The Everyday Adventure Podcast

Coldwater Swimming & the December Daily Dip Challenge - Pip Delamere-Wright

Nicki Bass Season 6 Episode 3

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Pip Delamere-Wright is a retired Army Officer turned Therapeutic Forest Practitioner and founder of Knockiehill Woodland Centre in the Scottish Highlands.  During her 17 years in the British Army she served around the world and was the first female Army commando. On returning home to Scotland she suffered from severe postnatal depression which led to her retraining as an outdoor leader working with children with additional support needs.  Pip and her husband recently established Operation Cairngorms with the aim of supporting veterans and members of the emergency services by providing a space to experience the therapeutic benefits of time in nature.

To raise funds for Op Cairngorms, Pip decided to carry out a dip a day in December - wild swimming every day regardless of the elements. This episode is a deep dive into her experience of that month - her motivations, challenges and the unexpected benefits she experienced as a result.

Find out more about Pip at:

Instagram: @wild_wellness_scotland

Knockiehill Woodland Centre

Instagram: @knockiehill_woodland_centre

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pipdw-kwc

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NICKI: 00:00 Hello and welcome to the Everyday Adventure Podcast. My name is Nicki Bass and I will be bringing you thoughts, ideas, and stories from some incredible guests to hopefully inspire you to live more adventurously in your everyday lives.

00:25 Hello and welcome back to season six of the Everyday Adventure Podcast. So I am going back to my army snowboarding routes this week with my guest, those of you who have listened to previous episodes, certainly towards the beginning of the show when I first started, quite a few of my guests, it stands out that army snowboarding has been quite a rich seam of guests for me for the podcast, which is amazing cause it's also allowed me to connect back up with people that I haven't seen for quite a few years and to see the amazing things that they're doing and have a chance to speak to them about these as well. So this week it is the turn of Pip del Mere, right? Pip served 17 years in the army and during this time she served as part of 3 Commando Brigade. She was actually the first female army commando, so some of you may recognise her from that, but went on to specialise in training and development of soldiers and she eventually left in 2014.

01:18 She returned then to her home in Scotland and actually ended up suffering from quite severe postnatal depression, which led to a number of changes in her personal and her family life. And one of these changes was to retrain as an outdoor leader working specifically with children with additional support needs and more recently qualifying as a therapeutic forest practitioner. So PIP now proactively spends time focusing on and supporting others and encouraging positive physical and mental health. So PIP and her husband Stu have also recently launched Operation Ken Goms. And the idea behind this was to really support members of the emergency services veterans who were facing P T S D burnout and stress in their lives and really using the therapeutic powers of being out in the nature in a way from screens and everyday stresses and strains. So as part of this, PIP decided that in order to raise funds for this initiative, she was going to do a dip a day in December, which is a fairly extreme time of the year to be doing a dip a day made even more extreme by the fact that she's located in Scotland. And for those of you who remembered, December was a particularly cold month here in the uk. So for those of us who were following pips of adventures with this we're regularly treated to Instagram posts and reels of her cracking through the ice in order to complete her minimum of two minutes a day dip. She completed this challenge, which was fairly immense and I thought it would be an amazing opportunity to bring her on the show and have a chat with her about her motivations and why she chose to do the challenge and How she found it as well.

03:01 So Pip, it is an absolute pleasure to have you here. Welcome to the show. I guess the first question has to be, because I think anybody who would've seen your reels and your videos of you breaking through the ice in the, probably one of the coldest sort of Decembers I think we've had in a while would've been the question on everyone's, it sort of been why are you doing that? Taking a step back, where did the idea come from to do it as to do the wild swimming to raise money in this way? And I suppose what motivated you and how did you keep going when it was really cold and probably not what you wanted to do that morning?

PIP: 03:42 Yeah, gosh, I wish I'd checked the long range forecast before I signed up. It did get really cold. My in inspiration, I just come back from a trip in Canada and we had been running our charity op Karen Gorham's for a year. We'd been raising money and I felt like I needed to contribute with raising some money. I've done things in the past to raise money for other charities, the London Marathon Relay Swim across a channel. I've done the Welsh 1000 endurance events and things. And I really wanted something that was going to push my comfort zone and be challenging to me as well as something that people would want to sponsor and see me complete. So that was really how it started embryonically, and I wasn't really sure where that was going to take me, but given that wild swimming is what I do, it's part of my job with my wild wellness.

