I never considered Balham Leisure Centre's sauna suite as the ideal location for a picnic, but apparently some people do.

Still, once they'd finished their self-assembled prawn cocktails, at least the lemons made the steam room smell of lemon cake ...

*note to self: bake lemon cake soon!*

Dear friends,

This is a note on behalf of the Sea Monkeys, a.k.a. Ted, Lauren and me, to say thank you again for sponsoring us to swim the 2008 Swimathon.

We swam it last weekend in record time, finishing within ten minutes of each other. We each swam 68 lengths, which works out as a mile plus an extra 100 metres. It was great fun. We were issued with matching white swim-hats and swam at the same time in lanes next to each other. Ted came first, in half an hour, and was relieved not to be beaten by girls. Lauren flew in next, at 35 minutes, and I came in at 40 minutes. We were tired but happy by the end!

When each of us finished, our length-counters and the crowd cheered, and we were force-fed cookies and orange squash by a small boy when we emerged from the pool, as someone had told him all the swimmers might keel over otherwise. (I think we'd have been ok, but the Oreos were nice.)

The sponsorship money is still coming in, but at the time of writing you have raised over £850 for Marie Curie Cancer Care. Thank you all so much - it's way more than we ever hoped to raise. You are all very lovely, generous people.

As a special treat to thank you for your support, here's a photo of us with our Swimathon medals outside Balham Leisure Centre.

Lots of love,

Linnie
xx

I firmly believe that each person knows their own body better than anyone else ever can.

With that knowledge in hand, I decided to prepare for my swimathon (tomorrow, eek!) by having a couple of beers after work, followed by fish and chips for supper. Then we went to see the Hives at Brixton. (Tick, tick, tick, BOOM!) I jumped up and down. A lot.

It'll work. I promise. ^_^

I was woken up this morning by a man bursting into my bedroom.

After I stopped screaming, I was relieved to see that it was my husband. His flight got in early. Oh, how we laughed.

Anyway. We both had a wonderful time in Washington, and neither of us wanted to leave.

Last night, I went swimming to combat my jet lag. The pool was packed – it was boiling with people. It would have looked like an all-you-can-eat buffet to a cannibal (if they liked the odd piece of Lycra to chew on, and the tangy taste of chlorine).

It’s quite nice to be back in grimy old London.

So on Monday, I had a very uneventful swim in the pool. It was nice.

Tonight, however, was a different story.

( You will not believe who got into a face-off at the pool tonight ... Well, ok, but I wasn't the main one. )

I'm afraid I don't have any amusing swimming stories from the last week or so. But I can tell you about a few of the regular swimmers there.

Freaky Fishboys
If you go swimming, you will find these in your local pool. They go very fast and are quite splashy, but are key at enforcing pool etiquette. Not quite as fit* as they think they are.

Cheery Dumpy Ladies
There are usually a couple of these in the slow lane. They swim steadily, with their heads stuck way out of the water, but actually go surprisingly fast. (Always breast stroke, never crawl.) You wouldn't want to cross these ladies, they're actually dead hard. They are very suspicious of new swimmers. I suspect most of them are teachers - they carry an air of authority about them, despite appearing lo-fi at first glance.
N.B. Don't wear goggles, so can dispense glares when necessary. I am almost a CDL, but swim crawl and wear goggles. I expect one day I'll become a fully-fledged CDL.

Angry Dumpy Men
I don't think they're related to CDLs. Come once, then get cross when CDLs, Sporty Girls or I swim past them. Usually very hairy; don't shower before getting in the pool; sometimes reek of fags or BO; rarely come again, thank goodness.

Sporty Girls in Speedo Bikinis
They swim as fast as the freaky fishboys, but without the splashing. They have practical hair. We are slightly suspicious of each other, but there's a mutual respect there 'cause we all stick rigorously to pool etiquette and we don't show off like the boys. Have the coolest swim hats to make up for their lack of hips or boobs.

Spaniels
Young tykes, usually with floppy hair, who think that swimming one length really quickly and then resting for 10 minutes (while eyeing up their bikini-clad girlfriends) constitutes exercise. The bane of the fast lane. Spaniels provide the useful social function of uniting all the regular swimmers against them.

