Making a Splash!
Returning to my local pool after an extended closure for refurbishment, I found myself playing spot the diff erence and feeling disappointed at how little appeared to have changed. I don’t know what I expected, but the plastic gaudy additions to the pool side were more nightmare than oasis!
Swimming round the narrow channel, usually a mass of swirling rapids, I dodged sprays of water spewing from all quarters. Like the aftermath of a Western gunfi ght, it gave the impression of bullets having sprayed everywhere so that walls had sprung leaks and jets seemingly erupted everywhere! Uncharacteristically, I inwardly huff ed as I negotiated the jets and sprays in an attempt to keep my hair dry. (In my defence, I had foolishly forgotten to bring a towel so getting dry was going to take some creativity!) Ten minutes later and resigned to being wet, my opinion of these ugly gargoyles slowly began to change. Picture an eclectic mix of Dr Zeus and Andy Warhol and you’d get an idea of what these brightly coloured weird fi sh-like creatures looked like. With water gushing from their wide-open mouths they had been cleverly positioned to spray two thirds of the water channel. These three plumes of water, injected not just spray but playfulness into a family swim. Circling the jets, a variety of playful reactions could be seen. For some adults, the child within had surely been reignited as they whooped noisily and emerged like swamp monsters from the
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jets. For others, it triggered spontaneous dancing, as they whirled Viennese waltz style round and round with their child on outstretched arms, narrowly missing the water jets. As parent and child spun, their dancing eyes fi xated on each other and the approaching jets, the anticipation and excitement built to a crescendo.
Watching this spectacle, I drank in their squeals of anticipation and delight, eagerly watching them emerge the other side of the jets, dry, sprayed or drenched by the plumes. At times the tension between whether to laugh or cry was palpable, as the shock of the water registered and the child tried to wipe water from their stinging eyes. Then in that space familiar to parents worldwide, somewhere nanoseconds between tears and joy, the magic of the child carer bond kicked in, as with smiling eyes locked upon the child, their worry, fear and stinging subsided and both whooped with delight and glee.
Each circuit of the looping channel elicited more anticipation, surprise and delight. Sometimes the adult plunged themselves into the jets, sometimes the child and sometimes both, but always with the child safe in their arms. Even for those adults (like me) keen to keep their hair dry or who obviously had never recovered from the frightening feeling of being submerged by water, these ugly fountains of fun enabled them to playfully whirl their child into,
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