April 14: Swimmers

In Sydney's Botanical Gardens, there is a pool. The Andrew Boy Charlton pool. The most glorious spot to wallow in lush warm water under an Australian skin-cancer sun. When I went there on holiday, a few years back, that's what I did. Wallowed. And marvelled at all the strong-armed Ozzy swimmers. One day I went and it was 'gay day' - tight speedos in myriad fluorescent colours, all throbbing for attention.
Today - in Bristol - I could have been back there. It was so glorious and hot and by some extraordinary swimming stroke of luck, there was no work to do. I went to Clifton Lido - an outdoor heated pool tucked away among the pricey town houses. The last time I was there was on New Year's Day in an 'must-enjoy life before my operation' way. I took my seven-year-old niece as a treat. Treat, did I say? It was so eye-wateringly cold she refused to get in until I told her off and said she had no choice but to suffer it as I'd paid £8 for her (evil aunty).
This time, it was fantastic. Just a few swimmers lapping up and down, eye-witnesses clinking their wine and eating their tapas around the pool, couples thinking they were in Finland and sitting round in their robes. It was certainly no 'gay day' but there was one he/she person - a definite man's body but with boobs and luminous pink lipstick which is always a give-away - doing an odd kind of backstroke, face up-turned towards the sun. Sydney, I thought. Who needs Sydney? Life is perfect, just here, just as it is.