It is finally Spring!
I am so pleased that it
is time for the clocks to move forward.
This is definitely the most wonderful time of the year for me, when the
sun is slightly higher in the sky, a little bit warmer on the skin and the days
have that crisp fresh spring feel to them, especially the mornings when I am able to sit
outside with my cup of tea contemplating the day ahead. Also exhilarating is that feeling of suddenly
needing to wash the curtains, clean out the cupboards and get the garden ready
for the summer, the unexpected desire to paint a particular room a lighter,
sunnier colour and the urge to tidy the drawers and pack the woolly jumpers
away to be replaced by linen trousers, t-shirts and flouncy flowery and
colourful blouses.
Growing up in the
southern hemisphere means that the seasons were opposite to the UK. So where I now love spring in April, as a
child it was September. But the feeling
was still the same and I vividly recall the squeals of excitement on the first
day of September when the swimming pool gates opened for the first time after
the cold winter months. Nothing ranked
higher in importance than that fact, for it meant life returned to the normal
cycle of rolling your towel up into your swimming bag with clean underwear,
putting your bathing costume on under your school uniform (no point mentioning the
difficulties that created for us girls during the day!) and then walking-running
the odd mile after school to queue up with your friends in front of the entrance gate
outside the brick walled paradise that was our town pool, twitching with
excitement as the joyous squeals of children already splashing in the
gloriously crystal clear blue water and running around on the grass, feet
covered in leaves and dry grass cuttings, before plunging back into the
refreshing water, drifted across the top of the wall sending little darts
of excitement through each one of us as we fidgeted with our coins ready to buy
our very important little rectangular paper ticket, torn from the large roll on the counter, wondering why it was taking
so long for the queue to move, some of us already in several states of undress so that
we could dump-and-run the minute our feet reached the inner perimeter.
The only outdoor pools
I've experienced in the UK have been the Lido in Finchley and the Hampstead
Heath Ponds, neither of which I so much as poked a hesitant toe in, although my
husband frolicked with that bravado only men of a certain age seem to be able
to find in themselves faced with either the prospect of diving in and making the
full show of having fun or making the dry-bodied walk of shame back to the
seating area, unable to face the prospect of the ice-cold mind-numbing
wallow. But the enjoyment of the experience
itself is in being surrounded by the sounds of splashing water and laughter,
the smell of the chlorine, the sunshine (sometimes) and always the squeals of
excitement from the children as they arrive, their eyes sparkling with anticipation.
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