Swimming pools

[sobrique]

It's a swimming pool.
Not a 'sauntering pool'
Not a 'bimble up and down whilst you chat to your friend' pool.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not what you'd call a good swimmer. I'm not all that fast. I'm getting better than I was, but I fully accept that part of the reason I go swimming is because I'm _not_ in as good a shape as I'd like. So I can hardly complain about anyone else doing the same.

However there are few things more annoying than a couple of women (It's true, in the last two years of swimming 3-4 times per week, I've never seen men do this) swimming side by side up and down the pool whilst yakking. It's invariable 2 (or even 3) people moving at the same speed as the slowest. And slower still because they keep turning around to chunter at each other.

I don't have a problem with you talking to your friends at the swimming pool. I don't have a problem with you swimming slowly. However when you're effectively being a 'rolling roadblock' to EVERYONE ELSE then you're just being rude.

(Oh btw, I found a new icon. Innit great?)

Comments

[ash1977law.livejournal.com]

Damn you Ed! Damn you & your icon!
4 days I was winning for!

[tenuous.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with you. The pool in Rugby even has a designated 'fast' lane, but it seems to make no difference. I'm training for a triathlon and get eternally stuck in the dilemma of wanting to respect others rights to use the pool and my own desire to actually swim more than a dozen lenghts before I run out of time and have to head back to the office.

Asking politely followed by lots of splashing seems to do the trick, though :-)

(I trust you're not going to be using that icon too often?)

[myki.livejournal.com]

Calmly ask them to move. If they don't simply exit the pool, plug in a hairdryer and dropit in the deep end. People are easier to swim around when they are still.

[cbr-paul.livejournal.com]

You're right about the women part - they are the same women who do this exact thing in supermarket aisles too, I guarantee it!

[cbr-paul.livejournal.com]

BTW, are you going to be in London on Saturday?

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Unlikely I'm afraid. It sounds like it'll be fun, but I really need a sedate weekend due to new job :)

[zaitan.livejournal.com]

Curse you Ed. I did not look at the icon at all, just that it was some scrolling text. As soon as I read the bit about your "Great" icon, my heart sank and I realised that I had lost again. Reading your LJ is the worst thing you can do if you do not want to loose.

[elrohana.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right, its incredibly annoying and its always women. I hate it, it drives me mad. I got so fed up of it when I used to swim regularly that I started saying 'excuse me' and 'walking' past them -eventually they get the hint.

[nicolyrezk.livejournal.com]

Oh great balls to your icon, Ed.

[forest-rose.livejournal.com]

Conversely, the thing I really hate is when I'm swimming (not bimbling, not chatting, just keeping myself to myself and swimming some fairly fast lengths) and someone (usually a man) jumps in and does that SPLASH SPLASH LOOK AT ME I'M SWIMMING thing where they plough up and down the pool splashing and kicking everyone who's already in there in an attempt to demonstrate their prowess. These, I suspect, are the same people who zoom past you at traffic lights with souped-up engines, and possibly those little blue lights under their cars.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

This is also annoying.
Personally I tend to assume anyone doing the 'splashsplashsplash' thing is just demonstrating that they can't actually swim very well.

[warmage.livejournal.com]

damn you, you sick and twisted savant. :)

[absintheskiss.livejournal.com]

You are not alone. I don't swim very often but it really annoys me when they do that. Chat in a pub, or swim in the pool, just don't get in my way!

[purp1e-magic.livejournal.com]

I'm the one who goes swimming as a social event. I'll happily loaf about in the pool. I don't go to swim, I go to be in the water. It's good for my back. Just being in the water is pretty dull unless you have friends with you to chat to and stuff.

It's different in a way, though. I generally stick to the shallows and edges, away from 'proper swimmers' who don't need the security of being near that ridge near the edge when they're out of their depth. Also, I'm likely to have Simon clinging on, and I won't take him out of my depth. But if I was getting in the way of proper swimmers, I'd definitely find somewhere else to float about, unless the pool was so busy I just couldn't.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong, I have no problems with loafing around in a pool.
I do so myself not infrequently. It's just ... well if I'm loafing and chatting, I feel I shouldn't be getting in the way of everyone else :)

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

Frankly, your chosen use of the swimming pool as a place to swim up and down doing lengths is no more the "proper" way of using the pool than theirs is.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Clearly it's utterly unreasonable that one would be wanting to swim in a swimming pool. What WAS I thinking!

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

There's nothing unreasonable about wanting to go up and down doing lengths. I didn't say there was. There is something unreasonable about deciding that those people who don't go to grind out lengths are using the pool wrong and should get out of your damn way.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that the people who proceed to form a line across the middle pool such that NO ONE can swim down it are offending me.

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

Because three women are the same width as a swimming pool.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

It is quite easy for 5 people swimming abreast to 'cover' an entire 10m wide swimming pool. People swim in both directions.

[myki.livejournal.com]

I understand your pain Ed. I really do. As it is a public swimming pool you've got to respect that some people are not there to swim up and down. However, they've got to respect that youare there too and they can stand around and laugh like drains somewhere that isn't in the way of those who want to swim. It's not like they can't predict where you're going to swim.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Clearly the solution is for somebody to come along with a lane rope and divide the pool into one half for the length-pluggers and one half for the people who want to do other things.

[myki.livejournal.com]

Either that or we give the lifeguards beanbag shotguns. As a former swimming pool lifeguard I know which I'd prefer.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Then you'd have to employ somebody to dive down to the bottom of the pool at the end of the day and retrieve all the beanbags.

Actually that sounds quite a lot of fun...

[myki.livejournal.com]

You wouldn't have to employ anybody. Just add it to the things you need to do if you want your bronze swimming certificate. I for one am ready if ever I need to save a rubber brick from drowning in crystal clear waters whilst wearing my pyjamas.

[notdan.livejournal.com]

The pool at Warwick uni isn't too bad for this sort of thing, fortunately, though occasionally you get a couple of Chinese lasses who pootle about swimming widths in the shallow end while everyone else is trying to swim lengths. Which is unhelpful, frankly.

[forest-rose.livejournal.com]

Oh, I miss the Warwick pool. I used to go in there every day, pretty much. Would you believe Leicester doesn't have one? This displeases me.

[crashbarrier.livejournal.com]

not very subtle really

[jorune.livejournal.com]

Ahh....

Rats.

[necessitysslave.livejournal.com]

When I was still in school I used to be a quite good swimmer.

I swam in lanes in hitchin swiming pool in the fast lane when there was one and (doing breast stroke) used to overtake some people doing crawl. When for some unknown reason a lady gets into the fast lane who won't put their head under water and starts slowing everybody up I used to "undertake" them. By this I mean ducking underwater and swimming under them and comming up infront of them (must be pointed out I have never kicked or actually made contact with someone when pulling this manuver)

The only form of excersise I was any good at.