I took my soon-to-be three year old boy to the swimming pool this morning. It is a subsidised session designed to encourage children to learn to swim. I know the value of this skill so I'm only too happy to pass it on to my son. However, when we arrived at the pool we received a shock - when we dared to venture into the water. In the fact that it had not yet turned solid, the water was not yet ice. Not quite anyway. Now I'm no cissy, but I do think this approach to selling swimming to the under fives is a trifle Dickensian. After Rueben had braved the water for almost half an hour, I joined the other parents who had long since vacated the pool for the relative comfort of the changing room. A lot of shivering little babies and toddlers whose latest experience of swimming is hardly likely to endear them to their next.
As I write, the powers that be have deemed UK airspace to be unsafe for commercial flights for the fourth consecutive day. This is on account of the aftermath of ash emanating from an Icelandic volcano eruption. A question I put to you: Is the CO2 saved from grounding all these aeroplanes greater than that emitted by the volcano? Also, is my local swimming baths attempting to reduce its footprint by simply not turning on the heating for the water. I would guess that there is a net CO2 gain from grounding the aeroplanes and of couse, subjecting pre-school children to Scandinavian levels of masochism...
No comments:
Post a Comment