Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Aqua Alfresco

I can’t believe that I’ve been working in central London for over three and a half years and this was the first time I’d gone for a swim in my lunch break. I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner.

The pool is less than 10 minutes walk from the office and complete with free hairdryers, making it just about doable in an hour. But better than that, it has an outdoor pool.

Swimming outdoors is so much better than swimming inside. Even though the London air isn’t the cleanest, it still feels so much fresher. It was a wonderful sensation. It has been an overcast day with frequent outbreaks of rain (I could be a weather forecaster!) but I was disappointed that it didn’t rain during my time in the pool, because I would have loved the experience of swimming in the rain. I’m not entirely sure whether the outdoor pool remains open during rain showers, but given the unpredictability of our weather, I think it must.

I’m rather smitten with the whole place. It is pretty shabby and the pool is overlooked by the rest of the leisure centre and what look like council flats, all ugly Brutalist concrete structures that I find oddly reassuring.



I intend to go back again tomorrow and for once I’m hoping for rain.

2 comments:

Roses said...

Did you go back? Did it rain?

SandDancer said...

Yes, I've just been again, but no rain. It was sunny today so a bit busier but I still had a good swim.