged daily ever since. They compare the textures of different water, from a Mediterranean "like a bath" to an unforgiving Atlantic, before Lee lands on a firm conclusion (he is riverine, not oceanic) and the conversation drifts into childhood water memories: bath-time hide-and-seek, Star Wars figures drowned in the tub, a home-built pool engineered for whirlpools. It closes with Lee taking his former student and soon-to-be PhD candidate, Charlie, for a swim up the same river, still caked in dirt from a Fringe show about fathers and masculinity.

Mentioned

• The Dart – river in Totnes, Devon; rediscovered as a swimming spot after a long hiatus stretching back to before COVID; swum in daily for a week, becomes the episode's throughline
• Totnes Fringe – theatre festival spread across roughly 19 venues, including shops, gardens, and a church; prompts a riff on what counts as a "fringe" when there is no major festival for it to be fringe of
• Charlie – former undergraduate student, soon to start a PhD; runs his own solo performance company; presented a piece on masculinity, fathers, and nature at the Totnes Fringe, ending caked in stage dirt and paint
• Star Wars (Luke Skywalker and Han Solo figurines) – bath toys from a childhood game of submerging the figures underwater and holding them by the head

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)