04:51 I had heard of this December daily dips. So you get into the water every day in December. I think some people do it in the tubs that you get, some people do it, maybe they have a shower every day. But I wanted to set a couple of parameters just to make sure it was a really good challenge. So one of them was I had to be outside and the other one was I was going to be in skins, which is just a swimsuit and not a wetsuit, and it was going to be a minimum of two minutes each session. So if I could do longer, great, but I had to get in there for a minimum of two minutes. So those were my parameters and I felt that that would be challenging enough that people would think, yeah, she's putting herself out there. And yeah, it's mentally and physically something that I wanted to do and I wanted to really see what the effects would be as well. And committing to something for that, as you know, is a challenge in itself. So there were lots of reasons for doing it that worked really well.

NICKI: 06:07 Amazing. And I'm just wondering, as you were saying, that mean obviously mean whilst swimming, wherever people do it or cold water swimming has increased massively in popularity and I think there's now much more research, but also people talking about some of the dangers involved or some of the challenges that can bring. And I was just wondering what sort of preparation, I know you sort of live this sort of lifestyle anyway, but was there any preparation involved or was it right, I need to do something really challenging that's going to take me out of my comfort zone and let's give this a go?

PIP: 06:45 Yeah, I mean actually if you spoke to my children, they would tell you that Mommy is terrible in cold water. My mum lives next to the sea up in tne and even in the height of summer getting into the sea, and I would be screaming like a blue baboon.

NICKI: 07:01 So I relate to that,

PIP: 07:03 Yes. Yeah. So I think when I said I was going to do this cold water challenge, everyone in my family was really surprised. And I think that's for me was what was part of the allure of it. I take people while swimming in the river and I love it. And I knew that I wanted to push myself on the next stages and I'd never done ice swimming. I hadn't exposed myself to winter swimming or cold water therapy during the winter months. So for me it seemed like a reasonable step forward. I mean, cold water is challenging whatever time of the year it is, but this was going to be the next step up and taking it outdoors as well. I mean the outdoors is, it's a constantly changing, stimulating place that really hits all your senses. So it was going to be an amazing experience as well.

07:59 I started off by, when I'd come back from Canada, I started regularly trying to get into a form of water, whether that was a river or the lock or burn, just a couple times a week to try and build myself up. And I wore booties and I wore gloves and I kept the timings very, very short and just built it up. And then actually the day December the first, I just told myself, and I think this is where this sort of challenge by choice comes in, it was my choice to do this and I'd set this challenge and I'd gone public with it. I'd made a declaration on my Instagram and I was raising money for something. So I had a lot of purpose in wanting to do it as well. For me physically, I'm mean I've broken several bones in my body more nearly all through snowboarding I have to say.

NICKI: 09:01 Yes. Good for that. Yeah,

PIP: 09:03 So I mean, I've broken over 12 bones in my hands and wrists alone, and I do suffer a little bit from aches and pains and I'd read about the benefits of cold water exposure, but I don't think I'd really given myself the opportunity to experience it because I wasn't being regular enough with my wild swimming. So I was really interested to see how it would affect me physically as well. Would it reduce my aches and pains, would it enhance my resilience? Would I feel the benefits? That sort of stuff as well.

NICKI: 09:41 Amazing. So yeah, go. I want to explore those sort of benefits with you a bit more in a minute. I was just wondering because I know having followed your various reels and your daily dip that there was some definitely that there was some that looked more enjoyable and probably seemed more enjoyable than others and certainly that some dips are more challenging. But I was just wondering sort of are overall, other than the obvious physical cold and that side of things mean, what was the biggest challenge you experienced in doing this

PIP: 10:15 Sort of challenge? Yeah, I mean that's really good to ask because again, another reason for making it a dip a day or December daily was the commitment to actually doing this every day. And that was a huge challenge. There we're busy people, we sometimes have a set routine if you have children or animals that can just go out the window, no plans, survives, contact with the enemy. So making time every day to do this challenge was really tough. Sometimes, you know, you also know you're going to make yourself uncomfortable mean who wants to make themselves uncomfortable? We set about our lives to make it more comfortable. We want to be warm, we want to be fed, we want to look after the people we love. So very few people seek to make themselves uncomfortable. So that was a huge challenge too, just knowing that every day for a particular period of time, I'm, I'm going to be uncomfortable.

