All is well

What a moment! or maybe I was just a touch naive ...

Vince and I arrived at the Lido at the same time - he told me how lovely his sunday swim was:

" I actually felt the sun on my back!"

"I was stuck in doors, fixing tiles, grouting and applying silicon in one of my bathrooms - great fun too ..."

Anyway, as we walked down the side of the pool I thought I can do that, I'll swim a length to today ... and so I did - I never looked at the shallow end - even had my shoes/flip flop strategy to a T ! flip flops down the end for when I get out - I walked up in my shoes to the deep end and left them there. I would retrieve them once I'm dressed again on the way home - that'll work!

At the deep end, I jumped in (feet first) touched the bottom of the pool came up for air and pushed off - it felt fantastic! Surprisingly, I made it to the other end of the pool in good shape - hands were not too cold and the rest of my body felt really good! But make no mistake I was happy to get in the sauna (with an ever so slight feeling of pride :) - it was yet another personal best!)

Funnily enough I only fully realised what I had done when after the sauna, without really looking, I dived in the shallow end (closest to the sauna) to swim a width... I dived in and as I was coming to the surface I saw quite a bit of ice to the left of me ... it was hard to believe .. ice! how is that possible? the air temperature was above zero (in fact yesterday the air was even as high as 8 celsius). I was quite shocked ... because I had been careless - admittedly the ice was ever so thin and hard to see - but ice it was.

What's even "funnier" is that as I was getting ready to leave the sauna (ear plugs in and hats on) I faintly heard a voice saying something like "mind the ice" - Anyway, I think that's what was said ... :) but I was on a mission, to cool down and swim across, so it didn't register .. until much later, that is!

oh well ... all is well that ends well!

When I walked up to the deep end I spoke to Sarah and Bob about my stunt ... Bob's first reaction was:

" you shouldn't have dived in the shallow end anyway :) - if Brian see's you do that he'd have words!"

Oups ... it is right though I suppose, because diving in the shallow end could potentially be dangerous...

Anyway, I'm glad to report that I have taken my little incident to heart. From now on I wont assume that there is no ice just because the air feels warmer than during the really cold spell we've had. I will also fully examine where I'm getting in and where to (safely) swim! specially as according to the weather forecast we are expecting colder days from wednesday on!

By the way I did check the water temperature at the deep end when I left the pool - it showed 1 Celsius .. and it's true that the shallow end is usually colder - so my guess is that it must have been around 0!

"Safe Eddy" swimming head up breaststroke

Margy's freedom plunge after the sauna