All done

Well it's all over now, and all that's left is for me to wander around with a ridiculous smile on my face and floating a few inches off the ground.

This whole experience was everything I ever dreamed it would be and then some. I hadn't for one second expected that I would feel like this after the swim and I can't explain quite why it feels so special. But when someone walked up to me yesterday at Dover beach and said, 'Hello, Channel swimmer' my face nearly split open with the smile.

I'll do a swim report over the next few days but anyone who has read one before knows that they go on a bit so it will take me a while.

Thank you so much to everyone who sent texts, emails, tweets before, during and after the swim. The support I felt was just unbelievable and to know that so many people followed the tracker until the early hours of the morning makes me feel so blessed to have so many friends who care. John read out as many texts as he could during the feeds and they made me feel great. Especially knowing that Anna was there in her pink cossie stroke for stroke next to me. And my goodness I needed her those last couple of hours when the tide seemed to be pushing me away from France.

Unsurprisingly, I am over the moon with the time. 11 hours 5 minutes wasn't even in my wildest imaginings and everyone I saw afterwards said they couldn't believe how fresh I looked. Jane (observer and A-Team support crew with John) said she's never had a swimmer who was awake enough to talk all the way back to England before. Not really a surprise for anyone who knows me well.

And speaking of talking a lot, the man from the BBC came back to the caravan park to film a follow up yesterday afternoon. Duncan and his crew had already left to go to London yesterday morning and the interviewer was disappointed because Duncan had so much to say when he had filmed him on the Friday. Unlike me, of course, who also had so much to say but was mostly hyper-excited waffle on the day before the swim. So I'm sure you can all imagine what it was like when he was interviewing me yesterday afternoon.

The owners of the caravan park, David & Evelyn, are impossibly generous and enthusiastic about channel swimming, and as there were a few of us there who had successful swims on Saturday, they threw a party for us yesterday afternoon, which the cameraman filmed. The day was completely mental - exciting, wonderful, fantastic, amazing.

Now back in Yorkshire having a bit of a holiday before we head home next week.