Five minutes from my house, beneath a cathedral of beech trees, lies something I absolutely wasn’t expecting to discover on a Monday morning run: a perfectly chiselled stone bathtub big enough for a medieval giant to have a soak.

Measuring 11ft long, 8ft wide and 3ft deep, it’s filled with spring water so clear it looks like it’s been Brita-filtered by an archangel.

A bit of digital digging revealed it wasn’t just a pretty puddle. St Anthony’s Well is unfathomably ancient. Druids, monks, miners and a handful of mead-pickled Celts have all had a splash over the centuries.

Local folklore claims it can cure rheumatism if you descend one step a day for twelve days. Another legend says it sorts out skin diseases if you turn up “in the month of May at the rising of the sun on nine successive days.”

My favourite though came from a bloke called Rudder, who in 1779 wrote that his dogs were “cured of the mange after being thrown into it two or three times,” before adding “the water is extremely cold.”

For all I knew, three dunks might reverse male pattern baldness and give me the complexion of an eight year old.

I decided I was going in.

But I’d need moral support.

Back home, I pitched the well to the kids like I’d discovered the forgotten city of Atlantis.

Jet’s response was a firm, immediate no.

The opening through which I might tempt him into a dip was roughly the size of a sparrow’s nostril (His steadfastness is something I find admirable and infuriating in equal measure).

Luna, on the other hand, does not intellectualise cold.

She doesn’t analyse the risk.

She doesn’t rehearse the emergency exit.

Some neurological misfire triggers bonafide excitement where most homo sapiens experience dread.

So off we went.

Our first plunge was January 2nd.

The air temperature was 3°C, and the water temperature was somewhere between brass monkeys and organ-shutting.

I de-robed and approached the water with the confidence of a hippo entering a crocodile-infested drinking hole, and immediately devolved into a trembling newborn deer as soon as my toes touched the surface.

Knowing hesitation only prolongs misery, I eased myself in step-by-step, allowing my testicles to ascend neatly into my throat while all available air vacated my lungs.

Somewhere between a silent squeal and a whimper, I turned to see Luna mid-air performing a full Belarusian swan dive, grin stretched from ear to ear, before the arctic water wiped it clean off her face.

Your heart skips three beats, your lungs forget their job, and a strange noise escapes your body without your permission. Then come the pins and needles - fast and aggressive - followed by an endorphin surge that feels suspiciously like a 2am dancefloor.

It’s a sensory juggernaut. Instant, shocking aliveness.

We’ve been back many times since. Turns out people travel from all over the country for a cheeky dunk here. Some come for the history. Some for the health benefits. Some, presumably, for the mange.

There’s always someone cheerful in neoprene booties declaring things like, “cold water’s the cure for everything”, “it’s the best anti-depressant going” or “welcome to the cult, mate!”. I don’t yet own a dry robe, but I’m starting to think these hardy bathers might be onto something.

I’ll spare you a lecture on the health benefits of spending time in stupidly cold water, as you’ll likely know it’s good to Hof your Wim every now and then.

What I will say is this though: I think one of the most important things we can give our kids is rituals.

Not in the incense and chanting sense, but meaningful, dependable, sometimes very silly moments we circle back to again and again; anchors in an increasingly unpredictable world. These become our family folklore without even noticing. Tiny, repeatable acts that say: this is who we are. 

And it’s good to have individual rituals too, small and special inter-family bonds that are just yours. Mine and Luna’s is cold water swimming. That’s our thing. A ridiculous, joyful challenge we keep choosing to tackle together.

It makes me smile to think we’ll still be doing it as we grow older, even when I’m wrinkly, creaky and ever so slightly mangey.