So yeah, swimming.
There was some highs and lows - but overall I think the experience was a pretty good one.
Getting there was a bit of a stress - I finish work at 5.30 and only had 1 hour to make my way all away across the city for the start of my lesson at 6.30, which is nothing short of a miracle on a bus at Edinburgh rush hour. So I decided to go all middle class for the evening and take a bus to the city centre, then hitch a cab the rest of the way.
The strategy worked - I arrived at 6.20, which left me just enough time to get changed and settled (but I would have got there sooner if the taxi driver didn't drive around for ages trying to find the place, adding over £1 to my fare, grumble grumble).
Although when I first went in, I realised that I had totally forgotten that gyms completely and utterly intimidate me. Especially the changing rooms - why are they communal? I know I'm a little more confident than I used to be, but there is NO WAY I am getting my giblets out in front of other women.
Luckily as soon as I went in, one of the very few private cubicles became available, so I grabbed my stuff and hurried inside. After a swift change I came out and put my stuff into a locker.
Except - the locker didn't lock.
What kind of gym was this? Some crazy trustful / naive gym that thought it's totally okay to leave your Blackberry and iPod out for communal use?
After clawing at the mysterious knob on the locker door for around 5 minutes, I gave up and asked a passer by for help.
Turns out that the bracelet you get on arrival also works as a locker key - you basically have to bump the knob with it and the locker locks automatically. So technological! Oh Toto, we're not in Kansas any more.
After being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, I went to the pool to begin my lesson.
There was three of us in total - me, and two Indian chaps whose names, I'm afraid to say, I can't remember.
The tutor was really nice, but the first thing he asked us to do was put our heads underwater - a prospect that filled me with dread. However, I did it, and I was surprisingly not the worst at it!
This was followed by a bunch of other tests, I think the tutor was basically looking at where we were at in terms of our confidence in the water.
I actually really surprised myself, I always pegged myself as a scaredy water cat but I adjusted to the pool fairly quickly. But just as we were getting into our stride - the fire alarm went off.
I reluctantly left the pool - I mean to say, surely the safest place to be in the event of the fire is in a huge mass of water? Unfortunately the fire marshalls didn't share my opinion.
So cut to me 5 minutes later, standing outside, soaking wet, holding a hurriedly taken-off swimsuit in one hand and not wearing any underwear. Not exactly my finest or most glamorous hour.
By the time the fire engines arrived, the building had been given the all-clear and I had got changed back into my (cold and wet) swimming costume, the lesson time was up.
However, the tutor was kind enough to go on for an extra 10 minutes. Even better, the other two had bailed. Not that I didn't like them, I did - but it meant that I got some extra one-on-one tutoring which I really enjoyed - I felt I learned more about swimming in that 10 minutes than I had done my entire life.
The tutor said I was a really fast learner and if I keep going the way I'm going at the end of the block I will be a pretty proficient swimmer - well chuffed with that!
So yeah, some highs, some lows, but overall - I think I made a profit.
Can't wait till next week!
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