Breaststroke

I’m house-sitting for the foreign correspondent while he attends the funeral of his beloved father-in-law Toto, the last of the languid Old Etonian gentleman bankers. And he has a pool. And what a pool it is. The days here are roasting; the sun is now the enemy. Already dead leaves crackle underfoot. So I swim in the evening, when it is a little cooler. The pool is built into the hill above the house. On one side is a wide apron of smooth white stone slabs. Beyond the apron is a rose garden and stone-built pool house with power sockets and a beer fridge. On the other side the water