11:25 But I have to be honest, I think the biggest challenge for me was putting it on social media and putting all that together and really sort of letting people see what was going on and putting all the reels together that would take me such a long time and such a frustration. So that was really challenging as well. So I admire anyone that does this constantly. I really do. So yeah, I mean making was a real challenge, knowing I was going to be uncomfortable and then dealing with putting social media together and getting it out there. Yeah, very challenging.

NICKI: 12:05 No, it's so interesting that point about social media as well, and actually not only do you have to do the thing, but then you have to, particularly if you are doing it for a particular cause as you were and aiming to raise money, then there is, there's a whole nother level that comes into, okay, now I need to be able to put this out there. And I can imagine that there probably some days where you really don't feel like putting it out there or having to perform in that way adds another layer to it, I think.

PIP: 12:33 No, no, absolutely. And also I wasn't filtering things. I'm in a bikini, I'm a mum of two, I've got wobbly bits, I didn't have any makeup on, it was just straight out the box. And I think we managed to edit most of the swears and certainly I had some choice words to say it, my husband when he was counting and telling me I still had 10 seconds to stay in the ice hole and things like that. So yeah, you did get a vivid understanding of the picture that social media can paint and then the reality as well. So there was definitely some behind the scenes editing of choice words going on.

NICKI: 13:22 I I'm super impressed that you managed to do that with your husband as well. Maybe it helps may, I was thinking maybe knowing that it's going to go out there means that, I'm just trying to think of if I was to attempt something like that, there would be an awful lot of shouting and swearing and probably a few choice words as well. So yeah,

13:41 I was just thinking you alluded to it earlier, but because obviously there's a huge amount of conversation around and probably a lot of hype as well around the benefits around wild swimming in terms of what it can do and why people are motivated to do it. But I think just sort of stepping away from that slightly and just thinking about actually for you personally, there would've been I guess some of the benefits which you thought, oh actually yeah, no, that that's something maybe I expected to happen, but then what's come out of this challenge that you think, I had no idea that that was going to be a result and I'm so grateful for that as a result of having done this.

PIP: 14:24 Yeah, well I set out to do this solo and on my own, I was aware of other swimmers in the area and actually a group called the Swimmy Wims now they started up as after as things were still not open, we didn't have the swimming pools and we couldn't go to inside areas. So this started off as essentially a mum's group outdoor swimming. And I, I'd been along to one or two when I could and I decided, well, if I'm going to do every day in December, I'll try and join them when they're doing it as well. And so I started a couple of times meeting up with them and I didn't actually realise at the time that a couple of them had decided to do every day in December as well. So I was getting more and more messages on WhatsApp saying, anyone fancy a dip, where should we go?

15:16 What should we do? And so that was really unexpected for me that I was suddenly part of this group and had other people to, that were crazy enough to get into the water when it was minus 13 and snowing and the waterfalls were all iced over. And I think again, on a couple of my reels, a couple of my photos you'll see it's of the group and what an amazing bunch of ladies. I mean they do lots of other things as well as the swimming, but it was really nice to suddenly find a tribe to belong to and not be on the journey totally on myself. I mean there's some really crazy moments and some real laugh out loud moments. I mean, you're sliding down a bank towards a frozen waterfall and it's minus eight or nine degrees and we were just all looking at each other going, why are we doing this?

16:13 But again, it's the benefits that you said, there are so many to them water's got such a transformative power. But the community element of it was something that was really unexpected to me. I mean the other benefits, I mean I was really surprised by how alert it really made me feel for the rest of the day. So even if I was kind of a bit sluggish and I wasn't really feeling it and I was like, oh, I've just got to get this done the minute you are in the cold water, it's amazing. It's just exhilarating and there's just alertness and it stayed with me for the rest of the day. And I think probably I did see with a better ability to withstand sort the stresses in my life that were going on at the time as well. I don't know, the cold water, you're putting your body into this sort of physical stimulus stopping you from dwelling on everything and overthinking.

17:20 But the fact that your body physically responds to it as well, it means that when you're then in a situation that is stimulating you and stressing you in a similar way, your body's adapting to it. And I found as time went on in December that I was becoming more adapted to stressful situations. So that was really interesting to see because I hadn't really benefited from that before because I don't feel I was doing it on a regular regular, I didn't have it as a regular habit before December. So yeah, there were quite a few benefits that I wasn't expecting that came out of it, which were really enjoyable.

