Natural Born Swimmers

As another cold front came over from Scandinavia this week, March became colder than January and February. Could this be as a result of Global Warming, or just a cold March? We will never know. It snowed last night and there is still an enchanting feeling when you wake up and see a familiar vista covered in white.

I wonder if the same feeling is experienced in a place where snow is more common. I wonder if the Eskimos would feel the same if they woke up and saw rolling fields of green, and a sun high up over everything. The ice hole that they had once used for fishing had now become a babbling brook meandering through the landscape on its way to the estuary. They would probably be too concerned with the fact that their house had become a puddle around them, and the reason that they had woken up so early was the fact that they were wet and their possessions (some furry boots, a furry hat, a stick with a spike on the end, and a 1973 edition of The Kayak Annual) were floating around them.

I think it probably best on that scientific evidence to leave the meteorology to the experts and to just plough on (get it) with the rest of this blog. But as a last point on the matter, if this Global Warming thing does take off and is as successful as people are predicting, then it will be commonplace to see young Inuit’s washing up on Mediterranean beaches in nothing but furry Speedos. I hope that the G8 Summit have planned for this catastrophe, but I’m sure Bono will be all over it. Praise the Lord for St. Bono. But I have just realised that this would be horrendous as it is an anagram of Nob Tos.

Anyway, I have digressed far from my chosen path. The introduction and enlightenment of the kids first ever swim. We have waited for a year, due to one reason or another, and the most practical point is that Claire cannot hold them both up at the same time. I was off work for a couple of days, and we seized the opportunity much like our ancestors would have seized lunch.

We rang to check on Wednesday morning that Stockport Pool was open for small people, and after confirmation via a recorded message, we set off with this destination in mind. On an aside, have you ever considered how ahead of his time Stephen Hawkings is? 20 years ago he started talking like a Speak and Spell, and now he has influenced probably 50% of all telephone calls and rising. How long before people begin to speak in this way to each other, face to face? It will save energy if you can pre-record conversations that you are going to have with people, and for teachers, they could record lessons from the National Curriculum, and then finally the Government will be able to control minds. Hawkings is a prophet in biblical proportions, and like 1984, this fictional material is becoming a reality. Watch out.

So we set off for Stockport Pool, only to get there and not be able to park anywhere within a midget tossing distance of the place. So we turned on our heels and headed for Cheadle Baths. A smaller, private leisure centre type affair but we had incredibly timed it perfectly with a Tots session, which was just about to begin. Claire and I thought this might be a bit too much, you know, an instructor on the kids first ever visit to a Pool. I’m all for encouraging them but this sounded a bit too “Pushy Parent” for us. But considering that we had driven around all morning I was reluctant to then go home without tasting even a morsel of concentrated Chlorine.

I took Dylan and Claire took Sophie, and we met on the other side of the footbath transformed. It always reminds me of an episode of Mr. Benn, where you leave someone dressed quite normally and then see them again in a couple of minutes as if you were on a beach, busy pinning things to your person. I quickly noticed that I was the only Dad there, which instantly made me feel a little awkward. Once this would have been a dream of mine, but now everything was so much different. We slowly walked into the little pool with them, and showing their breeding, they both absolutely loved it. Claire and I were both keen swimmers in our former years, and so any offspring should really have some kind of attraction for weird acoustics and chemistry lab smells.

We have a little inflatable chair that we put Dylan’s legs in, and he enjoyed the kicking around under the water, like an over excited duck. Claire then tried to get him out of it, and to her surprise, she had found that he was stuck. After some struggle, which in water is always harder than if on terra firma, we finally managed to free the boy from the boat. Which then instigated uncontrollable laughter from Claire, which made others in the pool turn around and stare in our direction. She told me that his nappy was still on under his new baby Speedos, which at first I did not realise was the reason for the humour, until I then looked at it and realised that it had blown up like a bike tyre. How was I to know that you weren’t meant to take a disposable nappy into the pool? After a bit of thought I probably should have worked it out, but there you go, that’s life.

I then had to perform the walk of shame, carrying Dylan out of the pool, past all of the other Mums, back into the changing room. Only to then appear again a minute later with a leaner, meaner version of Jamie Oliver in trunks. After that it was plain sailing, and the instructor was not from the Dave Heathcote School of instructors, but more just a co-ordinator that sang some songs and we all stood in a circle around her. Very nice.

But now another milestone has flashed before us, and equally important is that it happened without any real major incident. Tick.

Last week, Claire did not have her pick of day trips because of a birthday party that we had to attend for one of our friends, but today we are going to go to somewhere mysterious. Like I said before it has snowed so it should be great where ever we go. I know you will all be on the edge of your seats, so hold tight and I will update you next week.

One more point of interest is that Dylan has made his first ever card from Nursery. A lovely rabbit, which looks as though, it has been hopping around close to Chernobyl. But it is the first present that we have received from either one of them, and this made me feel very proud.