Shrivel

Across the southern half of France, hibernation is over. Listen closely and you can hear legions of pvc pool covers being pulled aside, shallow pools of soggy leaf mould unceremoniously dumped onto newly mown lawns and the air being turned as blue as the sky by a thousand seriously pissed off Frenchmen.

As the chorus of expletives fades, closer inspection of the frost cracked skimmer, bulging retaining wall, burst pipe or ice damaged pump prompts a swift call to the plumber/pool guy who says that everyone else has the same problem and he can’t come over for quinze jours (an indeterminate time anywhere between two weeks and next year). 

This, and dredging the corpses of over- adventurous squirrels and toads from the bottom of the deep end does little to lighten the mood.

Eventually your man what does turns up, fixes the problem and hands over his eye watering bill, along with the usual lecture that you should drain your pumps properly, that salt pools tend to suffer less than the chlorine equivalent - given the lower freezing point of saline water -  but still aren’t immune from problems, blah blah blah.

Anyway, in a few weeks time you’ll have forgotten the hassle and the cost and instead be obsessively  checking the pool thermometer, deciding when you’ll be brave enough to take the plunge. If you’ve some kind of heating or retractable cover (or have polar bear genes), early spring dips are possible. If you’re too tight to invest in either heating, covers or a 10 000 calorie a day diet, then the only option is a misplaced sense of optimism that 15° is perfectly adequate swimming temperature and a large enough dash of stupidity to believe it. Given this is my preferred modus operandi, I can confirm that it’s seriously invigorating and less painful than, for example, a sex change operation without anesthetic.

That said, a swift inspection of your trunks afterwards will make you think you’ve had one.