It's times like this that I remind myself that swimming really is a rather pleasant way to spend one's time, and that I should probably try and get back into the habit of going to one of the local pools near me. It's good exercise, after all, isn't dependent on the weather, and is something that, while I am consistently fairly poor at it, I do actually rather enjoy when I'm engaging in it.

My trouble is that most of the pools near me have something or other "wrong" or at least offputting about them. The place I used to go in the town centre has changed hands multiple times, and as often happens when this occurs, the general upkeep of the facility as a whole has… not been great. This is probably still my best bet, though.

Out of the others, there's one very close to me that puts me off by the fact that you need 20p to use the lockers and the lockers don't give you your fucking 20p back when you're done. That's right! In an age where pretty much none of us carry around cash any more — let alone pocket change — someone made the bright decision to install lockers that consume your money permanently, rather than your coin effectively acting as a "deposit" that you get back when you leave. There's nothing stopping you bringing your stuff and putting it by the side of the pool while you swim, I guess, but I'm always wary of leaving stuff relatively "unguarded" like that for various reasons — not only because of the risk of someone walking off with it or interfering with it, but also for a staff member thinking it might be a bomb or something. I'm not sure why someone would want to bomb the swimming pool on the former site of a local primary school, but who knows why anyone does anything these days?

My other alternatives are a health club in Portswood that has reviews that vary from "this is the most disgusting place I have ever been in, and I used to drink in Jesters" to "this is an amazing place and you should definitely come here", and a David Lloyd club that is relatively close to where I live, but which charges something like a minimum of £110 per month for an exceedingly basic membership that I probably wouldn't get my money's worth from. The pool there is apparently the best in the area, though; little surprise if no-one can afford to use the fucking thing.

Oh, there's also the university swimming pool, which is actually really nice, but being on a highly active education and community campus, the times when the public can come along and use it are extraordinarily limited. Also it's a bugger to park at the university.

So I dunno. My best bet is probably just sucking it up (not literally) and going back to the one in the town centre, because I'm sure it can't be that bad, surely, can it? I don't know. Only one way to find out, I guess — but not something to worry about right now, since I have a very nice pool just five minutes' walk away for the next few days, so I shall continue to enjoy that at my leisure.

Tomorrow we have no plans. Hopefully Andie will be feeling a bit better by then, but if not, I'm certainly not averse to just relaxing in the lodge as we have been. We've seen squirrels and birds and a wild cat today, so that was nice — and now I'm going to go and play Super Mario Galaxy for the rest of the evening.

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The post #oneaday Day 825: Today is quiet appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.