The Changing Room

Contrary to what I am sure some of the male swimmers think, there is very little girlie talk in the ladies changing room at the pool after the early swim session. What we are going to cook for dinner, shopping for shoes, makeup, hair styles or pop music does not usually arise. No indeed, it is quite often quite cultured and about books, films and theatre. 

This morning the TV series The Night Manager was under discussion and the tone slid rapidly. Because of the daily featuring of photos of the flavour of the month star in the newspapers, he is known in our house as, ‘Give us this day our daily Tom Hiddleston’. There were a couple of dramatic stage faints at his name being mentioned. I made a big mistake when I tried to raise the tone by asking clearly, “Have you seen Tom Hiddleston’s Coriolanus”? To which there was speedy response of, “I told him to put it away at once”. What could I expect having been so pompous?  I had seen his Coriolanus in the Donmar Warehouse production when it was screened in the cinema with Hadley Fraser playing Aufidius. Splendid it was too.

 

Anyway, putting the low tone behind me. I had a freezing cold bike ride after my swim and then a smashing run in the woods on my own. The wind has been coming from the north for ages now and it is as cold as any of our winter days. It was the best training set I have had this year, finally feeling comfortable after a few weeks of being decidedly off colour.