Heres to our 10th year of Bluetitting!
Going on Tour
The opportunity to be a Tit On Tour is one thing I love about The Bluetits. My aim on the run up to World Bluetit Day was to start a mini Tit Tour in Glantawe to welcome the Bluetits onto our Welsh waterfalls holiday, then swoosh down to Bude to cheer on the Bluetits who were partaking in a fund raiser for Bude Sea Pool then go onward along the south coast to Bournemouth for October 1st.
A little hiccup...
I made it to Glantawe and Bude but the VW decided it wasn’t going along the south coast, so a after an interesting overnight journey home to St Davids on a transporter, followed by a frantic day animating for the awards reveal reels that I had planned to announce live, I swapped cars and made haste towards Bournemouth and Milford On Sea to make it to their World Bluetit Day swims at Canford Cliffs and the Needles, then onto the Midlands for a sunset dip in a glorious lake with West Midlands Bluetits.
The dips
On October 1st the weather gods had obviously decided I needed a break and the sun shone brightly for us, and Bluetits in their droves turned up, in more polka dotty gear than you could shake a stick at, to welcome me to their swim spots. Being a Tuesday I was aware how much effort people put in to make it to these meets ups for me. Shifts were swapped, chid care arranged etc, it never goes unnoticed how much effort people put into welcoming me when I visit their flocks.
It never ceases to make me so damn proud that something I started ten years ago with no plan whatsoever for how it would evolve, organically became a thriving, supportive network of humans
We dipped, ate delicious food, played games, talked, sunbathed, filmed, ate some more, gave out awards , laughed and cried..all the things I have become used to at Bluetit meet ups. It never ceases to make me so damn proud that something I started ten years ago with no plan whatsoever for how it would evolve, organically became a thriving, supportive network of humans who go boldly forth in the outdoors and quite literally change each others lives for the better.
What is the point of it all?
I often stress over the fact we don’t have a ‘main purpose’, as in we don’t claim that being a Bluetit is good for your mental health, or good for loneliness etc. I know if we did, finding funding would be much less complicated, as everyone wants to know what is all of this ‘good for’?
What is the point of it all? They, the people that provide the funding, all want something to put their finger on, because funding is often specifically geared towards one thing. Happiness is not really ‘a thing’ in the eyes of the funders, but in my opinion is should be.
We leave our ordinary lives behind for a short period of time, challenge ourselves to go public in swim attire, enter open water (or not, for some merely turning up to join an unknown group of people is a massive challenge) learn how our body responds to different temperatures and take control of our wellbeing, socialise with people of all genders and from all walks of life…this all has the potential to make a human happy. Over the past ten years this is what all Bluetits have been doing, and it HAS made us happy!
Happiness
If we are happy for even the briefest of times in a week our spirts are lifted, and in turn, physical and mental pain can be alleviated for a moment in time.
When we have something to look forward to every week, someone we have grown close to to spend some time with and have a good old moan with, or share a joy that we know they will celebrate with us, we feel loved and accepted for who we are and this gives us a massive happiness boost.
I love hearing all the stories about how people have found happiness by becoming a Bluetit. I never tire of it, so please never stop telling me!
Heres to our 10th year of Bluetitting! May the happiness continue to spread far and wide.
Sian xx
