Being real water babies, or so I thought, the girls had been nagging me to take them swimming. Ignoring my lame protests that we go swimming in Abu Dhabi and do other things in England I eventually promised them that on the next sunny day I'd take them to the Guildford lido. Inevitably, the day came when, faced with a blue sky innocently potted with white fluffy clouds and children dressed hopefully in swimmers and goggles, I could resist no longer. Built in the Thirties, an era of mass public pool openings aimed at entertaining the domestic holiday market, Guildford lido is one of only 31 survivors from the original 169 built that decade. I have to say that despite the expanse of concrete, the 50-metre pool and accompanying ankle-deep rectangular baby pools were impressive and the huge stretch of sloped grass, well covered with picnicking families, more than made up for the lack of beach.
My youngest was the first in, but my moment of "go girl" pride as I watched her launch herself into the chilly water was shattered by the ensuing panic among the army of teenage lifeguards. Whistles blew, someone waved and shouted something unintelligible through a megaphone, and a couple of young bucks sprinted to where my youngest had made her maiden dip. "She's too young to go in unaccompanied!" yelled a too-shocked to be sanctimonious lifeguard.
I smiled indulgently, "I know she's small, but she is four-and-a-half and we live in a hot climate. She's been swimming for years," I finished proudly. The lifeguard was unimpressed so I instructed my youngest, who was clinging onto the side, to show the nice gentleman how well she could swim. Reluctantly she did a few lame arm flaps and then scrambled tearfully out of the pool. The lifeguard was unconvinced, but eventually agreed I could supervise her in the first few feet of the shallow end of the pool. Which, as it turned out, was unnecessary since my youngest, bluish and shivering, refused to get back into the water, complaining it was far too cold.
The eldest played around in the shallows for a while, but 10 minutes after our arrival, the swimming was over and we relocated to the grass. Watching them race around and frolic in the endearingly cute way little girls do I convinced myself, prematurely, that the outing wasn't a total washout. But somehow, in the way only the British weather can, the sun suddenly disappeared and it started spitting. I moved to a musty old open pavilion and with increasing boredom I watched them play. Thankfully, after a stinging-nettle incident, my suggestion to decamp to Starbucks was eagerly accepted.
"Mummy, swimming isn't the same in England," my eldest said diplomatically. Her sister agreed and less diplomatically made me promise never ever to take her to that pool again. I guess some childhood memories are best left undisturbed.
