Thread 13 - TalkLair: “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 12).

Looks like spring has sprung! Tulips, apple blossom and early hay fever are upon us. In the TalkLair, we remain hunkered down keeping cosy and warm, because "something something 'til May is out". The hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Love this!

I can do front crawl if I really concentrate and breaststroke but I get bored of both very quickly and always just turn over onto my back because it's the easiest and therefore my favourite. It's ages since I've been though and I won't be able to until they remove my PIC line.

I used to be a keen swimmer but once I'd grown up, my torso was long enough that I couldn't find costumes to fit, because the straps wouldn't go over my shoulders, so I gave up. There are so many new designs now I really should check them out.

My favourites were breaststroke, duck diving and seeing how far I could swim under water, treading water and floating.

My swimsuit is what I think they call a tankini. It's in two parts so the bottom half is like pants and the top half is like a tank top that covers my midriff. It's very comfortable and has the added bonus of having been very cheap because I bought it, still new and with its sales tag on it, from a thrift shop for about $5.

I think I sometimes do that frog leg type backstroke, just pushing with my hands a bit (it’s a long time since I’ve been swimming). Not convinced what I do counts as a named stroke but it gets me from one end to the other easily enough.

Thanks @duc748 . I may not get to it this week as I seem to have something or other booked every day, but maybe next weekend.

I've not checked either since they went bust and relaunched, but good shops for long-torso swimsuits used to be Long Tall Sally and Debenhams.

All the female humans ChezKuc have tankini-type swimwear from Lands End. Swimming shorts that look like actual shorts, and a separate strappy top. Highly recommend, nice thick material (and the shorts have pockets, which is great for ambling around by the poolside, not so great when you forget you have your hotel room keycard in them when you dive into the pool).

Thank you, I shall check them out. It would be lovely to go swimming again. I like the idea of the tankini style costumes.

The last time I had my back looked at the physio said 'You have an unusually long trunk', which tempted me to wave my arm in front of my face and trumpet like an elephant, but I didn't.

When I swim it's in a once piece with shorts, the sort of thing that you'd seen on a man in the twenties or thirties. Of the last century. My god, we live in the 20s! Stop it! So many bums on swimming costumes be they one piece or bikini are too high legged and attempt to retreat into every crack they can find so I've prefered the short for many a year. I think they look snazzy too.

I’m baffled by the whole high leg swimsuit thing. It’s deeply unflattering on everyone and looks both uncomfortable and impractical.

I'm also long-bodied, which is hopeless for one-pieces, generously be-pubèd, and with age the midriff has sagged somewhat. So I very much like the look of that Lands' End swimwear - some lovely colours and patterns too. Maybe it's time to invest in some.

We live less than a kilometre from a lovely swimming beach but in 10 years here I haven't been in the sea. I really don't know why I care what I look like - as Mommie Dearest so often said to teenage me, generally for no reason whatsoever, "Nobody's looking at you!"

I'm very near a theoretically lovely swimming beach, but it's cold (and I know how close the sewage works are, so don't trust the water). Nice warm pools for me, thank you. Or the seas of hot places.

Ha! My mum’s version of that - which in fairness has been proved entirely true so far - is “no one’s going to stop a galloping horse to look at you”. It’s actually more of an it really doesn’t matter what you look like vibe than a you look awful one.

NoBinturongsHereMate · Today 21:19

I'm very near a theoretically lovely swimming beach, but it's cold (and I know how close the sewage works are, so don't trust the water).

We have a very clean beach, right at the bottom of our street, but I was put off from swimming in the sea decades ago. I always used to get ill afterwards. The beach is about the only clean one in the Northeast and is frequented by cold water swimmers year round, including two ladies on my street.

I'm a bit stiff and sore, I tripped over a grating last night (ie 13:00, as I'm on night shift).I banged my left knee and elbow, as well as pulling the muscle on the top of my right shoulder and cutting my right hand. My knee is twisted, so I eschewed the treadmill this morning. I'm definitely an old git, as two younger blokes very definitely didn't laugh and try to film me, they came over to help.

😕

Ouch! I hope nothing is too badly pulled. Twisting injuries can be nasty.

Oof! Hope you’re not in too much pain, Sinner.

Sympathies Sinner - I hope you feel better soon.

I am pleased with myself - went swimming today and got up to 46 lengths, which I calculate to be 65% of a mile. I'm slowly working my way up from half a mile and aiming to get to a mile (70 lengths), which is what I used to be able to swim twenty years ago.

Thanks for the sympathy! I'm a bit sore, but OK really. I've just seen one of the lads who saw me fall and he told me I went down really hard, I thought I'd done a bit of a judo roll!

There's a thread I just saw about lane swimming, and both that and this thread encourage me in my long-held belief that swimming is a strange and aberrant behaviour. Swimming pools are not nice places and their popularity mystifies me!

@duc748 Swimming pools are not nice places and their popularity mystifies me!
I take issue with that! This is where I spent at least 3 afternoons a week (and all day on Sundays) between the ages of 8 and almost-11: https://www.sswimclub.org.sg/swim

Admittedly it's seen some serious renovations over the past 60+ years (there were only two pools, the buildings were very much less 21st Century) and the membership fees have definitely gone up! But it was fabulous, as was the food.

I had my annual "wellness visit" with my PCP (primary care practitioner - think GP) today, courtesy of Medicare. He was recording notes as we went along and he began by saying my name and date of birth and then said "and her pronouns are she and her". I stopped him straight away and said I didn't have pronouns because I was a woman and my sex was female. He was a bit taken aback by it but nice about it and we went on to have a very pleasant consultation. I'm fine, by the way.

Good to hear on all counts, Brit!

I went to see a friends garden yesterday because she told me she had bee orchids. So many of them, so huge - higher than my knee, some of them. She and her husband spotted the first one some years ago and have been managing a strip of meadowy grassland to encourage them ever since,m and they are amazing. Only about five miles from me as the crow flies, much further by road and on a different soil type, so I don't really have any hope of ever having them no matter what I do, but gosh they were lovely. Big fat velvety looking bees.

Also, if you were someone whose pronouns were not sex-based, the GP took a pretty big assumption.