Toying around

So today’s pool session for me was unintentionally turned into an opportunity to play with a new toy. I’ve been experimenting with swim times trying to find one where the pool isn’t busy, (haven’t found it yet!) and so today arrived in a previously untested time slot. As I pulled into the car park, my hopes were initially dashed by the realisation that I had in fact only left myself a window of about 40 minutes before I had another commitment that I had foolishly left out of my diary. Nevertheless that was fine as I was only intending to do a short session today and it was a great chance to try out the new toy. I have a wholly unjustified reputation, as a bit of a gadget nerd but in fairness on this occasion the gadget was the birthday present that my little brother had kindly found me, a lap counter. I simply can’t count (sad admission for an accountant) beyond a few lengths without losing track, so onto my finger went said new toy and off to the pool I trotted. My second disappointment was the discovery that half the pool was closed for lessons and the remaining half bore a striking resemblance to the Waterloo railway station platform at 5pm.

Never mind, I slid my goggles on picked a gap in the throng, pressed “start” and merged seamlessly into the middle lane. The first four lengths glided by, everyone at roughly the same pace and evenly spread out, then suddenly out of the blue a miracle transformation. A south coast swimming pool in February morphed into a swim up bar (minus the sunshine and the cocktails with little umbrellas) as the swimmers turned into floaters, talkers or to use motorway speak middle lane hogs. Suddenly there was no space to touch the end wall and turn, as the shallow end became a talking shop. Undeterred I pressed on, undeterred they stood on, and no amount of splashing at each turn seemed to impact on the talking throng. I’m sure that at one stage I heard someone say we could get coffee here (and I’m also pretty sure by that they hadn’t intended to move to the café area). I pressed on determined to try out my new gadget I pressed the lap counter at each turn and looked to see how it was performing. I also started to scan the buttons in a forlorn hope that I could find the phaser setting or at the very least the “set to stun” button, it’s not there!

So thank you little brother for my birthday present, it works quite well but next time spend a bit more and get me the full taser version please.