‘Come, Aunty Rita.’
The twelve-year-old puts her hand out to the fifty-two-year-old in order to gently guide her to the deep end.
She’s actually my granddaughter but when I first began assimilating myself into Anne’s family, her parents thought ‘Nannie’ was too old a moniker for a forty-something, and now the ‘Aunty’ has stuck with her despite my increasing grey hairs. Rian wants to practise her diving as her swimming class next term will be teaching them all. She doesn’t quite realise that I’m not even a jumper-in, never mind going headfirst. It’s the first time I’ve been in the pool for nearly six months, and I am pleased, at least to manage one length of front crawl without stopping although I’m knackered by the time I hit the wall.
I had only three resolutions at the beginning of 2025, and practising my swimming was one of them. But since I gave up my under-used gym membership back in June, I hadn’t been in the water once, until this day. I need to get back to it more regularly, but perhaps not in January as I’m sure all the sports areas will be packed with resolutioners for the first weeks of the year.
My other sporting resolution: to get down to two hours for a half marathon has also been a fail. Well, a partial fail. I have become a little bit quicker than the previous year, getting consistently into the two hours and teens rather than the two hours and twenties, but I had massively underestimated the difference that ten years can make. That was the last time I tried to speed up my half time, more successfully. It feels so much harder now, just to stay where I am, never mind improve. But, if I don’t keep trying, the inevitable slide into slothfulness will only come sooner. I have Helsby Half in sixteen days with is very undulating. It has come about a bit soon after the season of excess for me to throw all I can into it. But I’ve been getting my long run training in weekly recently so I’ll finish it without dying and it will be a good benchmark for this year. Can I get down to below two hours and ten in 2026? That is the aim.
The final resolution I made last year was to get the first draft of my novel complete. And that one has been managed. For the next two weeks I’m going to get another round of personal editing done and then sending it off to an external editor to pummel into a better shape. That’s a big deal because it means that I’ll have to start forking out some money to back myself. Which means that I will aim to get this book out in some form (probably self-published) this year. It’s a first attempt and it isn’t perfect, but I have put a lot of work into it just to file it away into a drawer, so I’m hoping that some of you will read it and quite like it.
I’m squatting on the side of the slightly raised end platform with my toes curled over the edge. How on earth has this middle-aged woman gone from being petrified of jumping in feet first to contemplating a baby dive. The lifeguard said that he was not allowed to give us tips but if he were practising, he would begin by sitting on the side and tipping himself in and trying to stop the feet from moving until the end. That is quite hard as you have to almost push the feet into the wall because they want to come along at the same time. But I am managing it and getting such a thrill. This squatting is the next step and I can feel my knees shaking. I’m kind of hoping we’ll be called by Rian’s mum to get changed for our family pub lunch but there’s no movement from the gallery. Rian’s been chucking herself in time and time again, not always successfully but fearlessly. For me, it takes many seconds of trying to quieten the panicking brain.
Don’t think, just tip over. Easy.
I do. I dive, and the crash through the surface of the water pushes my borrowed goggles down my face, and my hands reach the bottom, so I know I haven’t belly-flopped at least. It was thrillingly scary and scarily thrilling, and I think I need to try another one just to make sure this first one wasn’t a fluke. It takes just as long to tip over as the first time, but I can do it. And luckily, we’re called to get ready for lunch so I can leave on a high. It has given me such a motivation to get back to practising that swimming again. If nothing else, working those front crawl muscles will improve my stamina, and I may try the occasional tip-over dive for the next time I go swimming with Rian.
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