Is it just ME?

Or are midlife wild swimmers infuriating?

SOCIAL media is usually a delight during the festive season. Slightly wonky trees, handmade wreaths, pictures of a grandchild’s home-made Christmas card are enough to melt anyone’s heart.

But this winter my feed is clogged up with midlifers posting endless pictures of themselves in a lake, a pond, the sea or a lido.

The images have all the signs of having been tweaked and cropped, perhaps a filter applied.

In the accompanying text we are informed of the temperature, we get told how long they stayed in the water and we are also notified who took the picture.

Half the time they’re snapped next to the water’s edge. Which makes me wonder . . .

The smugness that infuses these posts seems to suggest they’d found a cure for cancer. It’s lost on them that our ancestors doubtless did the same thing hundreds

What’s wrong with not publicly posting a picture every time you strip off?

of years ago if they wanted to get clean.

Such is the zest for these swimmers to pose, I wouldn’t be surprised if, on spotting a muddy duck pond, they’d chuck their phone at a random passerby, jump in it, replete with woolly hat, dazzling smile and goofy thumbs up and gurn at the camera.

It is just boasting. Pure and simple. When I go to a spa, I always head to the outdoor icy cold pool — as I have done for years. The first time I did I feared I would have a heart attack. Yet minutes later my body tingled and I felt alive. I appreciate the health benefits, but I don’t understand the vanity behind those carefully posed pictures.

As for the Christmas Day ho-ho-ho dip with a Santa hat on.

Well, Bah Humbug! What a load of showy nonsense. Enjoy the moment for what it is and not what it allows you to boast about online.