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Spend any significant length of time with open-water swimmers and you’ll soon learn that the etiquette of clothing is very important. I had quickly established that you can’t wear a wetsuit if you want to be classified as a Channel swimmer, but in fact they are anathematised in general. Read this from the Serpentine rulebook:

Concerning wetsuits, we recognise that some external events are ‘wetsuit-compulsory’ and people need to use them for training. However, their use is considered by many not to be within the true spirit of an all year round open-air swimming club.

The true spirit of the Serpentine is skins. Thankfully, this isn’t quite what it sounds. You don’t have to risk arrest for indecent exposure in Hyde Park. You can wear a swimming costume. But there are also pretty strict rules in open-water swimming on what constitutes a costume. It should be of a material not offering any form of thermal protection or buoyancy. It should be sleeveless (i.e. no creep below the shoulders) and legless (i.e. nothing that extends to the upper leg below the crotch). You can wear a hat. Hats are legit as long as you only wear one of them. But don’t even begin to think about those nifty boots or gloves. Covering your hands and feet is strictly prohibited. Goose fat, whilst allowed, has long gone out of fashion. Contrary to what people used to think, it doesn’t keep you warm, it just makes you sticky, and it’s impossible to get off. But for long swims it is advisable to rub a bit of grease in places prone to chafing. That was one of the things I learned in Formentera, where some of the customs of this strange world had been revealed to me for the first time.

But the etiquette of clothing doesn’t end there. It’s not just about what you wear in the water, it’s also about what you put on afterwards. You have approximately ten minutes after getting out of the water before the afterdrop occurs, more commonly known as ‘the shivers’. Use that time wisely and get dressed as quickly as possible. Replace your swimming hat with a woolly version, even if it’s a bright sunny day. Take off your costume and put on warm clothes. And my top tip is: go commando. There is nothing more fiddly than a bra and knickers when you’re cold, so go without – with all the layers nobody’s going to know.

I have also recently discovered a fabulous accoutrement called the Dryrobe. The clue is in the title: a robe that keeps you dry. It’s a huge, hooded black cloak which makes you look a bit like the Grim Reaper. If you put it on as soon as you leave the water, you can get changed under it and then huddle in it to get warm. I can tell that all the hardcore open-water swimmers are a bit disdainful of the Dryrobe. Boris and Nick don’t have one. My hunch is that it’s not because of the way it looks but because it offers a bit too much comfort for the elite cold-water athlete. But even those who do own one – and there are lots who do – seem to shed it before encountering civilisation. Not me. I wear mine home on the tube. Everyone at the Serpentine thinks this is hysterical but I don’t understand what’s funny. Just call me Jessica, the Grim Reaper.

And finally, there’s one more piece of clothing that has also changed my life since I started swimming in the open air. Shoelaces. Not the ones that are impossible to tie up when your fingers are shaking with the cold but the fizzy strawberry liquorice ones. They are manna after a swim. Whoever decided to turn laces into liquorice was a genius. Swimming and woolly hats off to him.