Apart from spending hours training up and down the black line, it was my playground every weekend and moment I could spare. So I could easily spend a whole day at the pool and just go home when I got too hungry.

Of course if you’re spending all day at the pool, what does a girl take to play with. Well everything possible to ensure the best day ever. I would pray every night that I would wake with gills, but that never happened. So, I made up for that with taking equipment to the pool.

I would see how big a splash I could make bombing off the blocks at the deep end, I would see how far underwater I could swim until I nearly blackout.

I’d have picnics under the tables like a cubby house, run and land standing up onto a boogie board and see how far I could skim down the pool, float around the pool in a donut, play crocodiles in the baby pool until we got asked to leave, play handball on concrete that was too hot, do handstands and walk around on my hands, talk to my friends underwater trying to guess what they said, dive for coins which had fallen out of pockets during the day and the best fun was eating way to many Bertie Beetles after they melt in the sun.

Ah the good ole days!  I’d go home when the pool closed with eyes so red and stinging from the chlorine and no goggles that everything was foggy. I never seemed to mind as I would turn up the next day at opening time to do it all again.