Fashion Bikini Twits
Come swimming in pairs or as a group with spaniels. Stick their heads really far out of the water. Fond of a nice chat while going up and down. *Really* hate being splashed. (Newsflash: water - it's wet.) Wear fashion bikinis, then wonder why they can't swim as fast as CDLs. Useless; get in the way constantly; rarely return.

Floaters
People who swim so slowly that they might be dead. I think they're pulled around by the current. The bane of the slow lane.

Pairs of spoons
(By which I mean squares.) Quite a few spoddy couples seem to go 'swimming', and spend most of the time surruptitiously groping each other in the shallow end. It wouldn't be so grim if they were pretty. The boys all wear awful flowery shorts. The girls should wear more.

Nice Beardy Man
He has long hair and smiles at people. He seems nice. Last time I smiled back. Next time I might say hello.

Today, I swam half of my lengths as front crawl for the first time. (I've been building my crawl up for a while.) In a couple of months, Lauren, Ted and I are going to do a swimathon, where each of us swims a mile. I swim a kilometre every time, but a mile is a lot further. I am quite excited about this, and a little bit nervous. Our team is called the Sea Monkeys. ^_^

*by which I mean attractive, not healthy. They are revoltingly healthy, probably quite boringly so. I doubt they do cocktails.

Last night, we went to a Sellaband showcase gig. It was interesting to see bands that aren't 3 boys on guitar, 1 boy on drums, and we heard some nice Polish and Swedish folk-y sort of stuff, which was pretty. There were lots of violins and cellos and so on.

I still prefer boys with guitars.

Swim drama! OMGWTFBBQ!

Tonight we went swimming. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. So you have heard me moan about the floaters in the slow lane, and how much they irritate me? Clearly not as much as slower swimmers irritate one of the freaky fast-lane fishboys, who started (STARTED!) on a guy who apparently "wasn't swimming fast enough". Fair enough, really, aggression aside. Conveniently, my knee had just gone *ping*, so naturally I had to stand at the shallow end and listen to the whole thing.

Fishboy: Look! Look at all the other lanes! There is the medium lane. There is the slow lane. There is the other slow lane. Do you understand what I'm getting at?

Slowboy: Wah wah wah wah [sorry, couldn't hear him properly, I still had my earplugs in - but we all know it wasn't much more than wah wah wah anyway.]

Fishboy: I'm not having a go [liar] but that's what all those other lanes are for. Slow. Medium. And this one is the fast one. Got it?

Slowboy: *strops* Wah wah wah wah *tosses crap floppy hair*

Fishboy: It's VERY FRUSTRATING when someone blocks up a lane because then the rest of us can't get our swim. [OMG I am starting to crush on him even though he is a freaky fishboy and displaying unnecessary levels of aggression.]

Slowboy: *tries to swim off really fast, still in fast lane, with the swimming equivalent of a flounce, at almost-respectable middle-lane pace.*

Fishboy: [aside, to camera] Almost talented.

I'm starting to think that when you all visit me, I shall have to take you swimming so you can see all these things 4REAL and B4 UR EYEZ.

(Also, I moved up a gear to the middle lane today. And I kept up, yay, despite my knee playing up. *shakes fist at Clapham South and its clapped-out down escalator* So from now on, Mondays I'll be in the middle lane.)

(Today, I am emo. I am also totally in ♥ with xkcd. Oh, the heartbreak. ;_;)

Ted and I just went for a swim. On the way, we saw a man hoovering his front garden. To give him credit, it was spotless, but I didn't think that was really the point of having a garden.

We checked out the steam room and sauna for the first time (or "Health Suite" as they like to call it.) They are excellent! The steam room is FIERCE and the sauna was big and extremely hot. My skin now has that lovely soft peachy feeling you get when all the dry bits have fallen off. (I know you wanted to share that lovely mental image.)

We popped into Waitrose on the way back *worships* - I hadn't been into our local one yet, but we needed some nice ham 'cause Daddy's coming to tea and Mommy will be cross if I feed him cakes. They had this stuff which *looked* like caviar, called "Reformed Herring Product". I didn't buy it.

