……

I have been swimming 30 laps in our swimming pool (well, poolette) regularly…and my timing has improved from 45 min to 35 min over the months. So of course my personal Hitler (well, Hitlerette, she is PETITE) said, I hope you continue for 45 min? Of course not…nothing will make me do more than 30 laps! So now, by swimming from one corner to the diagonally (of course if I was Harry Potter it would be Diagon Alley) opposite corner of the pool, I have managed to make my 30 laps last nearly 40 minutes. Oh, the trouble the lazy can take to avoid exerting themselves!

And since I keep losing track of the no. of the laps (especially, since I am now either missing the corner, or cracking the side with my head and arms as I do the back stroke–“12, 12, 12    =glub=   was that 12 or 13?”), I keep track of  the laps now in both increasing and reducing numbers…30-1, 29-2, and so on, chanting the numbers to myself…I bet no one is as weird a solitary swimmer as I am.

And don’t forget that the back stroke helps keep away boredom as I check out my neighbours’ balconies and the people peering down from them, the darkening sky overhead, the pigeons lining our building, the handsome  pariah kites wheeling overhead and the crows occasionally mobbing them , the mynahs,  and the occasional flight of rose-ringed parakeets…I also bet I am the only bird-watching swimmer….

And also…I am the only swimmer whose paunch hasn’t come down at ALL after such regular swimming. Huh. I have a very fit paunch!