Only dead fish go with the flow

Just what is it about kids and swimming pools?

In a moment of what I can only admit was pure stupidity I decided to go for a swim last Sunday morning. Yup, Sunday morning. Possibly one of the times when most kid-congestion occurs in a public swimming pool.

I should have known what was going to await me and certainly viewing the unravelling scene of chaos through the windows should have been enough to change my mind. It nearly did. For a second. But then I figured that I'd made the effort and walked to the sports centre and so I'd jolly well go in. I couldn't let myself be scared off by some children. I'm bigger than them, after all. Well, maybe slightly.

So I parted with an inexplicably large amount of cash in order to face this ordeal and entered the changing village. Changing village. That's a joke in itself. It sort of conjures up images of civilised transition of the wearing of outdoor aparrel to something more suitable for swimming (i.e. swim suit). Let me tell you, there's nothing civilised about it. There's no village green for a start off. What's a village without a village green? The changing village in this particular context is this - a unisex free-for-all with changing cubicles that have not one but two doors. If you're lucky, when you lock one door, the other will also lock. If you're not so lucky and are happily in the throes of derobing safe in the (incorrect) knowledge that no one will see you, there is a pretty high chance that in fact only one of the two doors will have locked and you will soon be accompanied by a complete stranger who thinks that the cubicle is vacant. And then there's the lockers. Most of them are out of order. When you find one which is working and isn't occupied you have to claim it by holding this metal bit on the wrist band that you are given on to it. Your next task is to put your stuff in the locker. Not easy if you have loads of stuff. There's no way of wedging the locker door open. You put your shoes in, turn to get your bag.... the door slams shut and you have to unlock it. Repeat this sequence several times until all your clobber is safely stowed.

If, like me, you are optically challenged, you have to find your way to the pool without glasses or contact lenses. I once ignored the warning not to wear contacts in a pool and then spent the next 2 hours trying to remove them as they had welded to my eyes due to the humidity. Finding your way to the pool is made somewhat harder by the likes of unattended and disorientated toddlers and unattended and disorientated parents. They form an assault course of bodies skating across the wet floor. The toddlers, in particular, seem to made a beeline for your knees and walk repeatedly into them until their course is altered.

So then I made it to the pool. It seemed more chaotic and hell-like from poolside than it did as an on-looker. After locating a section of pool about 30cm square, I entered the water and attempted to swim. Looking around it was becoming quite clear that this was not entirely possible. Too many obsticles. More disorientated kids and parents. They sort of hang around the shallow end in clusters, looking harmless. So you try to swim. The clusters suddenly burst into life, arms and legs flailing about and seemingly follow you around the pool. So you try to swim faster to avoid being swallowed by the resulting tsunami. Then a two-pronged attack occurs. More clusters appear infront of you and split to let you swim past. Only your briefly reinstated faith in humanity fades when you realise that the kids have separated in order to splash each other. And yes, they spot the perfect time to do this is when you are in line with them. From nowhere you get a an eyeful of water. If, like me, you can't see, this can be a disaster. Your already limited sight has been further diminished by about half until the stinging stops and you get the use of both eyes back.

This was all getting too much so I decided to stick to swimming widths in the relative quiet of the deep end. Only some parents decided it was a great idea to teach their offspring how to dive. It seems to me, it doesn't matter where abouts you swim, there is always some sort of hazard. In the deep end, its the risk of being bombed. Like the whole splashing thing, kids seem to wait until someone is in close vicinity before jumping on top of them.

And if you survive all that, there's still no guarantee that you've made it. On Monday I started coming down with 'flu.

I can't wait 'til I get my own pool.

Over and out

NLO