Diving In
Thank you all for your comments while I've been in Tenby (and I'm still there, using my slooooow laptop!)
Here’s a photograph, taken by Stephen, of my mother, aged eighty-three and a quarter, diving into the Park Hotel open-air pool earlier this week. Health and Safety have insisted on several No Diving notices as the pool is only about four feet six deep, but my mother has been diving into it for over forty years so pays them no attention at all.
“There’s a photo of you diving in, and I’m going to put it on my blog,” I told her.
“But is it a good dive? Are my legs straight? Are my toes pointed?” she enquired.
“Actually, Mum, the bit that interests me most – ignoring the strange shower cap that you’re wearing – is the fact that you’re eighty-three and a quarter. Not many people of that age go round diving into pools, let alone open-air ones.”
But my mother is, exercise-wise, quite a phenomenon. Here’s what she did today.
She started the day with fifty lengths of the hotel pool before breakfast. It’s about half the size of a municipal pool, so about twenty-five lengths of an ordinary-sized pool – at least half a kilometre. She swims quite fast, back crawl mostly, and you have to yell at her to stop her bumping her head at the end of every length, which is quite tricky as she’s pretty deaf.
Then after breakfast we all walked the mile or so down from the hotel to Tenby Harbour, and caught a boat to the beautiful Caldey Island. We walked across to the other side of Caldey – about a mile – round lots of pretty footpaths and coves for another mile or so, and then a mile back to the boat for the trip back to Tenby (and oh, glorious sunshine, glorious it was). Though none of the paths was flat and some were very steep.
On the way back to the hotel Stephen and I had to buy a few things in Tenby and my mother didn’t fancy this: she hates all shopping. She had thoughtfully brought her swimsuit and towel with her so left us to our shopping in order to swim in the sea for half-an-hour or so, and then climbed the steep cliff path back to the hotel. Finding me now swimming in the hotel pool, she put her costume straight back in and did another twenty-five lengths before dinner.
After dinner we all went down the cliff path, along the beach for half a mile or so, back up the cliff and back to the hotel.
When my mother was sixty-eight she had quite a major stroke and it took her about a year, but she made nearly a full recovery. She reckons it’s slowed her down a bit, though.
In her youth my mother was captain of Leeds University hockey team – she loves all those competitive sports that I don’t like at all. But exercise-wise, she’s amazing. But because she’s my mother, I tend to take it for granted. And I do know that part of it is down to good luck – because the Communist, who has always kept pretty active himself, now can’t walk at all at the age of eighty-three and three quarters.
As soon as I get back from Tenby – where I too have done lots and lots of swimming and walking – I’m going straight back on the cross-trainer, and straight back to the swimming pool. I’ve got half my mother’s genes, and I’m going to put them to good use.
A few of you commented on my mother's rescue of a little boy in the sea earlier this week so I thought I'd write a bit more about her.
Here’s a photograph, taken by Stephen, of my mother, aged eighty-three and a quarter, diving into the Park Hotel open-air pool earlier this week. Health and Safety have insisted on several No Diving notices as the pool is only about four feet six deep, but my mother has been diving into it for over forty years so pays them no attention at all.
“There’s a photo of you diving in, and I’m going to put it on my blog,” I told her.
“But is it a good dive? Are my legs straight? Are my toes pointed?” she enquired.
“Actually, Mum, the bit that interests me most – ignoring the strange shower cap that you’re wearing – is the fact that you’re eighty-three and a quarter. Not many people of that age go round diving into pools, let alone open-air ones.”
But my mother is, exercise-wise, quite a phenomenon. Here’s what she did today.
She started the day with fifty lengths of the hotel pool before breakfast. It’s about half the size of a municipal pool, so about twenty-five lengths of an ordinary-sized pool – at least half a kilometre. She swims quite fast, back crawl mostly, and you have to yell at her to stop her bumping her head at the end of every length, which is quite tricky as she’s pretty deaf.
Then after breakfast we all walked the mile or so down from the hotel to Tenby Harbour, and caught a boat to the beautiful Caldey Island. We walked across to the other side of Caldey – about a mile – round lots of pretty footpaths and coves for another mile or so, and then a mile back to the boat for the trip back to Tenby (and oh, glorious sunshine, glorious it was). Though none of the paths was flat and some were very steep.
On the way back to the hotel Stephen and I had to buy a few things in Tenby and my mother didn’t fancy this: she hates all shopping. She had thoughtfully brought her swimsuit and towel with her so left us to our shopping in order to swim in the sea for half-an-hour or so, and then climbed the steep cliff path back to the hotel. Finding me now swimming in the hotel pool, she put her costume straight back in and did another twenty-five lengths before dinner.
After dinner we all went down the cliff path, along the beach for half a mile or so, back up the cliff and back to the hotel.
When my mother was sixty-eight she had quite a major stroke and it took her about a year, but she made nearly a full recovery. She reckons it’s slowed her down a bit, though.
In her youth my mother was captain of Leeds University hockey team – she loves all those competitive sports that I don’t like at all. But exercise-wise, she’s amazing. But because she’s my mother, I tend to take it for granted. And I do know that part of it is down to good luck – because the Communist, who has always kept pretty active himself, now can’t walk at all at the age of eighty-three and three quarters.
As soon as I get back from Tenby – where I too have done lots and lots of swimming and walking – I’m going straight back on the cross-trainer, and straight back to the swimming pool. I’ve got half my mother’s genes, and I’m going to put them to good use.
posted by Daphne at 10:16 pm
1 Comments:
That woman is a disgrace to OAP's everywhere !
Where are the zimmer frame and the surgical stockings, the thick wollen lilac sweaters and large hats ?
What about the knitting and the long rants about loud music and how young people nowadays have never had it so easy ?
Nope, she's not eighty three at all. No, no no. Can't be. It wore me out just reading what she did today and just think, Daphne, if it's in the genes, you've got that to look forward to in 50 years time (oh and a quarter).
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