Swimming in a lido used to be something I did a handful of times a year, when it was warm and I had some free time and I fancied a bit of a break. I enjoyed it but never loved it. I was always pleased to go, but would often forget about it for weeks at a time, even in the summer months.
This year, however, the lido became part of the architecture of my life. Last week, I went swimming three times; a few weeks before that, I managed to go swimming four days in a row. Sometimes I like to take my boyfriend there with me but mostly I swim alone.
Because it’s been so hot, I’ve also managed to get rid of my towel altogether, choosing instead to dry while sitting on a wall by the pool. As a result, I now carry my bikini in a plastic bag at the bottom of my handbag, and am able to go for a quick dip at a moment’s notice.
Mostly, it’s been a delight. The weather has so often been unbearable over the past few months, and dunking yourself in cold water is the only thing that will truly cool you down. There’s also something so wonderful and leisurely about leaving your desk for an hour or so on a Tuesday to run to the lido. It makes you feel like you’re living life to the fullest, and I’m incredibly thankful I was able to do it so frequently.
Still, it can’t all be silver linings. Because the pool was once a fling I would only see on occasion, it was easier for me to ignore its downsides. Since it has become a more regular companion, however, I’ve been forced to notice that it just isn’t the paradise I once thought it was.
Unfortunately – and to quote my fellow countryman Jean-Paul Sartre – it turns out that, in the water as on land, hell is other people. Somehow that seems especially true in the medium lane, which I call my home. Though our humble swimming middle class ought to live in harmony, our position between the slow and fast lanes leaves us vulnerable to attacks from both sides.
Too often, people who rightly belong in the slow lane – a place one shouldn’t feel ashamed of visiting – have plagued us with their glacial, obstinate pace. Unfortunately, they’ve also usually been joined by at least one dolt swimming swiftly enough for the fast lane, but whose ego demanded that they join our little club instead, presumably in order to try and wow us with their impressive speed.
As a result, our precious little kingdom often ends up being a free-for-all, where no one feels truly comfortable. It’s a shame and, under my reign of terror, would be solved by everyone undergoing a quick speed test before becoming a member of the lido.
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I do worry that this would only put off foreigners further, though. Over my summer of swimming, I grew increasingly amused by the sight of tourists or recent transplants hoping to merely stand in the water chatting, and looking confused when getting told off by the lifeguards. Aren’t pools for having fun? Well, not in this country, or not in my lido, at least. Here we only get to deserve the relief of coolness if we submit ourselves to the labour of, at the very least, a dainty breaststroke. Please, no fun – we’re British!
Not that I’m complaining, though. I’ve loved my summer of dainty breaststroke. It gave me access to a world I’d only ever visited in passing, and I feel richer for it. Does it mean I’ll start wild swimming all year round? Hah! Absolutely not. Swimming is fantastic but only if you can sit in the sun afterwards, reading a nice book and demolishing a Cornetto.
I’ll see the lido again in eight months or so, not a minute earlier.