NICKI: 18:01 That's so interesting, that point about adapting to stresses I think because something about the regularity as much as constantly putting yourself in that situation, and I think that's also not talked about as much. It's like, okay, yeah, some of the people will go, well, I got in the water or I didn't feel different or I did this one thing that one time, taking it out of the context of wild swimming maybe and sort of globalising it that we can go off and do things and go, right, well I did it that one time and that feels great and it was an adventure, but what relationship does that have with my daily life? But that point about how when you are regularly seeking or putting yourself outside your comfort zone in a position of stress and how your body starts to adapt to that and therefore your comfort zone expands. I mean, I know I've talked about it probably a nausea, but it's so interesting just to hear that.

PIP: 18:59 Yeah, there's a lovely word for it and it's hormesis and that's essentially that the physiological terminology for it is the fact that it's your body responding your cells and your organism responding to moderate and intermittent stress. And if you're exposing yourself to it, you adapt. And it's this sort of terminology that you and I are very familiar with, adapt and overcome, and your body is an amazing organism. And often it can't tell if I am in a body of cold water or if the dog's been sick, the kids need feeding, the phone's ringing, the postman knocks on the door a moment where you have super amounts of stress as well and your body treats it the same physiologically. So if you're then putting yourself in this state of hormesis where you're stressing yourself but under control, and this is challenge by choice, controlled stress exposure, you build your resilience levels and resilience is key really to coping I think with today's lifestyle. And it's something that is a fundamental part of our lives that so many people are missing.

NICKI: 20:22 No, that's so true. And I think it's such a buzzword as well. I know obviously working in this space and often people will go, well, we need people to be more resilient. Why aren't they more resilient? You're like, well, resilience is a more fluid thing than I think we give it credit for. It's not just the thing that you have, it's about all of those different ways in which we, like you say, we are able to adapt, we're able to achieve more than we think we can. How we build that, I talk about it, it's like being a core. You're building your psychological or your emotional core, whatever you're talking about. And I think there's something about that repetitive nature or that consistency that actually it takes commitment, it takes consistency, and it's finding ways to navigate a little bit what you were talking about, that narrative in your head going, actually, I really don't feel like this today.

21:12 And I know I have that a lot. So speaking from a position of experience in that voice in the head, and it's powerful. And I think it's so interesting, I think following that using journey for want of a better word, but over that period of time, through December and just seeing actually that there are dips, there are peaks that there are times when you don't want to do it, but that it's an overall piece rather than the individual bits as well. And I'm just going back to you point you make about community too, because that's something I think I've heard time and again on this podcast and is so much more powerful in a way than we necessarily, like you say, you don't necessarily set out to complete a challenge to increase or find a community, but along the way it often feels like the most positive byproduct.

PIP: 22:03 Yeah, I mean it was, and it was so encouraging and really refreshing. I didn't go out thinking, oh, I'm going to go and join this club or I'm going to go and join this group. So there's no pressure, there was no sort of commitment at all. And everybody is just there because they want to be. And what it was fun. And I think we get to a stage in our life where a lot of the time we just miss that element of fun. I mean, one of my New Year's guidelines this year for me sort of reflecting and looking ahead and what are my guiding principles for this year. And one of 'em was to laugh more because I realised after the December daily dips and with this group that I, I'd really been missing a lot of laughter in my life. And the children laugh at lots of different things and I thought it really does make you feel a lot better. And then being part of this community, people would slip up on the mud or you'd be trying to say something and you couldn't and your teeth were chattering and it was a lot of fun as well. Yeah.

NICKI: 23:09 Oh I love it as ums. Such a good point about fun too. And I know, I noticed for me that the thing when I know I'm under stress is I've stopped finding things funny and it's a real marker I think in terms of our resilience that we don't always pay attention to. I think it's such a good point. I was just thinking about, so I mean you did this immense challenge. I know you've sort of recently started getting back into the water again after a little bit of a break, but I was just thinking sort of looking forward to this year, you've talked about fun being one of your guidelines. Yeah. What else have you got either in the pipeline or where do you want to go with this? Are you thinking more daily dips or let

