Tuesday 5 October 2010

Swimming or is that drowning??

Can't believe that all this time has past since my last post. Working on a new project and having so much to read and learn has meant that most evenings my brain is about to implode.
I am just about managing to chillax on FB and play some mindless games ...

Another chillax remedy I have tried to keep up since my hols is to visit somewhere every weekend (not just the supermarket and family).

A few weeks ago it was National Heritage weekend which allowed folk to have open access to places not normally open or usually you have to pay. My mates & I decided to go to Manchester's Victorian  Baths. Built in 1906 as a flag ship swimming baths with Turkish baths and a laundry, it truly is a great reminder of Victorian opulence. A time where people didn't have bathrooms and went to  public baths to wash ... eeeewww!!

Growing up in Southport we had our own Victoria Baths (or the Viccy Baths to us locals). I never realised they were salt water baths ... I recall in the early 70s that it was bloody freezing, old fashioned with cubicle changing rooms on the side of the baths and the swimming teacher would have not looked out of place barking out orders on a parade yard.

Many, many times I thought I was going to drown being dragged along by a rope around my waist and on one occasion I dived in the shallow end and smashed my head on the bottom of the baths ... and yes I really did think I was going to drown then. I was never keen on swimming after that and skived off as many times as I could....

The Victoria Baths in Manchester are awesome. They got a grant for about £3 million and the restoration is quite something although there is still loads to do....







Is this an oximoron btw ??