Every Wednesday my other half and I have a date. We try and spend time at the local swimming pool to exercise our joints, muscles and lungs and if not actually increase our fitness levels, at least avoid seizing up altogether.
The trouble is, having grown up swimming in the open sea, I had pools. This is one of the best in our locality, with good changing rooms and large lockers, a normal rectangular pool (no irregular beach) and lanes arranged for the lunchtime crowd. I’m fine about the swimming, I just hate dragging myself to a pool.
What do I hate so much? Perhaps it’s the smell of feet which this pool can’t seem to shake off. Or maybe the fast American pop being pumped out at us, with a thumping beat some swimmers apparently need to keep them in rhythm.
Once I start on the lengths there are always problems with speed. I have to deal with slow old ladies hogging the intermediate lane and whom I overtake three at a time, and with large men thrashing past me, eating up the lengths, displacing as much water as an ocean liner and making me gulp the pool water. Much smoother are the sleek women, hatted and goggled, streaking ahead in the fast lane. One strange bearded man performs the front crawl with paddles strapped to his hands and barely moving his legs.
I’m sure I seem just as strange to others. I like to vary my stroke between the sedate breaststroke and energetic backstroke and front crawl. I also like to do stretches in the buoyancy of the water, dodging the determined length rats between bouts of exercise.
I can take about 20 minutes of this. Afterwards I will smell chlorine on my hands for the rest of the day. The best part of the pool, barely visible through my perennially steamed-up goggles, is the large clock telling me it’s time to leave.
