I love the sea, but I’ve lived in the middle of England for more than thirty years.

I grew up in a small Sussex village which has its own mini-climate within a ten-mile radius of the family home where my mother still lives, just a few miles from the sea. When I’m at my own home, especially during the holidays, I sometimes find it hard to hear about the glorious sunshine they’re enjoying down there, while Sutton Coldfield is living up to its name, and is shrouded in cloud.

In keeping with Sod’s Law, when I drive down to Sussex after a week of fine weather, the sun usually goes into hiding as soon as I hit the A 23 and the downs come into view. So this weekend, on one of my regular visits to my childhood home, I was pleasantly surprised by the warm breeze and blue skies on Saturday afternoon.

I knew this would be my last chance of the year for swimming in the English Channel, so I took my chance, and the sun was hot on my shoulders as I trod gingerly over the grey stones to the edge of the clear sea. It wasn’t as cold as I’d expected and I relished again the feeling of freedom as I swam out towards a bobbing orange buoy, with the dazzling glare around me and several metres of water below my feet.

When I’d started going to the North Norfolk coast years ago on visits to my husband’s family, it took me a long time to get used to the sea there, with its treacherous currents, and the sun in the ‘wrong’ place, but I grew to love it for the wildlife and emptiness, particularly Blakeney Point with its colony of grey seals.

So this is the obvious candidate for my poem of the week:

Becoming a Seal

Becoming a seal takes dedication.
I’ve time for little else now
what with days in snack bars
accumulating layer on layer of flab
and evenings stretched out in the bath
holding my breath under water.

Night swells with dreams of blubber
light as airships, supple and strong
as branches of willow. Sometimes I lurk
by plastic ponds in garden centres.
After a little practice, Koi carp
slip down smoothly as noodles.

My place of pilgrimage is Blakeney Point.
Those massive bolster shapes basking
on sandbanks barely glance towards me
as I wriggle inch by inch a little closer.
Now that I’ve tuned in to their grunts and barks
I understand their conversations.

Lately I’ve noticed changes in my skin -
it’s thicker now and turning mottled grey.
Each plunging struggle against
North Sea tides creates a tingling glow
though I still have to coat myself with grease
before I slide into the waves.

When my legs have fused together
they’ll propel me faster. I’ll have no need
for arms – the sinuous seals caress
from head to tail. Soon I will smell
as they do. They’ll nuzzle me gently
gliding around me along the sea-bed.

This is not an autobiographical poem, but I have swum in the shallow channel at low tide ,while the seals’ heads bobbed around me,staring with their spaniel-like eyes.

An early version of this poem won 5th prize in the Poetry Life (2001) competition - since then I’ve tightened it by cutting out at least one other stanza and re-organising some other parts that I later felt were a bit clumsy. I still do like this version - it reminds me of those experiences and it’s fun to recite to an audience - it seems to go down very well at readings.