Swimming and Smoke

I have been swimming at the outdoor pool at Rouken Glen a few times over the past week and I have been loving it. The pool is heated so it doesn’t matter what the weather is like when I’m swimming, and so far it has been fairly mild anyway, although a keen March wind has sent me hurrying to wrap myself in my towel when I exit the water. I swim my 1000 metres and then get changed under my towelling poncho at the poolside (there are no changing facilities until the sports centre reopens properly at the end of April) and read my book while enjoying a cup of tea from my Chilly flask with a biscuit. How very pleasant.

On Monday Heather came with me as my guest as she is also an enthusiastic swimmer. While the air temperature and surroundings didn’t quite live up to the outdoor swim that we enjoyed in Monaco in 2017, it was still good fun. We had met up with James and Ewan for a stroll round Rouken Glen Park earlier, and then the boys went for a walk at Cathkin Braes during our swim and we all met up back at the house. We are still not allowed to have guests indoors, so we lit the fire pit (for the first time this year!) and had a light lunch followed by coffee and lovely salted caramel cake brought by our guests. James was burning wood from various tree branches that he has trimmed such as the flowering cherry and the last of the Christmas tree. This produced huge plumes of smoke which leaned this way and that, unpredictably due to the lively breeze. We all got pretty smoky and our clothes were absolutely saturated with the rather aromatic smoke. We washed our clothes, but the next day when I went to put on my mask, which had been in one of my pockets, I noticed that it still smelled strongly of the fire pit.