West End Living

Day two of the west coast part of our holiday and finally (for the middle son at least), a trip to the swimming pool. Ask my middle son on any day of the week what he really really really wants to do and he will say "go swimming". Apart that is, on Wednesdays at about ten to 5, when he will complain about having a sore head, or a sore throat, or a sore tummy or something, anything, to get him out of his swimming lesson at 5pm.

But anyway, today we went swimming at the Hamilton Water Palace - grand name you say, yes it is and well it is pretty grand for a local swimming pool. There are flumes (not open until 4pm) an outdoor pool (currently closed), a tyre slide (after 4), a wild water section (weekends only), 25m lane pool (partly sectioned off for school lessons) and a (thankfully open and available) pirate ship to play in.

We all (when I say all, I mean me, the three boys and Granny) went in and the littlest even managed to stay in and enjoy himself for almost an hour - which was just about as much time as you can spend on a pirate ship in shallow fairly cool water.

After a feed for the littlest and snacks from the vending machines for the rest of us, we got the bus across town and then the clockwork orange (for some) to the west end, where we had a delightful early evening at Iain's aunt and uncles home.