I’m not known for my swimming, and neither is Kevin. We have a tendency to stand at one end of a lane and get distracted. Last time we were in the pool we managed eight lengths in 90 minutes.

But today we set ourselves a target. Or, more accurately, Kevin set us a target. Twenty lengths in 45 minutes. A daunting task when you’re more used to wading chest-deep. Once we’d got beyond the first six, though, things seemed to lighten up. Perhaps because the pool was emptying out and the top of the water flattening off. We lost our concentration somewhere around the 12 mark, of course, and after 40 minutes, and a long pause for chatting were still at 14.

Kevin suggested hiding in the steam room until the time was up, but I pushed him on for two more, and then two more, and two after that, and we did our 20 in 46 minutes, truly progressing from the tadpole club into fully-fledged swimmers.

I even feel pretty good, as I did when I got out of the water. There was a time when ten lengths would have killed me, regardless of how much lifting and running I do the rest of the time in the gym. Perhaps it was because I spent the day at home rather than in the office, so skipped the trains and the tubes and the cold air around my desk.

Instead I had sun coming in through the windows; no air conditioning; radio on all day long; unlimited supplies of tea and proper milk to make drinks. Usually I’d say ‘no phone’, too, but I’ve spent the whole day either on the phone or on Aim (or more accurately gaim) talking to the office, so that doesn’t really ring true this time around.

It wasn’t all good, though. I went to buy milk first thing. Seven something, the shops barely opened, then rushed back so I’d be in when the electrician arrived. In he came, complete with window-mounted extractor fan, which he himself had selected, dropped his bags in the bathroom and looked at the window.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘It’s going in the window.’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh. It’s going to need a hole cutting then, isn’t it.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Oh. Hmmm. Let me ring my friend.’

He rang his friend: ‘Are you anywhere near Chelmsford today?’

Apparently his friend was not. That wouldn’t usually be a problem except for the fact it meant the window couldn’t be cut, and if the window couldn’t be cut the fan couldn’t be fit, and if the fan couldn’t be fit then the bathroom wouldn’t dry out and if the bathroom didn’t dry out I can’t repaint it and it continues to look nasty.

I went to turn around my lucky bamboo to face the sun while he rubbed his chin and looked at both sides of the window.

In the end we reached a compromise, which means I now have a fan fully connected and ready to go dangling from a length of electrical cable attached to the ceiling, which itself is in a terrible state. Then he left (he never did drink any tea, so I needn’t have bought the milk) and I hooked out the Yellow Pages to ring round the glasiers.

1. Swim swim swim
   I'm feeling very proud of myself this evening. I went to the gym with a mission, and added twenty lengths onto my swimming record. Now...
   
   
2. Skin
   I woke up at half one. AM. The room was dark but for the eerie red glow of the time projected onto my ceiling. Immediately,...
   
   
3. It’s Raining Men
   After much driving confusion, the evening is spent at Chicagos, which in Chelmsford passes for being sophisticated on account of it having some neon. "It's...