The Book of Enitharmon

It's too cold and miserable to run today, so I went for a swim instead.

Normally I enjoy my swim, but today was one of those days when everything goes wrong, I don't get the support I think I deserve, and I end up feeling angry, frustrated, and cheated.

First of all was the older bloke who wasn't going to let anybody or anything interrupt his rhythm. When somebody is in my path I slow down and/or take evasive action. Every time this clown passed me or crossed he kicked me. When he approached a turn just behind me he barged me out of the way. I complained to a young lifeguard who attempted to speak to him at the end of his length, but the guy just ignored him. Eventually I waited for him to finish a length and then obstructed him so he was foirced to stop. He whinged about having only two lengths to go until his fifty, and I said I wasn't stopping him swimming fifty lengthys, just asking him to stop and speak to the lifeguard as he had been swimming dangerously. He muttered something about me getting in his way, and swam off again. I asked the lifeguard if he was going to take action. The lifeguard said he wasn't, and he wasn't going to talk to me any more. I asked to speak to his line manager and he just walked away.

So I went to find the manager, and discussed the matter with him. He had a quick word with the lifeguard and the guy in the pool, but it didn't sem to be any form of reprimand.

And then there were a bunch of kids in the pool. Now, we've only just had half term, and Easter is still a month away, so presumably these kids were twagging off school. I had resumed my swim and these lads were jumping off the end, once deliberately right in front of me. I complained again to the lifeguard, who told me that they were entitled to do this. One of the kids - an Ed Grundy lookalike (I don't know what the car-thieving, drug-dealing, burgling, wife-and-child-stealing oik fom The Archers looks like but I imagine him to hava a long face, a short intellect, acne and no sense of his own worthlessness, just like the lad in the pool) - then started to shout abuse. I left the pool again to complain. The kid got out too, and went to throw a punch at me. He was led away. A huddle of staff gathered around me. It was all my fault, appaently.

Grrrrr!