The mind boggles that the management claims the 'learner pool' is not a 'baby pool' Its considerably warmer than the big pool with a very shallow stepped entrance.
How are you expected to safely carry a baby into the large pool?
Also its far too cold and busy with older kids at the shallow end to feel safe taking a baby in it.
Also, unless kids can swim unattended they are not allowed into the big pool. Ish.
So I Planned to go to the gym today at 6pm - checked the website this morning - checked the easter opening hours download and the times on Google - both show 10pm today. I rang the pool just now to check only to be told they are closing at 6pm.
I asked why the easter timetable showed 10pm and was told that was for Easter next week whatever that means (which is also incorrect as I was told they close 6pm on Monday and the timetable shows 10pm).
Are the staff just deciding to close early or have they again put up wrong information?!! So annoying
Frankly I despair of the way the Pool is run, And the lack of attention to updating the timetables on-line.
To add to my irritation I saw a notice at the desk the other week proudly announcing the addition of six new group classes (or may even have been 7)-out of these only one was scheduled in the evening, and the majority were around 10.30am or certainly during the day.
Which begs the question...what about those of us who work full time?
And also how about 6.30 start times rather than 6pm for the classes that run in the early evening.
If you work in the west-end (and many people do) finish work at 5pm it can still be a real scramble to make it in time for a 6pm class, especially with the long queues invariably waiting to be helped at the desk...Another moan why can't two people man the desk at peak times? The staff really try their best but are often snowed under.
I do wonder who the pool is aimed at-is it those who work from home? stay at home parents? The elderly? either way the timetable is deeply full-time worker unfriendly unless you want to use the gym.
Had the pool been allowed to have become a much larger facility as it was originally designed to do with the integration of the Louise House site, then its likely it would have been better able to increase and maintain the revenue needed to provide better admin. And should I say it larger changing rooms and more frequent clubs. As it stands the proof of the ' pudding' that existed at that time is in the eating. Or should that be lack of seating.
Love that monument to Polish resistance , self sacrifice and history next door - as derelict as post war Warsaw. No change, no development, nada. Love it, SydSoc.
Sherwood Ladywell Baths was replaced by Glass Mill which is a lovely pool but also worker unfriendly unless you work in Lewisham and can swim at lunchtime when they have adult lane swimming. It always seems cleaner than FHP but I don't know if the cleaning staff are more vigilant or the users less likely to litter-possibly a mix of the two. I use it if I'm swimming on a bank holiday like yesterday when my regular pool is closed and if there was adult lane swimming at 6.30 or so would join at once
Roz - are you referring to Louise House in your last paragraph? Or some other building? Because Louise House isn't derelict.
Yes, I gave up on Glass Mill as I was fed up of going and queuing for an age to get in and then the timetable being wrong.
Then there was the lane swim which consisted of a single, narrow lane for the lane swimmers, which they were sharing with children trying to play.
I wish it wasn't necessary for so many swimmers to wear goggles, particularly the ones with dark lenses. The trouble, it makes it very difficult to interact with them - to exchange a cheery smile or greeting, to apologise when one gets in their way or inadvertently brushes against them. They seem to be staring back at you like fierce voodoo idols. (I'm sure they're all very nice underneath.)
I understand of course that some people have sensitive eyes and need to wear goggles. Perhaps the answer for someone to devise a system of hand signals which we could use to communicate with each other in the pool. One for 'sorry, my fault', one for 'don't mention it', one for 'please go ahead, you're faster than me', one for 'Nice to see you', etc.
I'm not keen on interaction with strangers in the swimming pool, particularly from men with goggles on. Men with dark or mirrorred goggles are even more suspicious. That said in everyone's defence I think the front desk only stocks those goggles as I've inadvertently bought them there and wasn't keen.
Loigal, summer must be a nightmare with all those men in sunglasses
Actually, it's the women in goggles, not the men, who really frighten me.
I can't see if anyone's looking at me anyway without my glasses. Prescription goggles would aid communication for me.
I find the only ones looking at me at the pool have a look of abject horror or are armed with a harpoon.
Hahaha Londondrz! I was going to say similar.., i dont make eye contact, just hold my stomach in and do the walk of shame to a cubicle as quickly as i can!
On crowded days I am tempted to wear a very small pair of budgie smugglers, sure to clear the pool in seconds.
If you are ever there in the early morning and see a little 5ft nothing girl doing her thing, wearing mirrored goggles, that would be the missus. Very friendly and approachable, and fluent in scuba diving hand signals
So if you want to learn a few, maybe you can have small exchanges.
I have to admit, I'm not one for wanting to engage too much with strangers wearing very little either lol, but can see your point.
(note the lenses)
I wear goggles with prescription lenses when I go to the pool. They're really good and I hate getting significant amounts of chlorine in my eyes. I wouldn't be able to swim properly without goggles.
Strange how people are so much more guarded in communicating with strangers in the pool than they would be in the street, even non-verbally.
If you swim regularly at the same times, as I do, you tend to get on at any rate nodding terms with people who swim at the same time (although with much more difficulty if they wear goggles, because it' s much harder then to exchange a smile.)
Lane swimming with people one doesn't know is actually potentially quite a fraught social situation. I at any rate am always anxious about colliding with people, brushing against them in what in other contexts might be seen as inappropriate ways, or inconveniencing them by swimming too fast or too slow ('This is meant to be the FAST/ MEDIUM/ SLOW lane, you know!', I'm always expecting someone to say angrily.) It is much easier to defuse the potential aggro in those sort of situations if one is able to communicate with those concerned in a quick and informal way. Goggles make that difficult, in my experience.