Getting time in the pool is awkward this week and next because the timetables at the sports centre change for the school holidays. There was at least a lane for people who wanted to swim lengths once it was no longer being used for private lessons, but the range of swimming speeds meant I was catching up with someone almost every length. On a positive note, I did at least manage to swim 3,000m front crawl.
Total distance for the month: 3,000m
Total distance for this year: 110,000m
I watched Jim Al-Khalili’s television programme “Gravity and Me” last night. A fair bit of it wasn’t really news to me though the actual illustration of the change in gravitational attraction as altitude and latitude change was rather nice. And it’s always good to see the clip of the hammer and feather being dropped on the Moon during the Apollo 15 mission.
What really piqued my interest however was a short piece at the end of the programme covering a proposal by an American scientist that our perception of gravity is actually the result of masses “trying” to move to a state where time passes most slowly. It’s a strange idea that I’ve not heard before and I’ll have to try to dig up some more information about it. I can’t help being struck by similar ideas elsewhere in physics. For instance, electrons giving up energy to fall to a lower state in an atom, giving out energy as (say) visible light in the process. Perhaps a mass might “fall” to a state where time passes more slowly, turning potential energy into kinetic energy as it does so.
I first came across The Colour of Magic some time in 1984 I think, when it was recommended to me by a friend at school. I was immediately hooked and since then I think I’ve read all the Discworld books (and Nation, the Long Earth series and assorted others) pretty much as they were published. Some I’ve read several times over. I was deeply saddened when Death made his final house call.
Since just before Christmas 2016 I have re-read all of the Discworld novels, including the Tiffany Aching “young adults” (whatever that means) ones, finishing The Shepherd’s Crown today. Reading them almost back-to-back (I’ve spent some time reading up on swimming coaching too) has brought to light many things I missed first time around. The consistency of so many themes and ideas across the entire series is breathtaking, whether they’re on a grand scale or even tiny references and throw-away one-liners (one such that made me laugh for instance was a single mention of Rob Anybody learning to read “Where’s My Cow?”).
I think it’s easy for people to write off fiction written with an element of humour as something trivial and of limited value, but there’s so much more to his books than that. It’s an astonishing body of work and I hope it lives on well after those of us who were here to read the books when he was still alive find our own lifetimers running low.
Work impinged upon the time available for this session, so I just got in the pool and swam front crawl until the start of the subsequent swim school session, managing to cover 2,300m despite feeling the effects of the previous four days, especially in my triceps.
Last swim for this month. I think I’m happy with what I’ve done.
Total distance for the month: 49,400m
Total distance for this year: 107,000m
Oh yes, another crack at that Swimfit session:
14 lengths easy front crawl
Rest up to one minute
6 x 1 length moderate front crawl, rest for 20 seconds
5 x 2 lengths fast front crawl, rest for 20 seconds
8 lengths fast breaststroke
Rest until breathing returns to normal
8 lengths fast front crawl
Rest until breathing returns to normal
12 lengths easy front crawl
This time was probably the best I’ve done at it. I shall do it at least once more next week and then move on I think. Oddly I noticed that although my feeling is that I’ve struggled with this set, the estimated time to complete it is given as and hour and I don’t struggle with that at all. In fact I can probably do it in 45 minutes. It’s just being able to do eight lengths of fast breaststroke continuously that is the killer.
After this I made up the distance to 2,300m with front crawl.
Total distance for the month: 47,100m
Total distance for this year: 104,700m
Feeling a bit weary today (I even overslept despite an early night), so I just stuck with front crawl today, racking up 2,800m. It was very quiet in the pool and I even ended up having it to myself for a fair bit of my swim.
I’m quite some distance behind my target for the year at this point. More than 20km I reckon. That’s going to take a fair bit of catching up, and it’s probably going to get more awkward with school holidays over Easter. To be fair to myself however I did take two weeks out on my Swimming Coach course and that would account for a hefty chunk of that 20km.
Total distance for the month: 44,800m
Total distance for this year: 102,400m
(Yet) another repeat of the last Swimfit session:
14 lengths easy front crawl
Rest up to one minute
6 x 1 length moderate front crawl, rest for 20 seconds
5 x 2 lengths fast front crawl, rest for 20 seconds
8 lengths fast breaststroke
Rest until breathing returns to normal
8 lengths fast front crawl
Rest until breathing returns to normal
12 lengths easy front crawl
after which I made the distance up to 2,200m with front crawl.
The breaststroke is becoming easier at last, but I still think I need to repeat this once or twice more before I can consider to have completed it adequately.
Total distance for the month: 42,000m
Total distance for this year: 99,600m
Just front crawl again today as I wasn’t feeling particularly lively (club swimming gala on Saturday and coaching on Sunday didn’t help there). 2,500m including some more practice on turns. I need to start working the turns into my normal swimming more I think, so I can develop more control over breathing before and after the turn at the pace I want to swim.
Total distance for the month: 39,800m
Total distance for this year: 97,400m
Missed a session on 23rd unfortunately, so this session I just did 2,200m front crawl in the time available. One of the swim teachers congratulated me on my turns, but had to ask what happened to the dolphin kicks on the way out. I was let off on the grounds that I was feeling a bit tired by then 🙂
Total distance for the month: 37,300m
Total distance for this year: 94,900m
But they strike me as quite unusual nonetheless. We’re having a new roof put on a barn at the moment and I found them inside.
The first is about six inches square:
and the second is about eight inches by six inches:
I’m really not sure what the design is in the centre of the first (is it perhaps a Lotus flower in the centre?). The second looks like it might perhaps be a poppy? Perhaps more unexpected is the swastika motif in the corners of both tiles. My best guess at the moment is that these tiles were made to be used as part of a fire surround, perhaps some time around 1890, and as such they pre-date the association of the symbol with the Nazis. As far as I’m aware, at the time it was better known as a symbol of good fortune that came from religions such as Hinduism. I can’t help wondering if many might have been deliberately destroyed during or after the second World War. Designs using the swastika symbol might have been quite fashionable during the late Victorian era, but how such tiles came to turn up on a small farm in the backwaters of west Somerset is a mystery.
