Swimming ...

[french frank]

I developed a terrible phobia about water after my mother decided to dip me below the surface without prior mentioning holding my breath in an open air swimming pool at about the age of 3 - one of the few early experiences I can remember vividly.

I was paddling in the sea on holiday at Polzeath, also aged about 3. The waves were, well, bigg-ish (since I was very small). I fell over on my face and struggled to get up - and still remember the salt water pouring into my nostrils and thence down into my mouth. My mother was watching me from the beach and said the water was only a couple of inches deep: she didn't feel it was necessary to go down and pick me. But to me it was "the day I almost drowned".

[Jonathan]

I'm rubbish at swimming. Last year we had the intention of learning to scuba dive so obviously, the best thing to do for me was to be able to swim. My partner is a superb swimmer (she swam a mile aged 9) so we went along to our local pool and she was teaching me. This was fine until I got a verruca and it persisted and then the pool closed on the day which we used to go (it's a community pool). I'd got to the stage where I could do 20 lengths and (almost) not die! Then I lost my job so the idea of learning to scuba dive ended due to lack of finances. We're planning to try again next year so back to the pool on the one evening a week it's still open...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... a rough greenish overspill ...

Describes pretty accurately the problem with the former swimming pool at one of the local schools. (Many years ago, they gave up trying to treat it, and instead drained it and built a new Music department over the top of it.)

[Lat-Literal]

Has anyone ever thought of deliberately making the water in swimming pools coloured?

Red or yellow or emerald green?

[vinteuil]

Describes pretty accurately the problem with the former swimming pool at one of the local schools. (Many years ago, they gave up trying to treat it, and instead drained it and built a new Music department over the top of it.)

... ah! there is a God!


.

[vinteuil]

Has anyone ever thought of deliberately making the water in swimming pools coloured?

Red or yellow or emerald green?

... in my father's studio there was a jar of fluorescein in its brown powder form. Fluorescein is the green/yellow colouring you see in a spirit level. Like potassium permanganate, a tiny bit of the solid form can colour vast amounts of liquid. I think half an ounce wd have made our local swimming pool bright green. I was tempted. So tempted....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescein

.

[Lat-Literal]

... in my father's studio there was a jar of fluorescein in its brown powder form. Fluorescein is the green/yellow colouring you see in a spirit level. Like potassium permanganate, a tiny bit of the solid form can colour vast amounts of liquid. I think half an ounce wd have made our local swimming pool bright green. I was tempted. So tempted....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescein

.

It would have been excellent, that, v.

I can see a market for it.

Emerald green for a pool in the Glastonbury area, yellow for a custard vibe and red is obviously at the horror movie pool.

We can have sound effects and everything - just like on a ghost train or in a monastery.

[french frank]

Has anyone ever thought of deliberately making the water in swimming pools coloured?

Red or yellow or emerald green?

Or they could paint the walls of the swimming pool - most pools seem to be that pale, turquoisey colour.

[Lat-Literal]

Or they could paint the walls of the swimming pool - most pools seem to be that pale, turquoisey colour.

Or both these things.

[Serial_Apologist]

yellow for a custard vibe

Just imagine - swimming in Advocaat!

[teamsaint]

Just imagine - swimming in Advocaat!

Not a snowballs chance in hell of that happening.

[Serial_Apologist]

Not a snowballs chance in hell of that happening.

Only in cases of custard and practice!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

You'd have to pay attention to the safety Warninks.

[greenilex]

Just keep egging us all on...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It took me a long time to have the confidence not to drown when I took my feet off the bottom of the pool.

But when I went to secondary school, the establishment had its own pool (33 & 1/3 yards long, but with curved corners that restricted its usefulness). But as we one of only a few school with its own pool, we used to win most interschool contests. I became a bog-standard member of the school swimming team, but never actually won a race until I was in the 6th form, after which I was made team captain, possibly because I was proficient in all 4 strokes.


On leaving school, I only swam occasionally, but at the grand age of 56, joined the local "masters" swimming club, and won the over 40s trophy. If fact, I still hold the honour technically, as the club folded when the pool closed.


When I do go swimming, I'm still very competitive, always trying to outdo the others in the pool.