where art collides philosoperontap

I saw on Facebook just now that a dog had killed someone’s cockerel.   Not good. The trials of life in the country I guess. A friend of mine keeps chickens in the centre of town and had a cockerel that was the subject of regular complaints from a neighbour. You do hear of people moving into the countryside and finding themselves woken regularly at a very early hour by a farm cockerel. For such people I have no sympathy. It is a little different for those living in town where cockerels have probably not been common features in the urban landscape for hundreds of years now. Having said that I was a bemused bystander where it came to my friend’s situation. I wasn’t affected by the dawn cock crow and didn’t mind him having a cockerel. I think the cockerel eventually died – the strain of having to service all the hens must get to them all in the end.

A regular supply if fresh eggs is no bad thing. Makes a big difference having your eggs fresh. You don’t notice it until you’ve tried. Almost the same as with bread though not to the same marked extent. Fresh bread is a real luxury. I went to a baking master class once at the cockerel owner’s place (the one in town, not the one in the countryside). The baker told us that in “the old days” mothers would not let their kids have bread until it was a few days old as otherwise they would wolf the whole lot down. Inneresting eh?

The subtitle of this bit of the third law is “thief in the night”. Please note that only refers to the death of the cockerel initially referred to and has nothing to do with the rest of the piece unless it slips in accidentally. I’m thinking swimming now. I started swimming last summer when there was a general consensus that I needed to lose weight. The treatment is working and the inches have been disappearing.

The one thing about swimming is that it gives you a lot of time to think. The pounding of the lanes could be an intensely boring exercise were you unable to “get into the zone”. There isn’t much looking around to do. I can’t see much without my specs anyway, even to the point where I have to ask an attendant the time when I think it is getting near to when I should be getting out. This is important as I normally stop off for a swim at Yarborough Leisure Centre on my way into work and I need to make sure I’m not (too) late in.

Even though I can’t see much I do like to wear “mist resistant” goggles, given to me for Christmas by my sister Ann, fwiw. Her family are also swimmers. They are real pros compared to me. I asked one niece if she would like to come swimming with her old uncle Tref. I said I was a pretty slow swimmer at 25 minutes for 20 lengths. She said she did 16 lengths in 5 minutes. Hmm. We had a race and even with a handicap of having to swim four times as far as me she still won. Fair play.

Anyway in pounding the lanes I get, as I said, time to think and to observe. The first observation is in swimming techniques. Some are really annoying. There is one woman who bobs up and down a lot and her feet seem to go at twice the rate of mine, an unfeasibly fast stroke rate. For some reason I find this irritating. Then there are the women who seem to just go for a chat. This too is irritating when I am there, totally focussed (ish) on the task in hand.

Some people swim faster than others. Most swim faster than me. I’ve long since stopped worrying about being passed by old dears who seem to glide effortlessly by. I’ve not been able to work it out. I suspect it is down to the length of my inside leg. I always buy “short” legged trousers and I reckon that the power in swimming comes from the leverage obtained from the longer leg. For the record there is an etiquette when lane swimming. The written rule is that you always swim in a clockwise manner with the slower swimmers sticking to the lanes marked out for that purpose. The unwritten rule is that if you catch up with a slower swimmer you don’t try to overtake. You just wait until nearly at the end of the lane and turn around early thereby finding, if you are lucky, a totally empty pool ahead of you. There are exceptions to this. If there are only two of you in the lane it is perfectly acceptable to pass on one side as you are not likely to encounter another swimmer coming the other way. Sorted.

Being pretty blind I have come to recognise the regulars from their outlines. If I saw them in the street, me with my specs on and they fully dressed I’d probably blank them. They’d think I was a right antisocial bastard. The average age of the regulars tends to be on the high side though you do get a younger cohort coming for the very early swim. I can’t understand how they have the discipline to do this. If they are coming out at 7.30 when I am getting in the pool they must have been up and at it by 6am wouldn’t you think?

I tend always to use the same locker, number 333 or triple Nelson. That refers to a cricketing term – Google it. I also like to use the same end changing cubicle as it is slightly bigger than the others. I reckon I only get it a third of the time as other swimmers must have the same idea. Sometimes people leave their clothes in the cubicle rather than using a locker and it can be a bit annoying when this cubicle happens to be my favourite. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a massive deal but I thought it worth mentioning. One of the culprits might read this and change his or her ways. Unlikely but you never know.

By the way I know that some of you will be thinking that these Third Law posts are longer than your average post. Well that of course is because the third law says time goes faster when using the internet so in practice they shouldn’t seem to take any longer to read than one of say 500 words which is normally considered to be more of a sweet spot for posts. I’m a reb I am.

That’s all. Gotta go swimming. Cockadoodledoo.

Part 13 is here.

Part 13 is here.