But hey, you know, such things are
important. The feeling of anguished
frustration when the three swimming lanes are occupied by other people, well,
swimming has to be experienced to be believed.
It is just as well that one is, to all intents and purposes naked and
therefore unable to pack a gun that those selfish people disporting themselves
in water that should be left for me, are still alive and kicking.
Imagine my incensed chagrin when I found
one of the occupied lanes taken up with a mother and her child. The child, to add insult to injury, was
splashing about on a polystyrene tube and therefore not swimming according to
the Act. I glared at them with the
intensity that only a myopic person who is mostly guessing what is going on in
the distance can muster and clumped my dispirited self to the ‘open’ section of
the pool there to swim with the damned souls who do not plough their way up and
down and up and down like we regulated monomaniacs who refer to ourselves as
‘proper’ swimmers.
I let myself into the water after kicking
off my regulation slip-on plastic shoes (alas, the days of doing a racing dive
into the pool are long gone) and started the ritual of getting ready for my
swim. At one time all I needed was a
swimming costume and myself and I was good to go. Now, in Catalonia you have to wear slip-on
shoes to get to the pool from the changing rooms and then in the pool wear a
swimming cap. For me, in my hursuitly
challenged state, a swimming cap is like a studied insult – but, let it pass,
let is pass.
Shoes
and cap are regulation for the pool. I
add checking that my ear plugs are in place and secure and then fit my goggles
to which I fit my mp3 player which attaches to the strap at the back of my head
with the ‘loudspeakers’ pressed into my cheeks so that the music is actually
transmitted to my ears via bones. Ah,
the wonders of modern science.
By
the time I was ready to go, one of the friendly lifeguards had noticed mother
and child taking ‘my’ lane and sternly ordered them out so that I could
swim. The lovely man even picked up my
shoes and put them firmly at the head of the lane so that it was officially
booked. As mother and child moved to the
‘open’ section of the pool (where they should have been in the first place) I
smiled what I hoped was a mixture of apologetic regret mixed with a tinge of
don’t do it again – I sometime expect a lot from my facial expressions!
My
swim then continued in the tranquil seclusion of my roped off universe and the
whole day was made good and fine.
And that’s my
point. If I can write 500 words about
getting a lane for my daily swim – then perhaps I should rethink my
priorities. Or not, of course.
Tomorrow is my
weigh-in day and I fear that the almost inexorable downward slide of my weight
will have been arrested by my flexible approach to the 20% rule (you can eat
what you like as long as it’s only a fifth of your intake and you don’t go mad)
and what might be called my flouting of it.
Still, I have always lived in unreasonable hope and I will continue to
do so. Therefore, self-delusion will
reign supreme at some time during the morning tomorrow and I only hope that
gravity will not be so stubborn as to deny me a light pleasure.
The wind and the
rain are unsettling me now and I feel the need for one of my virtually
tasteless cups of Oolong tea; the pleasure is found in the ‘almost’, you have
to work to get your enjoyment from the more subtle brews!
And tomorrow the
finishing off of the short story and the preparation of the constructive lying
about what went into producing it. Of
the two pieces of work the ‘reflection’ is always the more imaginative!
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