SWIMMING

I went swimming today in Acton Swimming Pool.  It was probably the first time I've been swimming in at least 6 years. Probably more.  So I was a bit apprehensive.  Can you forget how to swim?  Surely not.  Well I think I came as close as is possible without actually. 

I didn't get rescued by the lifeguards don't worry.  I doubt they would have left the Nuh Metal which was pumping out of their crappy stereo.  It was an ingenious place for the local drug dealers to set up shop.  "Think about it man, ecstacy for the breaststroke, hash for the backstroke, speed for the front crawl and cocaine for the butterfly."

So reception, pool, changing room, locker, staring at the pool.  There's the splashing around area, the fast lane and the slow lane.  I decide to go for the slow lane, I can't just go for the splashing around area I'm an adult now, I’m supposed to do lengths, endless lengths.  I'm not sure what the policy is on diving here (as far as I can remember the last time I was in a pool they seemed to be cracking down on all fun elements.  What the hell is the point in a swimming pool if not for heavy petting, "C'mon baby, you know I love you, let's go to the swimming pool and do some heavy petting."  Or the Marvin Gaye album "Let's Do Some Heavy Petting") so I take the ladder route.  After the second step I did actually look down "Am I in the water yet?  It doesn't feel like I am.  I am not."  In I go.  So far so good, I'm not at the bottom.  Right got to start doing lengths before that woman who's very slowly approaching me runs me down and knocks me unconscious.  I start and pretty soon realise that I really am a crap swimmer. 

Front crawl: I try instead of turning my head every stroke to keep it in the water. I'm an adult now, that's what I'm supposed to do.  After a few moments I realise that there is the breathing part of that move so I try turning my head to the side and drinking all the water in the pool (I don't succeed in drinking it all but come close, 8.5's and 9's from the judges)  I breast stroke it for a bit, the OAP's choice.  I realise that I've moved about five metres in ten minutes with this breast stroke nonsense and so switch to back stroke. 

I'm knackered.  I look up at the clock to see how long I've been going for (they've painted a single hand at a bit past half past on the clock) and piss off to the splashing around bit.  To get to the splashing around bit I have to go under a couple of ropes.  Rather than lifting them up I decide to swim under and almost kill myself.  Under the water was always my favourite bit but now it seems to want to kill me.  How could you turn against me under the water, I know I've been gone but I wrote, okay I didn't write but your not even a real physical thing your only a kind of concept of a place, oh sure why don't you just go back to your friends Ringo Starr and that lobster thing from The Little Mermaid! 

I splash around for a while longer, even giving the doggy paddle a go for the laugh, a few dives, a bit more under the water, even a couple of lengths and then I piss of home.