Life in the slow lane

Mondays and Thursdays are my days. Eight a.m. Before breakfast. The pool opens at seven for those zealous souls who like to swim before going to work. They’re gone by eight when the pool is divided into five lanes with arrows telling you which way up and which down. I like lanes. You know where you are with lanes. Let those mad fools in the fast lane work up a storm with their splashy-flashy butterfly, the sexy crawl, the somersault flip back to the beginning and off again. I’m in the slow lane. It could be a metaphor for my life.

I grew up by the sea and learnt to swim when I was six. Not in the sea but in the swimming pool where a large Scotsman in oilskins and wellies taught me how while my mother, who couldn’t swim, watched from the side.