How to make the swimmer in your life happy*

This beautiful pic of Tooting Lido was taken on 20/11/11  by @JPDBuckley.

A work in progress.

(I've updated this once, but please carry on contributing your suggestions, either via comments here, or tweet me @jennylandreth and I’ll add them if I like them, and they’re not illegal.)

‘You’re SO DIFFICULT to buy for’ is usually nonsense. It translates as ‘Just tell me. I’m too lazy or stupid to have picked up clues or to apply my brain. If we’re honest, I barely know you, because all the time you were talking, I was dreaming about Sarah Lund’.

And just because I can swim doesn’t mean I want another copy of Wild Swim, nice as it is. That was last year’s glut. Then there’s the swimming stuff that will never scream GIFT.  Buying someone nose clips or mouldable ear wax is like buying a woman Tampax. It’s necessary but never a treat, not even for someone with a worryingly irregular cycle. It doesn’t show you’re intuitive and resourceful and have been taking careful notes. It’s a sign you forgot, and went to the late night chemist.

So, I’ve made a start on a list of things that swimmers might like for Christmas. If you’re buying for a swimmer, it might cut out the possibility of that gritted-teeth ‘you know me so well’.  If the swimmer in your life is you, give this list, appropriately highlighted, to someone who either loves you, or is cashed up sufficiently to pop a little summat under your tree.

Doing a Janet

JANET ADEGOKE  POOL

Bloemfontein Road


Shepherds Bush
London
W12 7DB

020 8735 4900


Added bonus: The receptionist.

Minus points for: really stinking loos and shower

You could also: visit Westfield. Or stick pins in your eyes.

When I said to Adam ‘let’s do Janet’, I had no idea how prescient that comment was. He knew what I meant - to my knowledge there’s no other pool in the world named after a Janet, unless there’s a Janet Street Porter Pool somewhere? Imagine the fulsome joy of that, if you must. The late Janet Adegoke was the first black woman in  London to become a mayor –  Hammersmith and Fulham, since you ask; that's her in the pic - she looked nice, eh. This version of the pool was built in 2006, as part of Phoenix Leisure Centre, which leads one to presume it rose from ashes.

The entrance to the centre is not glamorous on this dark eve, it feels like a little turning that might take you to a car boot sale. But the winged structure of the new build flings some modern light into the gloom. The reception is standard, but the receptionist was not, she was very cheery. I tried to pay with a ‘schwim cap’ that my sis had given me, but the hour was too late, so I handed over £3.70 which, having paid over a fiver in some places, I figured then was quite cheap. In retrospect, they should knock a quid off for the stench from the showers.

Stating the obvious (x2)

HAMPTON POOL

High Street

Hampton, Middlesex TW12 2ST

020 8255 1116
I found this pic on Flickr - it's by Luca Patriccioli. Hope he doesn't mind the borrow.

Added bonus: hot outdoor steam

Negative points: You’d have to be hard-pushed or very pernickety to find something negative about this pool. Fortunately,  I am both of those things. Narrow lanes.

I was going to save this pool for the Xmas/New Year break, as if I was giving you all a little gift, because we swim here then en famille* – as an escape from that ‘oh god if we just keep eating we’re going to die’ feeling. Lots of other families do the same, which tells you two things. 1: it’s very very busy with small people at that time and 2, we are not the only ones who need the momentary escape from en famille* that being underwater brings. No one can ask you for more cake underwater. But you’ve all been so good this year you can have it early.

I don’t want to upset anyone, so I'm going to tread carefully. (Ha ha ha, I don't care about upsetting anyone, couldn't actually give a shit, this is my blog and if you get upset, I look forward to reading about it on your blog.) There is much that is positive about this place, so I can understand why it inspires the pool love. And outdoor pools have much more loyal fans than their poor indoor relations can muster. But I am worried they might fight me if I'm mean, with their strong swimmy arms.  If someone came on here and started being mean about Tooting Lido I might offer them outside (chorus: you already are outside, you loon). Bearing all that in mind, I’m putting on an armour-plated swim hat.

