Mermaid

As a child, my main ambition was to become a mermaid.

That ambition has sadly (but perhaps unsurprisingly) been unfulfilled, and typically for me, I feel terrible disappointment with myself for this. Its not enough for me that I’m a decent swimmer – I’ve failed to become a mermaid. The same with my job –I work in an interesting enough area and I worked really hard to get here, but because I’m not running the Tate or the NT, I feel like a failure.

Anyway, whilst I haven’t swapped my legs for a scaly tail, I did go swimming this morning before work. I’ve been loving London in the last few days, when the sun has been out, it all looks beautiful and I'm really pleased I live here. But the best thing is seeing the sunlight hit the water in the swimming pool. Ok, so its a public leisure centre, not a private pool or a blue sea, but its still one of my favourite things in the world. This morning, they had removed the divider between the two pools, to make one enormous pool and I loved how it looked, and how much room I had when I was swimming up and down, unbothered by the other swimmers.

I felt relaxed, happy and very near to being a mermaid.