Poolside Percy

Prince of Wales Baths pre-refurb Tuesday night post-work swim. Pretty damn busy. Ploughed up and down the middle lane. Swam a mile. Bumped in to Edith's Mum outside. Cycled home via cheap veg stall.

Prince of Wales Laundry Could also be known as St Pancras Public Baths Anyway, Saturday afternoon swim. Imagine how delighted I was when I walked through the doors of the Willies pool to find two empty lanes. By 4pm I had the middle lane all to myself. Swam a Saturday afternoon mile. Perfect. Photo is by Mike Abrahams . He used to live a couple of doors down from us when we lived on Grafton Road. We reckon our that's our Mum with her back to the camera in the second photo. Macbeth

Thursday evening workout. Found my space and pace in the lane between slow and fast. Medium I think it's called. Ended up in fast when someone who was definitely slow got in the way in medium. Had to intervene when three boys who had been having fun diving in the deep end for 45 minutes, were told by a new lifeguard that they had to swim lengths cos someone might complain that they were being intimidating. Sorry, I didn't put that very well, but there again there was no logic to her argument other than her boss might have a go at her, that's GLL for you. Cycled home for dinner with Gavin and Stacey. Photo: Camden local studies and archives (our mum used to do our washing here, I found it all quite amazing)

A return to swimming after a two-week break. Monday night immersion in Grafton Road. Was in before 5 o'clock, still loads of people in the pool, including the waitress from the café on Fleet Road, the one with the big portions. Swimmers getting in each others way, lots of splashing and waves, can't really cope with it. Still managed to blunder my way to 54 lengths. Even paid for the privilege today.

Score: ۞۞۞ ۞۞ YMCA Pool London Blagged a free day pass Nice but busy changing rooms. lots of busy gym types. Nice pool, lots of blue lights everywhere. Nice wide lanes, clean water. Laborious swim, took me another 44 lengths to get going. Quite a few fresh out the gym busy beardy bloke swimmers who swam furiously for 10 lengths, got in each others way, then dripped off. Must be quite frustrating for them. Nice showers. Wouldn't pay 40 odd pounds a month for the privilege of swimming here. For the beta male as opposed to the alpha or class C male.

Found myself near Archway so it was a Monday night swim down at Highbury pool. Pretty busy when I arrived. I found it very difficult to get going. Geezer using swimming paddles on his hands didn't help, that's cheating mate. Mellowed out a bit after the guy with the whole lane to himself finished his swimming lesson. Took at least 44 lengths to get going. That's one for every unhealthy year of my existence. Finished in style. Coconut soap in the showers is a big plus. Long cycle home again. 84.5

Parliament Hill Lido Beautiful sunny morning. OK, the pool is getting warmer. Place seemed pretty busy when I arrived. I counted 13 people in the water and 30 people in total. Took me a lot less time to get in than last week. I still love the feeling of when you jump in and hit that mid air point of no return. Still cold but I knew what to expect this week. Swam a very enjoyable 12 lengths. Overheard couple: Her: Are you enjoying your swim Him: No. It's cold, it's really cold. I'm never going to enjoy it even tho' I'm expected to enjoy it. What makes it worse is you asking me if I'm enjoying 'my swim'.  Men's showers being repaired so it was unisex wash week. Very strange. Parliament Hill Lido I hope it's sunny next week.