PIP: 23:48 Yeah, so yeah, I had a bit of, well I got a head cold in the virus and I burst my eardrum. So that set me back. And the beginning of January was really not pleasant at all and it was really difficult for me mentally. I think more than anything I'd done this huge challenge. I'd been focused for the whole of December and then on the 3rd of January I got hit by this and taken to a and e. Yeah, I was literally just sat around in agony feeling very sorry for myself and I didn't even feel like I wanted to get into the water, but I was kind of feeling really lost. So I had a bit of time to think what's next and where do I want to go with this? And I was really surprised, as I said, I wasn't a cold water swimmer, everyone would've just laughed at the idea of me doing cold water dips daily. But I then found I really enjoyed it and my exposure time was getting longer. I wasn't feeling any pain. And I am keeping it up now as a regular habit. I've not put the pressure on myself to say I'm going to do it every day. I'm just making time for it every week. And I'm going to try and up the challenge a little bit. I think I would like to eventually have ice swimming, cold water swimming challenges. There's some events you can do, some competitions and of course there is the ice swimming Olympics.

NICKI: 25:25 Oh my God, I I did not know that was a thing. Oh

PIP: 25:29 Yeah, it is. And I didn't know until I had this sort of respite this time to sit down and feel sorry for myself and have a look at what I could do next. And I found it. There's these chill badges you can do distances between, I think it's October and February and you log them and you can get your eyes smile badge and yes, I think I might go back to my childhood and start collecting badges and then see how I get on with that. Awesome. I'm, I'm going to miss out on the Scottish Swimming Ice Championships or ice swimming championships this month because of my perforated eardrum. But hopefully next year I'll have swam all through winter again. And I'd really like to introduce people to ice swimming. So with my wild swimming and my wild wellness, I'd really like to be taking groups throughout the year and really introduce cold water swimming as a lifestyle medicine for people and make it accessible for them and hopefully they'll get the bug as well. Keep going.

NICKI: 26:35 Amazing. That's a lot of ambitions by the way. I know if I ask pip this question, I'm going to get a lot of things, but I love it cause it's like I'm going to, not only am I going to to carry well swimming, but I'm going to compete in ice swimming championships. And I just think that thing about trying to share that with other people, actually this is what I've got from it. This is what you can benefit. And I love that idea as well. So I was just thinking if somebody's listening to this and they think either that sounds like something I could never do, but also I'm quite intrigued or I really want to get started either with wild swimming or an adventure of my own, an everyday adventure. I mean, what's the one piece of advice you'd give them?

PIP: 27:26 Challenge by choice. That's my sort of strap line for this year. I think we're old enough to make our own choices and we can put ourselves out of our comfort zone. We so set yourself a challenge and if that's to get into some outdoor water body, then that's great. I would just say there are a few things, guidelines that you should probably follow before you start cold water swimming or even wild swimming. So set a place and a time, decide where you're going to go and what time you're going to go. If you're starting off, find a friend or a group or a husband who's willing to go along and just be your buddy and look out for you, get appropriate equipment. You don't have to have a lot of equipment, you can just go in skins. But if you're certainly going to try in the colder months, you're probably going to look at getting some neoprene boots and gloves. Of course you need the woolly hat that makes you stand out and makes you look good in all your pictures.

28:36 But yeah, go easy on yourself. You just need a few guidelines like that to try and stick to and ease yourself into it mean. I've been reading a book by Dr. Mark Harper and I've been reading a lot about the cold water and I completed my open water swimming coach last year and they reckon it's about six dips to become acclimatised. So if you can commit to at least six dips, don't have to be back to back on each day, I mean you can have one a week, but if you commit to six then your climatization will have kicked in. And they always say that the first cold water dip is the most terrifying, you dunno what to expect. And you know, just basically build it up in your mind. And this could be horrific. So yeah, number one's most terrifying. Your second dip is absolutely the worst because you know how cold it was the first time

NICKI: 29:37 You're really selling this, by the way,

PIP: 29:39 Yeahs not going to get warmer, but the third time teaches you to start enjoying it because on the third one, what's happening and how good you're going to feel afterwards and you're beginning to think, I can do this and this feels really good and this is how it's going to going to go. So if you can stick with it, at least give it three tries and anything over six you'll be acclimatised. So that would be your routine to try and stick to. If you're going give it a really good go and get into it, then try that.

NICKI: 30:15 That's amazing. Thanks so much for and brilliant advice there is that really practical advice there I think too, because I think some of it is for people just like, how do I even get started? What do I need? What do I need to even think about? And that can feel overwhelming in itself.

