So it is that I find myself in the changing rooms at Two Riversmeet, Christchurch's premier (some might say only) municipal leisure complex, at 9am on a Wednesday. It is populated almost exclusively with OAPs - I am the youngest by at least a generation. In the changing rooms, three elderly gents exchange thoughts about retirement homes.
"Best thing is just not to get old" is the eventual conclusion, "keep taking them pills."
In my own little effort to stave off the advancing years, here I am, back in the pool for the first time in many month. In fact, it's my first swim since the Bournemouth Triathlon. Without cash, and with £5 being the minimum charge for using a card, I'm forced to buy two admissions to the pool, thereby ensuring that I shall have to return with my inkjet special "pre-paid swim" voucher within the next month or face losing £4.35, although it's a close run thing as to which would pain me more.
It's no secret that I don't like swimming, and not surprisingly nothing has changed in the intervening period. I labour up and down the pool, well aware of the folks 30 or 40 years my senior zooming past strongly. It's almost like my very first visit to the pool, when I could barely manage more than a length or two without being exhausted. On the plus side, I'm delighted to find that I've retained at least a reasonable ability for bilateral breathing, but I'm pretty sure that my swim stroke is hilariously inefficient, all flailing arms and sinky legs. With the prospect of having to swim 1500m in August however, I'm clearly going to have to put in a bit more effort than before.
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