Nearly-night swimming

JUBILEE LEISURE CENTRE

Caird Street

London W10 4RR

020 8960 9629

Interesting to note: One of my fave UK lidos – Penzance - is also called Jubilee. YAAAWWNNN. 

Added bonus: Indoor sunbathing

Negative (for me): Men’s changing is better than women’s.

I’ll clarify that negative immediately before you start getting ideas: I went to this pool with my friend Adam, who took the task of assessing the men’s changing rooms very seriously. ‘I tried out the hairdryer on your behalf’ he said ‘and I think your readers will be pleased to know it works’. Adam reported that the men’s changing area was extremely nice, very well tiled, clean, and with plenty of ‘gunk’ in the showers. I think he meant shower gel. I hope he meant shower gel. Adam reckons that of all the local authority pools he’s visited, these changing rooms are the best; however, he recommends you (men) wait a few weeks before visiting, until they have the lockers sorted, as he had to carry his work suit round after swimming and it got wet. Fortunately it was dark when we walked back to the tube so no one could see his damp bits.

When I win the lottery ...

CALLY POOL

229 Caledonian Road

London N1 0NH

020 7278 1890

Added bonus: A proper greengrocer on Caledonian Rd, the fruit and veg not in stupid plastic bowls. Pomegranites 49p. What a full service I offer.

Negative: Someone said recently that I wasn’t having much luck on this blog lately. And so it continues.

I used the walk down from Caledonian Rd tube station to contemplate bacon sandwiches and freedom, as the road goes past Pentonville Prison, and the café opposite it – The Break Out, ha ha -  smelled deliciously fried baconly greasy. And maybe because I’d walked past the high-up tiny-paned grime-covered windows of the jail, my first thought as I saw Cally Pool was that it would be the perfect location for exterior shots for a TV drama set in an asylum seekers detention centre. The building equivalent of a body-double. 

In reception, the open entrance to the men’s changing room seems practically on the street, and you can see the learner pool immediately. A school party was coming in behind me, but I felt relaxed, they would be in that pool, not mine.  I went through to change, and my heart, that had sunk at the horrible blue corrugated box exterior, sank a bit more.

Memories of Wyndley

PUTNEY LEISURE CENTRE

Dryburgh Rd

Putney, London SW15 1BL

Phone 0208 785 0388

Added bonus: I parked free on the road outside. (You may have no idea what a bonus this is. It’s a big bonus.)

Negative: Someone said of this blog ‘it’s all getting a bit autobiographical, isn’t it?’ as if me including stuff about myself could possibly be a bad thing. I’m sussing out as I go along how much swimming has featured in my life - more than I thought, and sometimes obliquely. This is the only blog in the world that includes bits about me, which some people would say is a damn shame*. However, if you don’t like the bits about me, don’t read this blog.

*No actual people would say that. 

The shallow end of the pool was jumping, an aquarobics class in full swing, water sloshing and bouncing along to UH-OH YES! I’m the GREAT! Pre-te-hen-der-der-der-der-der-der-der-der …and the lifeguard leapt into action. I’m glad to say I’ve never seen one move so fast. She was off that high chair quicker than I could say ‘oh fuck, bad timing’ and managed to de-stick the CD  before any of the class went into some dreadful low-nrg hypnotic state and slipped under water requiring actual saving.

Taking the pulse

PECKHAM PULSE

10 Melon Road 
Peckham

London, SE15 5QN

Tel: 0844 893 3888

Added bonus: there isn’t one. Oh yea, I parked for free because the machine was broken. Probably still is, but I can’t offer a guarantee.

Negative: You could say that.

Welcome to the Peckham Pulse Healthy Living Centre! This isn’t just swimming! This is HEALTHY LIVING, people! The whole thing, you know, all the healthy living stuff. Time to GET WITH THE PROGRAMME.

Or, better, go and look at the library next door (pic above) which was award-winningly architected, then hop a bus and go up the road to Camberwell Baths instead.