Not A Fish

I used to hate swimming. At primary school it was every Wednesday morning.
I disliked having to get up half an hour earlier to catch the coach to the
pool, feeling travel sick there and back, and then spending the rest of the
day feeling somewhat moist in the underwear region.

To begin with it wasn't too bad as non-swimmers were in the nice warm
kiddies pool which was in its own room, and hence unsupervised as the
teacher was by the main pool barking orders at those who could swim. When a
bit older, I had to go into the shallow end of the big pool with the other
older non-swimmers, splashing around with my legs while clutching a
polystyrene float. Not much fun, but then again I didn't want to be in the
deep end being made to go up and down, or jumping in wearing pyjamas. I
hated pyjamas, and the thought of having to appear in public wearing them
put me off learning to swim. I'll just stay here with my float, splash
around a bit and look forward to vigourously toweling myself down before
raiding the vending machines for some chocolate and fizzy drink.

I then got my first pair of goggles. Suddenly a whole new world opened up,
a world of legs wiggling underwater, tiled surfaces and drain holes. I
propelled myself around with waggling arms and legs. One day while showing
my Dad my new found skill of underwater movement, I surfaced faster than I
expected and found myself heaving my way across the surface. What's this? I
could swim! Somewhat splashily and ungainly, but I was getting around
unaided. My Dad suggested trying to swim across the width of the pool, so I
set off splashing my way towards the other side. I made it, and was
surprised to see one of the lifeguards applauding me on the side. He then
gave me a swimming badge, one of those thin stripes with the word
"SWIMMING" sown into it. I had seen others with lots of them sown onto
their trunks in different colours, but now I had my own, in white, for
swimming one width. Oooh, cross channel swim here I come!

The trouble was, If I now could swim, I would have to go into the deep end
and face the discipline of going up and down to order, and the potential of
those pyjamas. Noooo!!! So I kept quiet about my new found skill at school
and stayed in my comfort zone with my float. Nice floaty.

After primary school there was no more school swimming and I didn't swim
for many years. Around the age of 30, .T. took me to Droitwich Lido a
couple of times which was rather alarming. I found that although I could
still swim around a bit, I found it hard to stay afloat. My belly wanted to
meet the bottom of the lido and my legs had hidden stores of lead.

More years passed and due to the need to stay fit, Downham Market Leisure
Centre found .T. and I puffing and panting our way around the gym. .T.
started to pop off to the pool for a few lengths and last Autumn persuaded
me to join her for a dip. It was hard work! Swimming needs different
muscles to anything else, and my swimming muscles had long since retired,
put their feet up and were looking forward to watching repeats of "Last Of
The Summer Wine". I also didn't like the look of that deep-end. There is
something rather disquieting about putting your feet down and finding
nothing there. But perseverance pays off and over the next few months I
have developed a crude but working version of the breaststroke and a
splashy but reasonable crawl and can sometimes do the 25m length in 25
seconds. Coo, that's about 2.24 miles per hour! OK, so I have to catch my
breath for a minute afterwards, but it is about half Olympic speed (and
they wear skin-tight lycra - cheats!)
Now I just have to get my breathing right (remember: air good, water bad).
I keep breathing out in time with my strokes and after a while realise that
breathing in might be useful. I also find my sinuses get well rinsed out by
the occasional tsunami zipping up my nostrils.

Yesterday we went for a dip and found that the pool was warmer than usual.
Whether this was a bank holiday treat or those refugees from King's Lynn
pool needed mollycoddling I'm not sure. But it sure kept the cramp at bay
for an hour. Now my confidence has increased I enjoy swimming to the bottom
of the deep end and traveling along the base of the pool for as far as
possible. A handy technique in case I get chased by aliens through flooded
tunnels: provided I'm not wearing pyjamas.