Making Lemonade - 15th July 2013

Making Lemonade

Swimming with my family at Hinksey pool (heated outdoor lido) in Oxford is always a sheer joy. On one occasion a few years ago my husband decided to play a trick on me. Under the beaming sunshine he asked me to look down in the crystal clear water and then used his forearms to push some air down so that it all rushed upwards past my face as an explosion of bubbles. The experience was invigorating and exhilarating watching the jumbled streams of wobbly glass beads speed and spin past me. The finer bubbles stuck all over my face and neck and then slowly fizzed away. “Well how was that?” he grinned. “Lovely!” I said, “Like being in a glass of lemonade or champagne” we all played with the trick for ages, delighting in its simplicity and great beauty.

There is nothing like finding pleasure in the smallest of things, particularly when they are free and of course the trick has been used a lot in my lessons ever since. Recently I asked a group of children in deep water if they felt like trying to make lemonade there. They did so with gusto! This was stage 3 children using the wall for safety instead of the floor and they were content to laugh underwater as they hung there making their own soda streams jiggle past their faces.  Adults also enjoy making lemonade and it gives them a sensorial feast, a taste of what it would be like to jump in.

Talking of jumping in I was priviledged to visit Farleigh Swimming Club and revel in the sights and sounds of the Great British public enjoying a stunning stretch of the River Frome. Adults had transformed into children wherever you looked, swinging in off ropes, sneaking off on silent forays upstream at eye level with dancing blue may flies, struggling out of steep over hanging banks and water lily margins. I heard one lady say ”Well, I am going to come and do this every day for the rest of my life” and another said “We are so lucky to be here, it’s beautiful”  Everyone chatted as open strangers and picnicked, and adored the weather. One man commented to his companions that they looked calm and easy in the deep water while he could not stop moving, trying mentally and physically to stay afloat. One of his friends laughed like a disembodied head “Well my feet are on the bottom!”