In the dead of winter, snow falling all around them, about 150 people splash and swim in two large outdoor swimming pools. It is nighttime and the temperature has dropped considerably since the middle of the day.
Snow falls on wet heads as people chat quietly to one another.
I am one of them. I am in my bathing suit, sitting with my upper body and torso completely out of the water. My bare arms and neck are exposed to the freezing air. My husband gets out of the water and, barefooted and in swim-trunks, walks fifteen feet across the snow to the cooler of the two pools. We are hardly extreme sportspeople.