"Even if I got rid of all my problems, I'd just go out and get new ones..."

Swimming pools and long summers
4:28 p.m. on 2004-11-01

Heh. How absurdly chuffed am I that at least three people chose to spend (hours, if they're anything like me) filling in that lyrics questionnaire from last entry?

Anyway... on with the post.

When I was fourteen, I went to the house of a friend of a friend.

This friend of a friend lived in an ordinary, middle class house, about ten minutes walk from my own ordinary, middle class house. Hers was older, Victorian perhaps; an oversized, rambling, red bricked affair with an ample garden full of trees.

Summer was fading into autumn. The leaves were thickly green and heavy, ready to fall. It had been a long, dry season, and the sky was still clear, and the sun still high. A late summer evening.

I don't remember why I was visiting this person's house. I have vague memories, but wouldn't like to guess for fear of being terribly wrong. I don't remember the house, the rooms I passed through or how long I spent there.

I remember, I was with my friend, and this friend of a friend, and she took us down to the bottom of her garden, where the trees were older, grander, and wiser. Across the lawn, down the path, past flower beds rich with dry earth.

She had a swimming pool. About seven metres long, and maybe three wide. A significant size for an average, middle class garden belonging to an average, middle class house.

I thought it was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen. A swimming pool. I *knew* someone with their own swimming pool.

Yes, the pool was unheated. Yes, it had no direct inflow pipe, meaning it could only be filled using a hosepipe and the outdoor tap, left on for a full day or two. Yes, there was a hosepipe ban, meaning that in this hottest of English summers, the pool lay empty, its owners unable to use their one advantage in the war against the warmth.

But this was a swimming pool. A private, full sized swimming pool. In my eyes, only the very rich, and the very American, could have their own pool. It was, in my fourteen year old eyes, the apex of social style.

A foot of stagnant water sat at the bottom of this concrete mausoleum. Brown, wrinkled leaves floated atop its surface. Dead bugs. Unidentifiable bits of flotsam.

The three of us stood there and looked at the pool. After several moments, one of us suggested, "Shall we go in?"

So we did. Slipped off our shoes and socks, rolled up our jeans to our knees, climbed down the steps, and stood in the shallow water.

It was one of the most luxurious experiences I've ever had.

Listening to: Natalie MacMaster "Gravel Shore"

Quote:
Dr. Kavanaugh: "You just busted me like a private!"
Dr. Weir: "Don't be so dramatic. Besides the Air Force doesn't have privates."
Dr. Kavanaugh: "Neither do I, you just cut them off!"

<< >>