Swim In Poo

In the spirit of new year new me I have dragged my blubbery carcass to the swimming baths for the first time in possibly seven or eight years. I can say categorically that nothing has changed. The smell of chlorine and wet dust and wee permeates the air and the slapping sound of people slipping on their nylon clad arses en route to the showers can be heard regular as clockwork. I now have a two year old excuse to belly flop the large floats but it has to be said that there has always been a two year old deep inside me screaming to get out and a trip to the baths is like unleashing the dragon.

I can remember swimming lessons from junior school being a torturous affair with a gaggle of girls all fighting over who didn't want to stand next to the kid with psoriasis and skid marks. I also remember the two PE teachers who took us never, and I mean NEVER EVER getting their kit off and getting in the god damn pool. I imagine I'm an olympic standard swimmer when I'm fully clothed and standing on the side.

I also remember a girl called Lisa doing the 50 metre backstroke with one pre-pubescent boob hanging out of her costume and no one telling her in case she failed her badge.

I still take my towel to the side of the pool to reduce the time spent in full view to an absolute minimum, although my costume is now a regulation nylon Reebok rather than something that looked like my gran knitted it. I still hate putting my head under the water or getting my hair wet (I heard a rumour that if you dye your hair the chlorine can turn it green and I'm not about to prove them right) and I still end up next to the skid mark psoriasis kid only he's put on fifteen stone and now has a back like a gorilla.

The moral of the story? That some life experiences will never let you mature beyond the age of twelve? That these things exist to force humility even on those with the perfect ten (they're the ones who have a wedgy but you decide not to tell them) or that the slings and arrows of childhood scar us for life?

I used to pass a leisure centre to and from work every day where the local scroats would rearrange the letters on the side that should have read 'SWIMMING POOL' but would often read 'SPIMMING WOOL' or my particular favourite 'SWIM IN POO'

I don't swim there, don't think I ever will.

A poem like what I have wrote

Separated at birth were we,
Who face each other across this table,
Not recognising the women we see
Unable to keep our hands stable
Or our eyes still.
It was all beyond our will
So out of control.
They stole her from me, me from her
As if we wouldn't mind
As if our kind are immune,
But when our eyes met we knew
That the years meant nothing
And we had never truly been apart
In our hearts,
She was me all along, and I her.

8 Second Abs

Dear Sir/Madam

Having ordered the '8 Second Abs' system
from your website, I was hoping for a full
refund as it is not what I expected.

Yours Sincerely

My Other Life

A little melodramatic perhaps, got people thinking I run swinging parties from my garden shed, nothing so risque I'm afraid. My other life (the time left once my working day is done, my two year old is in bed and I've loaded the dishwasher) currently revolves around MMORPG, namely one MMO. Must I stand in a room with others like me, raise my hand, usher myself to my feet and in the feeble voice of a hardened addict tell the room in no uncertain terms that "My name is Sharon, and I play World of Warcraft."

Mine is not a tale a woe, mild husbandly neglect perhaps but certainly not a life to pitied. My husband has been into MMO's since we met and I entered our marriage with my eyes wide open, knowing I was to be his second wife (at the time I think Earth and Beyond was his first love) and as the old addage goes 'if you can't beat em, join em' so I did.

It may have started with an alt on his account, a weekend gamer who only really got online when he was either a) at work or b) at football but times have changed. I was never one to follow the soaps or to give a monkey's ass who won Big Brother, but I can often be found charging through Alterac Valley on a white tiger (as my mate Los would say) just for 'shits and giggles.'

Is this a monkey I want removed from my back? Is there something wrong with talking to people from all over the world while dancing on the mail box in your pants? The fact that I can write that sentence and know someone, somewhere is smiling to themselves and saying 'Yeah, I do that sometimes too."

It would be interesting, however, to see how many other WoWWags are out there, wives and girlfriends who have got into gaming because frankly there was nothing on the tele and he sounded like he was having way too much fun upstairs alone. In my experience these husbands and boyfriends have unleashed two headed monsters on the gaming community, girls who won't show their helm because it clashes with their hair colour, then can be found at three in the morning leading a forty man (and woman) raid on Ogrimmar.

"What tangled webs we weave." Said the black widow, wiping her lips daintily with a napkin.