Speculative
Oct. 12th, 2006 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shermaramaTonight I have been swimming. I have joined the local leisure centre thingy because if paid up in advance, the cost as a student is just under sixteen quid a month. And that means everything, swimming pool, gym, the lot, is free, at any time of day. Also at six other similar centres in the borough of Tower Hamlets but the Mile End one is, well, there are probably rich people with big houses who have to walk further to get to their gym than me.
The last time I went swimming in a swimming pool rather than the sea was probably sometime before I took up the drums - four years ago, maybe? I had forgotten a number of things.
i) It's all a bit zen-state speculative, innit? Counting lengths starts out tedious and taking up the forefront of your brain and then all the numbers go funny and you suddenly realise your counter has gone up by four without you actually noticing.
ii) 25m pools are only just long enough for me not to get exasperated. I have an efficient swimming style (these big feet have got to be useful for something) and lengths end quickly. Brighton's poxy one often had the end sectioned off for classes and thus was only 18m, which was completely useless.
iii) Wearing your swimming costume under a fleece on the walk to the pool is a good idea, unless you're me, in which case about the only undeniably female physical attributes you've got are rendered less obvious than usual. And I was walking around looking slightly lost because it was the first time I'd been there. And it was women-only evening in the pool. And all the attendants, and not a few of the customers, were giving me right funny looks, though no-one actually asked.
iv) I'd been meaning to get a new swimsuit, this one's a bit knackered.
v) I bloody hate swimsuit shopping, it's an exercise in frustration. Why, even in proper sports shops, do they not stock swimsuits which fit me? Why have I had to specially order in an unusual size for, I think, every swimsuit I've bought as an adult? I realise I'm a slightly unsual size and shape, but surely not that unusual amongst women who, e.g., go swimming a lot.
vi) I rather like the lingering-trace-of-chlorine smell.
vii) I do enjoy finding almost no-one else there at large public facilities, it seems so incongruous. By the end there was only me, one other woman and the lifeguard.
viii) Of all the muscle groups you'd expect to get tired, the thing that always used to go first was my fingers. They, along with my ankles, are now tweaking weirdly. S'cool.
The last time I went swimming in a swimming pool rather than the sea was probably sometime before I took up the drums - four years ago, maybe? I had forgotten a number of things.
i) It's all a bit zen-state speculative, innit? Counting lengths starts out tedious and taking up the forefront of your brain and then all the numbers go funny and you suddenly realise your counter has gone up by four without you actually noticing.
ii) 25m pools are only just long enough for me not to get exasperated. I have an efficient swimming style (these big feet have got to be useful for something) and lengths end quickly. Brighton's poxy one often had the end sectioned off for classes and thus was only 18m, which was completely useless.
iii) Wearing your swimming costume under a fleece on the walk to the pool is a good idea, unless you're me, in which case about the only undeniably female physical attributes you've got are rendered less obvious than usual. And I was walking around looking slightly lost because it was the first time I'd been there. And it was women-only evening in the pool. And all the attendants, and not a few of the customers, were giving me right funny looks, though no-one actually asked.
iv) I'd been meaning to get a new swimsuit, this one's a bit knackered.
v) I bloody hate swimsuit shopping, it's an exercise in frustration. Why, even in proper sports shops, do they not stock swimsuits which fit me? Why have I had to specially order in an unusual size for, I think, every swimsuit I've bought as an adult? I realise I'm a slightly unsual size and shape, but surely not that unusual amongst women who, e.g., go swimming a lot.
vi) I rather like the lingering-trace-of-chlorine smell.
vii) I do enjoy finding almost no-one else there at large public facilities, it seems so incongruous. By the end there was only me, one other woman and the lifeguard.
viii) Of all the muscle groups you'd expect to get tired, the thing that always used to go first was my fingers. They, along with my ankles, are now tweaking weirdly. S'cool.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 09:21 am (UTC)- it being quite expensive if you are NOT a student
- the lockers not giving you your 20p back so you can't eg get shampoo out for a shower afterwards then lock it back up again. Boo.
The later you go the emptier it is. At 7pm-ish it can get quite full. Of SLOW people. I'm going to stop talking about swimming now.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 09:40 am (UTC)