1 January 2025 – And what always tops the Resolution list?

Get more exercise.

Well… Vancouverites are on it already.

Yesterday, after my own get-some-exercise walk through Stanley Park and back toward town from Second Beach, I see this cluster of tents set up on the shores of English Bay.

Coming closer, I hear a deep-bass male voice doing sound checks, and then practising his “Happ-py new year, everybody!”

Coming right up to it, I see this is not prep for some dissolute New Year’s Eve blow-out. It is prep for a serious New Year’s Day feat of athletic endurance.

The annual Polar Bear Swim. Still underway as I write these words, but with years of tradition behind it.

Mind you, I’ve already had my own modest bit of exercise, this 1st day of the year!

Down to False Creek, just to say hello. Where there’s lots of exercise underway.

Including swimming.

All right, they do it year-round, but it counts.

As I follow that False Creek tributary through Hinge Park, I come to the playful little bridge connecting one side to t’other…

and then peer inside.

Where, at the far end, I see a father beginning to swing his little girl down-down-DOWN the steps to enter the bridge.

I meet them toward that far end.

She stamps her feet on the echoing deck, and giggles at me. I stamp my feet, and giggle right back at her. To her father’s vast amusement, she and I then have ourselves a foot-stamping contest. (And a giggle contest.)

Day 1 of a new year, and the exercise box is ticked!

Happy New Year, to you all.