LAURA CARTLEDGE Life's like That...When everything doesn't always go swimmingly down at the pool
No matter how far you swim you end up where you started – back in the changing rooms with their pound-gobbling lockers.
The showers throw temperature tantrums and always know just when to turn off – leaving you fumbling around blindly for the button with a head full of shampoo. While the curtains covering the booths are always a slither too short of the gap they are supposed to cover – leaving you to do the funny towel dance to cover your modesty as you change.
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Hide AdAnd all this faff is before you have even got near the water, which is where the fun really starts.
I suffer from pool rage. What can I say?
Something about being stuck behind a pool-block of people trying not to get their hair wet or being dive-bombed by children just really gets my goat.
I suppose part of the problem comes from the fact I go to the pool to unwind. I just want to get in, swim my lengths, wash off the stress and go.
So I don’t understand why people insist on standing at the end when they are done for a good old chinwag, I find I can talk about last night’s television or the neighbour’s annoying cat just as well on dry land, so why can’t they?
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Hide AdBut when swimming is good, it is brilliant! We all know exercise is a great way to relieve pent-up energy but I am not built for the likes of running. I don’t want to go into details, but let’s just say – until they create an all-over-support-bra, it’s not for me, too much of me wobbles.
However, put me in the water and I am a force to be reckoned with.
I started at a young age and, well, took to it like a bee to a honey pot. This is just as well because this coming weekend I am going to need everything I have got.
I’m taking the plunge and swimming 100 lengths (2.5km) in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care, a fantastic charity which does brilliant work helping people cope with terminal diseases.
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Hide AdI’ve been building up my distance for a while now, but I plan to save doing the whole 100 lengths until the big day.
I knew it was a long way but it didn’t sunk in until I started collecting sponsorship money and a ‘friend’ of mine asked – “If you drown on the 99th length do we get our money back?”