PIP: 30:29 Yeah, but as you said, it's such a popular thing though that there are just small little pockets of people everywhere. And if you don't want to join a really big group that's organised, just pick a buddy, pick a friend. They don't even have to get in the water with you so long as they can spot you and look after when you come out. I first, I mean I've taken people swimming and they go in their first time just up to their knees. Some people even up to their ankles because you get that vasoconstriction that can be really quite painful. So don't really be hard on yourself if you go to do it and you literally get into your knees or you get into your thighs, don't think I've got to get in up to my neck and I've got to look like all these longtime cold water swimmers. Just start small and build up, gradually take someone with you, make sure you, you've just got that support to begin with. Because trying to get dressed and drive a car afterwards, it is quite tricky.

NICKI: 31:31 Brilliant. So if somebody is listening to this and they think, actually I want to find out more about you and your work and your wild swimming, where can they go? Where can they find you?

PIP: 31:41 So I'm on Instagram, I am Wild underscore Wellness underscore Scotland. So that's my personal Instagram. And if they want to find out about more about the money that I was raising for Care GOs, that's on our website, which is www.opcairngosasinthemountainsandscotland.org. So www.opcarengosgos.org. And if you want to find anything about just outdoor swimming, I would recommend visiting the Outdoor Swimming Society website. They've got a lot of information on there as well. But yeah, follow me on Instagram. I do a lot of outdoor stuff as well as swimming and I'd, I'd love to meet more people. It's a great way to engage and yeah, extend friendships.

NICKI: 32:36 Fantastic. Thank you so much, PIP, that's been absolutely, I could talking to you about this for ages. I know that's been absolutely brilliant to have you, but I'm going to end it there. But yeah, I will pop all of those links in the show notes so people can go and find you and find out more about your adventures and connect and otherwise and really look forward to seeing where it goes next and all of your plans for this year as well. Winter Olympics, here we come. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks Nikki. Brilliant. Take care. Bye. So I really hope you enjoyed that conversation with pip. So many different themes I could pick up on this week. I think what I wanted to go back to and explore on this occasion was the point that PIP made around social media and that one of the most challenging aspects of what she did was not even in the doing it, although that was pretty challenging in it itself, but the fact that that needed to be visible, that actually social media was a way of raising was the way of that they were raising the funds for Operation Kang goms and therefore she needed to be visible in what she's doing and promote it.

33:47 And I was just thinking more widely about that sort of connection with how we talk about or show what we are doing on social media and also the pressure to show it in a certain light, particularly when it comes to the outdoors. And I think one of the things about being spending time outdoors is that often the scenery can be beautiful or we have beautiful sunsets and I think the images we tend to see, particularly on sites like Instagram, which are also visual, are of these incredible vistas or people looking incredibly glamorous in wonderful locations. But I think the reality is that anybody who spent any amount of time outside, particularly if you live somewhere like the UK, is that a lot of that time will be spent in the rain or buttoned up to your eyeballs in a coat that's, if you walk dogs got various muddy patches and treats hanging out of it.

34:48 You're very rarely looking at your most glamorous when you're dog walking. Can I just say, or for that matter, in any other type of adventure you do. One of the freedoms of outdoors adventures big and small is that your focus is not on how you look or what you are wearing or how you are being viewed. It is about that pleasure of just being embodied, being in the moment and actually the real pleasure of this, of escaping a lot of those expectations in everyday lives and our professional lives in our home lives, how we show up and it's stripping that away. And I just thinking how then the pressure to have to document that in some way visually, photos, videos, adds a whole new layer of complexity to that because I think Pip did an incredible job of navigating that space. It's something that certainly has occurred to me on when I've been out on various sort of, even if they're very, very small adventures, just thinking, oh, this is a lovely place to take a photo.

35:56 Or actually maybe I just need to be enjoying the view. How do we stay present when we're also thinking about how we document something too? Anyway, so those are a few of my thoughts around it. I don't have any easy answers, but I know for me, like I said, one of the beauties of being outdoors is actually just particularly if you're doing things like you're in the water surfing or swimming or storming up a hill in the Howling Rail is that focus is not on how you look in that very moment. I'd love to know your thoughts on this and how we manage that tricky balance. But in the meantime, again, hope you enjoyed this episode. If you've got any thoughts or comments on it, please do reach out to me. You can get in touch via Instagram Resilience at Work. You can find me on my website, resilience work.co uk, find me on LinkedIn, Nikki Bass, or you can find me on Facebook Resilience at work. Otherwise, I hope you have a really fantastic couple of weeks and I'll catch up again with you very soon. Take care. Bye.