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Friday 8 April 2016

Great expectations

After the first lesson I had a lot of people to text who were all waiting with baited breath to see if I sank like a stone. I was overjoyed to tell them it was a great lesson and I couldn't wait for next week and at that point (the evening after the lesson), I couldn't.

But, as the week wore on, I started to dread it because I knew I was vested in this learning to swim process. I had paid up for a five lesson block and there was no going back.

I also knew that getting in the pool and putting my face in the water was a great start but I would eventually have to face the deep end and that's where my fear really was.

So, after a fairly uneventful week at work. I did the drive to the hotel again. A particularly nice drive over the Clyde via the squinty bridge and past the SSE Hydro. I always end up being a little bit early which gives the nerves more time to work on me.

In I went past reception, got my towel and locker key, got myself sorted and went through the pool door. This time there was someone else still finishing their lesson, so I sat at the shallow end of the pool and dangled my legs in.  It's a nice warm pool which somehow takes away a bit of the fear. Is fear cold?? I don't know if that's true but it made me feel better anyway.

Soon my teacher was finished with her previous student and made her way over to me. She asks me how my week was, what's been happening and how I'm feeling and I like to be honest so I said I felt more nervous than last week...which was true.

So we started off repeating what we had done the previous lesson. It almost felt like I was starting again. I seemed to have forgotten what I had done last week and the confidence I had gained from the before had gone and I felt the feeling of doom setting in again.

It didn't take long though and I got back to where I was, sticking my head under and blowing out the bubbles. Then we did a bit of floating on my front while I held the teachers hands and in the end I let go. That felt amazing, I could float! Something I completely doubted in my head was actually possible.

Again the lesson ended with a high five and again I headed for the showers with that mini fist pump feeling!

I realised after the second lesson that half an hour in the pool per week wasn't enough and that I would have to practise in between lessons.

I have never been swimming with my family. I have four kids between 5 and 16 and in all those 16 years we have never been swimming together. This is my husbands domain, I'm not part of it at all. So when I announced we were going to go swimming, the kids were happy that I was coming too.

We went to the local pool which is pretty basic. A training pool and a larger 25m pool. No fancy slides or wave machines.....a basic council pool.  The kind I used to hate.

The first thing I noticed when I got in was the stronger smell of chlorine, the smell hit me like a brick. It was also a lot colder than the hotel pool but I expected this so in we went. Luckily, having a 5 year old with me seemed to make it ok to go into the training pool. I think if I had went on my own I would have felt a fraud going in there....all in my head, but its a bit screwed up in there and that's how I think.

This pool has shallow stairs that go in and the maximum depth is 0.9 m. We got in and I naturally gravitated to the side. I felt like my family were looking at me waiting for my party trick, like I was going to swim from one side to the other...that I was cured!

But, no anything I had learned at the lesson in the nice hotel pool didn't seem to transfer to other pools. It all felt so foreign and different and not in a good way. I attempted a bit of a float while holding onto the wall and stuck my head under water a little but mostly I just bobbed about and watched the others. It was a bit of a disappointment.

When we got in the car my son said how nice it was to have me there. I don't think they really noticed what I was doing they were too busy playing. It was enough for him to just have me there. That cheered me up and we decided the following weekend we would go to another pool. This time more of a fun pool and by that time I would have had another lesson and would be more confident.

I also needed a new swimsuit. The 1920's granny look was not cutting it any more.

It was time to get serious......

 love speedo swimsuits and goggles :)

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