Is it Australia Day, by the way? Or are people round here just wearing green and yellow clown wigs for fun?

And - and - I've managed to track down the music from the Box of Delights at last! It's by Victor Hely-Hutchinson, it's part of his Carol Symphony, but it's taken me ages to find a recording. Hooray for you, Amazon, and your long tail! Anyway, if you want it, this CD has it - it kicks in 2 minutes into track 8.

Anyway. Here is a bunch of flowers for you all 'cause it's sunny and spring-like today. Hoorah!

Why doesn't anyone say thank you to bus drivers any more?

The bus driver didn't open the doors on the way back from the pool tonight (I don't think the two are related), so Ted put on his teacher voice. It was rather scary, which made me giggle.

Anyway. We hadn't been swimming on a Tuesday before, and I know you're all dying to hear what it was like.

Turns out Tuesday night is... AQUA-AEROBICS NIGHT!

Yes!

Oh joy!

So there were just two lanes, and I got so cross with the speed in the slow lane that I went into the fast lane for the first time, like, EVAH. Eek! The fishboys swim so fast. I only did a couple of lengths there 'cause it wasn't really fair to hold them up (and also it's actually quite scary) but their lane was right up against the aqua-aerobics class, so when you swam crawl along there, all you could see underwater was a big line of bouncing bottoms. It was terribly jolly, and made me laugh underwater, which is not something I'd recommend. ( Edited to add a picture, drawn by me. Warning: my drawing is *really* bad. )

Then we came home and I chopped up some really juicy mangoes to make some mango vodka-type-stuff, with the ultimate aim to have mango bellinis with a bit of a kick at some point in a month or so. Quite a lot of the mango fell into my mouth - nomnomnom. I offered some to Ted, but he said, "I only eat chocolate, sweets and pies." Not quite the example one would hope to set to one's students, hrrumph. ^_^

I have to say, I *did* think my post from last week's expedition was pretty comprehensive, as far as posts cataloguing the various swimming offences that inspire pool rage go.

But no.

Tonight, the pool was even busier. And people solved this by...

Walking around in the middle of the lane.

Walking! Around! In the middle of a swimming lane!

I saw three of them at it, on top of last week's mothers meeting, who'd obviously had such a lovely time GETTING IN THE WAY last week that they came back for another go!

What a bunch of plonkers! I KEEL THEM!

And I'm sure I saw someone having a wee.

By the way, thanks for your iPod suggestions - I've cleared enough to keep it going for a bit longer, mainly by removing quite a bit of Ted's stuff that doesn't really rock my socks. (Sorry, Marvin.)

Talking of socks, have any of you tried the M&S black-and-silver-striped numbers they've got in at the moment? I'm wondering if they'd be scratchy, 'cause they're very cute ^_^

You can tell it's the New Year 'cause the swimming pool's filled with tourists.

(By 'tourists' I mean, of course, people who come for a fortnight's break, then head back to their sofas for the rest of the year.)

So to help you avoid them, here is my I-Spy guide to spotting pool tourists at the swimming baths:

• 90 percent of them are women
  You can spot the male tourists 'cause they all have those funny little French sticky-out bellies. (Proper swimmers are either lean and muscular - like Ted - or podgy all over - like me. There is no in between.)


• You can spot the female tourists 'cause they're the ones wearing bikinis
  You can't swim properly in a bikini. The bottoms roll off. Proper swimmers wear black one-pieces with low-cut legs, made by Umbro or Speedo or Arena, often featuring go-faster piping. (It's motivating.) They're not flattering. But then, it's not the beach.


• The women all stick their heads really high out of the water 
  Like coots. And splutter if they get splashed a little. The freaky fish boys (i.e. fast-lane swimmers with webbed hands who zoom along twice as fast as plodders like me) cotton onto this, and start being extra splashy at this time of year. (Thanks, boys. No, really.)
  


• They have their hair and makeup done nicely
  And look outraged if it gets wet. The rest of us squash our hair into Speedo caps and hope our goggles stop our makeup from running down our faces too badly. Honestly. Do they really think that amongst the fish boys and gorilla men*, there are Viable Prospects? And that the pool is an acceptable place to Meet People? Or did Balham Council make Monday night singles night and nobody told me?
  


