I thought I’d try out a new swimming pool. I am living, for now, in a town that I don’t know that well. I know it through childhood visits with my Mum and am tentatively exploring it as an adult.Â
I swim a lot. It makes me feel better. I’ve always loved the water and been a competent swimmer. I love the feel of the water, the sensation of moving through it. I love the brightly lit clean pool. I feel uneasy swimming when I can’t see the bottom and I don’t know what’s down there. It’s not my element. Although I do love to swim in the sea and rivers too. It’s not the same but I feel proud of myself afterwards.
Best of all is sunlight hitting the water and shimmering on the surface, ricocheting prism like under the water in the blue tinted chlorinated space. I glide, breath held, wearing nothing but trunks and my ear ring, pure and simple again.
I figure out where one local pool is and decide on a 35 minute walk over a 7 minute drive. It’s dry, I have time, I fancy a wander. My walk takes me out of the dull warren of streets full of similar ‘80s built houses, through a freshly mown green along a concrete path lined with young trees, and not much else. An overflowing litter bin has a poster on the side with two eyes, warning litter droppers that ‘we are watching you’. Of course you are.
I cross a main road and am soon on a path between two fields with cows in and a stream running through before emerging out into suburbia again, past a hospital and up into a place called Horton Crescent. Here the buildings are much older and grander and, I see, all owned by the local school which seems to spread campus like over many street and blocks. Security codes are needed to enter most gates, smartly dressed school children walk in between buildings in twos or threes.Â
A maid in a black apron and cap is vacuumming in between tables set for lunch in one building. Next door high-ceilinged rooms look to be homely offices with paintings and large plants inside.
One boy crosses the road on his own, lever arch files and textbooks under his arm. He is wearing what must be the school blazer - a tasteful pattern somewhere in between tweed and plaid. He looks like privilege to me. And comfort. I see the black Land Rover his mother will pick him up in later, the bedroom in a detached house at the end of a long drive. Tonight he’ll eat ‘supper’ when other kids are having ‘tea’. I see his face now and I see it 15, 20 years from now in the well paid job ahead of him.Â
I turn a corner and am confronted by this ‘emergency help point’ bollard with a button and holes to speak in to. I don’t understand. Is it a joke? A bit of Art? Part of me wants to press the button and ask: where am I? who am I? what shall I do? why are we here?! But I just do the done thing and snap it with my phone camera and post it on Instagram when I get home.
The pool is a little way on, through another park with odd seats that look like a metal bench has been cut into sections and divided into seats for one. Non-sharing benches. A band stand with a metal railing where the green paint has chipped away in places to reveal the red paint beneath it.Â
It’s a very autumnal day and all the pavements are covered with beech, sycamore and horse chestnut leaves in all colours of decay. Two empty Matteus Rose wine bottles at the foot of one tree.
The pool is in a new, family orientated leisure centre. Communal changing rooms with cubicles, a glass front to the whole building. Cafe and shop, climbing wall, gym etc.
It’s just before 12pm  and only one lane is open making it impossible to actually swim as some older folks float-swim, hardly moving or simply stand in the water. A few grandparents are with the grandchildren treating it like a splash pool. I’m not a good sharer and I find it frustrating when people don’t swim in a swimming pool and infuriating when people just hang at the side and chat.
Fortunately the whole pool opens up after some lessons finish and I am able to swim over a mile in lengths before the lanes crowd up again. Diving down in the deep end, touching the bottom and shooting up for air, gliding through the clear space I can hear the drills and hammers of the workmen in the changing rooms at the side reverberate through the water in muffled tones.
A bit too crowded at lunchtime for my liking but I reckon it’d be good for an early morning or last thing at night swim.Â
There is a disabled man with two helpers with him in the shallow end. They take it in turns to move him about with their hands around his waist, trying to excite him by the activity and sensation of being in the water. He clings to the side wearing his inflatable arm bands in between these little dances. I see him put his hand down to the feel the air filter pushing out air from the wall. He dangles his tongue in the water lapping over the edge and running along the shallow gutter in the side of the pool.Â
I get out, dry myself and change back into my clothes. By the exit is a row of mirrors and hair driers. A man and a woman, speaking Polish to each other are there. He is drying and combing her hair, concentrating on his task as she puts make up on, looking in the mirror. Is that odd? Is it sweet? I’ve never seen that before.
I walk straight out to cool down in the autumn air. I eat a banana that I get from my coat pocket and retrace my steps.Â
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