4th April. Hasta la Vista, Baby!

Thirty-two minutes to swim sixty lengths and that was after colliding with an exchange Spanish pupil messing about somewhere near the deep end.

These bored teenagers had probably been dumped at the Leisure Pool by their host families in full knowledge that the main pool with all the exciting flumes and splashy things shuts up shop at 8pm.

So there they are in the so-called Training Pool getting in the way of serious swimmers and arthritics who just want to go up and down the lanes.

Secretly I'd already decided that I was just going to plough willy-nilly into any child that got in the way and let the authorities deal with the fallout. At the point of impact I thrust the errant Spaniard downwards, and in effect swam over the top of him, which in retrospect seems a little unfeeling.

After that though, the lane I happened to be in stayed fairly clear apart from an overweight woman who was mostly getting her breath back at either end of the pool.