Last night I trotted off to my swimming class and the head instructor, who I will call Mean Mark (because his name is Mark and he is mean) took one look at me swimming and put me in the advanced class, skipping the improvers class entirely. To be honest I knew I had outgrown the beginners class given that I could now put my head underwater and lift my feet off the ground. Also there is one guy in the beginners class who has achieved the remarkable skill of kicking his legs and looking like he is swimming but going absolutely nowhere, like Road Runner before he runs away from coyote. It really is an amazing thing.
I was shocked but i didn't want to cross Mean Mark because he is well mean, so now I am in the advanced class, we did backstroke last night and I was bad, I did manage to do a backstroke turn but i got a lot of water up my nose and spluttered a whole lot. And when I say I am a bad swimmer I am not saying it out of false modesty, I have seen good swimmers, my sister is one, my mum is one, good swimmers have lapped me in the pool, many times. I am a bad swimmer, only in London would I be in the advanced class.
Who knows what Mean Mark has up his sleeve for me next week? he will have probably entered me into the olympics. I did ask for a demotion at the end of class, but he said to me 'Where are you from?' I said 'New Zealand' and he said 'You should be in the advanced class, all you people can swim.' Totally racist and I hardly think an accent is an accurate measure of swimming ability.
