Today, we’re amping up the winter swimming experience and capitalizing on it by introducing some heat – why that’s been missing from the English winter swimming scene in all its stoic tolerance for so long, I don’t know, but thank the swimming gods it’s here now. We’ve been running between the sauna and the sea for a while now and we’re well into our hot-cold-hot-cold sauna-swim journey. I feel like human honey: all warm, soft contentment and peace. Seaside sauna in Bridport. Photo: Sarah Higgins Sarah kneels down to add some more wood to the burner and pours the birch water (literally water with birch leaves) on the large caged rock that shoots out the heat. It invites us to close our eyes, feel the moment, let it go… and soon almost everything is gone, pouring out in curtains of warm citrus air. I can’t see her, but I can feel her, briskly twisting the towel over her head in a figure eight. It’s part ritual, part performance theatre: Sarah looked at the cold countries – Lithuania, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark – that are steeped in sauna rituals and, with the UK’s sauna scene so new, just she began to invent her own. Then some incense goes into the burner and the towel starts to helicopter, pulling the steam down to warm our feet, and then we’re back out in the elements, plunging into the sea. I’m not one to get particularly excited about a winter swim – it often leaves me cold and a bit tired – so if it means I can do it and feel satisfied for the rest of the day, let me in. Sessions at Seaside Saunahause in Bridport cost from £60 for up to five people. To find a sauna near you, visit wildsaunas.info. Kate Rew is author of The Outdoor Swimmers’ Handbook (Rider, £22) Kate Rew
Theater and Christmas carols
Choirs at Salisbury Cathedral for a candlelit Christmas service. Photo: Shutterstock Growing up, one of my most treasured family traditions was, in retrospect, a hygge-inspired affair. one of comfort and contentment. On Christmas Eve, my siblings and I would sit down to wrap our presents, the fairy lights twinkling and King’s College carols playing softly on the radio. For us, Christmas didn’t begin until an angelic choir delivered the opening lines of Once in Royal David’s City. To borrow from another popular carol: all was calm. everything was bright. A few years ago, I went to a carol service at Christ Church, Oxford, and the college carol service experience was even more magical in real life. For an hour or so, the crazy hustle and bustle of the holiday season stopped and peace set in. they often give a whole series of concerts in the run-up to Christmas. There is something grand yet comforting about carol services at Saint Martin’s-in-the-Fields, near Trafalgar Square Beyond the university setting, there is something rather grand but comforting about carol services at Saint Martin’s-in-the-Fields, near Trafalgar Square in London. He does a series of family-oriented gigs and, as a bonus, has a ridiculously good shop in the crypt. Further afield, Carols By Candlelight at Fountains Abbey near Ripon, North Yorkshire always gets rave reviews, Salisbury Cathedral is a knockout any time of year and there’s something spiritual about some of London’s busiest spots – Southbank, Barbican, Saint Paul’s – a little sing-song. Theaters also become much cozier – somehow more mellow and inviting – during the holiday season. Productions of A Christmas Carol are popping up just about everywhere, but you can’t beat Jack Thorne’s now-traditional adaptation at London’s Old Vic, with a stunning score that will warm your insides. With its embrace, Leicester’s Curve always feels welcoming at Christmas, and there’s something about the open architecture of the Globe that’s especially special in winter. This year, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s festive fairy tale The Fire Tree will see Mercury transformed into a hand-crafted forest full of puppets, and there will be mulled wine and hot chocolate by the bucketful. Aaah and relax.Miriam Gillinson
Wild camping in Snowdonia
Wild camp with mountain views in Snowdonia. Photograph: Alamy It starts slowly at first – the dim afternoon light fading from blue to gunmetal grey. For a while I sit on the porch of my tent in the dim light, snuggling deeper into the down-filled flaps of my quilted jacket. I wait, patiently, for the moment when the last of the light bursts on the horizon in the last sunset. Snow lays on the ground, drowning out all other sound, as I look up at the Welsh peaks of the Snowdonia mountain range, known as the Glyderau. The light is dim now, providing a foil to the deep green walls of my tent. In the summer this area is filled with tourists. Even late at night, you might see other wild campers getting up or climbers ending a day on an epic crag. But as it is winter, a time when most people leave their tents for the season, I am quite alone. I take a sip of hot chocolate from my flask – cold weather camping requires a steady stream of hot drinks – and continue watching. Then it begins. As the sun drops over the last of the mountain ranges, a plethora of reds, ambers and purples illuminate the darkness in Technicolor ribbons. I feel like this natural light show is happening just for me. When people ask me why I keep camping in the winter, this is the moment that always comes to mind. Because being out there, alone, with the right gear (lots of layers and a decent sleeping bag and camping mat), I don’t feel the cold anymore. I am instead at one with my surroundings, completely immersed in the wilderness. The first time I experienced a true winter camp was under the big Norfolk skies more than a decade ago. I hadn’t planned to sleep in such cold conditions, but an unexpected cold front descended on the east coast of Britain straight from the Arctic during a research trip and the B&B I was going to stay in had a power cut and had to close. So I took my tent and checked into a proper campsite and, as expected, I was the only one there. As I had my car with me, I took a quilt, a sleeping bag and a hot water bottle to keep me warm. I had to cook my meal in the toilet as my stove kept going out in the biting wind. But as hard as it was, I relished the challenge of pulling it off, and as the sunset that afternoon outlined my tent in the sky and silence surrounded me, whatever I was feeling, I knew I wanted more. Since then I have never let the seasons stop my wild nights. I did a 40-night north-south crossing of mainland Britain in November and December, wild camping the whole time, with temperatures down to -15 C. I slept on top of Britain’s highest mountain on Christmas Eve and woke up with the walls of my tent clothed with frost, and a reversal of clouds rising at my feet. And I have experienced the absolute silence of an English forest muted by snow while the dusk light paints the sky like a rainbow. When the temperature drops, the magic of Britain’s wild places doesn’t stop – and neither do my outdoor adventures. Phoebe Smith
Fishing in the south of England
Fishing on the River Itchen in Hampshire. Photo: Andy Pietrasik Can there be a greater sign of appreciation for the harsh beauty of winter than ice fishing? The willingness to sit alone for hours in a landscape devoid of apparent life and color, threading a baited line through a hole in the roof of a frozen river or lake. It’s about as tantric as it gets – very little movement or sound, no distractions and great spiritual reward. Scandinavians love it. The website Fishing in Finland says: “At some point in their lives, almost every Finn has sat by an ice hole, fishing for perch on the ice.” And Finland was the happiest country in the world in 2022 – for the fifth year in a row. I once fished lying on reindeer fur in the glass-roofed river Torne in northern Sweden. It was good for me. No matter how hot with anger I was when I reached the shore, the cold air would cool me and the river would still my mind But then as a kid I spent my winter weekends fishing for roach and perch from dawn to dusk on a mill run off the River Trent. It was my happiest place for at least eight years straight. What did I like so much about it? The fact that even though the world seemed to be in a state of suspended motion – the skeletal trees, the dead vegetation, the wet sun – the river was alive with movement and possibility. No matter how hot with anger I was when I got to the shore, the cold air would cool me and the river would still my mind. Except for the time I set my parka on fire when the burning coal fell from my Highlander hand warmer and the smoke came out of my pocket. In recent winters, I have taken to fishing the chalk streams of…
