Running the Velvet Gauntlet

After an early morning wake-up and a deconstruction of almost military efficiency, if you disregard all the fannying around and slow-building-heat-induced-shortish-temper, we forewent the cooling swim to bask in the air-conditioning of the car and took the quick route home that didn't involve hairy dusty almost-road mountain climbing, got home in an hour and a half, unpacked the car, did all that stuff and proceeded to stew in the heat of the house.

We resolved to impulse-buy a Dyson pedestal fan after a sweaty nap for Lyra and then headed off into the city to Spring Hill baths for a shady swim, passing easily through the G20 roadblocks and traffic control apparatus, the police very much in evidence with convoys of paddy-wagons in strategic holding areas, but not bothering us. Our run of the velvet gauntlet was easy and eventless.

In the pool we languished luxuriantly, Lyra demonstrating her independent swimming skillz with only a noodle to save her, and even though we had forgotten our goggles in our rush for water, we still managed to have a nice time with lots of fun games like Toss The Baby and Monkey Monkey. There was hardly anyone there and we had plenty of room for manoeuvre; Lyra did a lot of jumping into the pool, Eloise did a lot of classy swimming and somersaults, we made use of noodles until they came out of our ears, and we stayed there until the bitter-sweet end.

We tried to buy more ice creams, but the till had been closed. So no ice cream for us.