• They swim in the middle of the lane
  But soon learn to swim along the side (so there's room for people to swim past them in the opposite direction) with a gentle yet well-placed kick as you're passing.


• They swim at 0.0000000000213433mph
  I am *never* the fastest in the slow lane! I'm never the slowest, but *never* the fastest. Except at this time of year, when everyone faster than me (inc. Ted, who should swim there anyway) decamps to the medium lane like rats leaving a sinking ship. You traitors!
  


• Despite swimming so slowly, they need a big rest at the end of every length
  No, not lap. Length. C'mon, people. Swimming for a minute then resting for five isn't actually exercising. You'd expend more energy shopping. Speaking of which, Tesco's and Waitrose are both open late every weekday night. *nudge*
  


• While resting, the women gather in gaggles at the shallow end for a nice chat
  Which is all very well, but this is lane swimming, not a sodding coffee morning. I did ten lengths in the time that one woman was sat chatting at the end tonight. Ten! How are the rest of us supposed to turn round and push off with a mother's meeting at one end of the pool? (And also, swimming? *So* not a team sport.)
  


• They all disappear back to Corrie, chips and their sofas by the end of the month
  And won't be seen again until 2 January 2009.

Same pattern every year; I just want my pool back.
*I swear there was one that had escaped from the zoo tonight. I've never seen so much hair in my life. Eek!

On our way back from the swimming pool, Ted and I passed Burger King. They're advertising an "Angry Burger". Should food ever be angry? We didn't think so. "Grr! I'm an ANGRY burger/soup/jacket potato/raspberry coulis! Watch out! Grr!"

(What was it angry about? The price of fuel? Interest rates going up? Polish burgers coming over and nicking its jobs? That seems to get most Daily Mail readers angry, anyway.)

Talking of the pool, the girls at the desk are hilarious: Mrs Computer Says No and Miss Goldfish Brain. They're a great combo. I shall keep you updated as we get to know them better.

Aside from my endorphin rush (I'm bouncing off the walls - isn't it great when you haven't exercised for a bit and you start again and you get the endorphin spikes that are just so wheeeee!) I am very excited because I snapped up the last two tickets for "War Horse" at the National Theatre. The very last two of the ENTIRE run. No choice on dates! No choice on where to sit! One of the easiest ticket purchases I've made. (Usually I end up switching between the seat chart and the ticket price chart for hours.) But we got some! Phew! And yay!

Oh, by the way, you should all definitely get the Raveonettes' new album, "Lust Lust Lust", which came out today. First reason: "Dead Sound" is mindblowingly fabulous fuzzy shoegazy pop. Second reason: The cover is 3D and it comes with 3D glasses! Does indiepop get any better?

And finally, I've never had Freeview before. Isn't it amazing! I am mainly watching "Dave" and bingeing on QI because I have an embarrassing crush on Stephen Fry.

There were a delightful number of newbies at the pool today ^_^ It's kinda cute, 'cause in January as soon as term starts, they all start to pile into the pool in the evenings. Newbies are easily spotted by the following factors:

• Extreme nervousness when entering the pool area


• Bright swimsuits, long bright trunks or bikinis, clearly bought on holiday (so sweet!)


• Hovering at the shallow end, having a nice chat, pretending they're swimming (guilty as charged)


• Getting disorientated 'cause they haven't worked out the direction their lane swims in (eek!)

Most of them disappear after a week or two, and a couple stay on, usually purchasing goggles and a plain black suit (or digging an old chlorine-rotted one out of the wardrobe) like the rest of us. And to think, I was one of them a couple of years ago. ^_^ I swear, the pool really is a microcosm of humanity. If I could draw, I could get so many cartoon strips out of it.

Work has been truly hectic.

This week, we watched the last of Season 5 of Angel. I cried so much at the end. No more Buffy/Angel! What will I do? Tell me, what will I do? *angst and fingernail biting*

In other news, I believe the patchwork bedspread I bought off ebay has arrived and is at the post office waiting for me. I hope it's nice - it was a bit of a risk...

PS UK peeps, it's 5p listing day on ebay today ^_^

PPS If anyone needs a gmail invite, I have lots.