An End to Swimming for Eloise

I'm a bit of a sucker for a free lunch and, against all objective research evidence, adopt a utilitarian approach to after-school activities to the extent that I feel that they should be useful.

Having said that, Eloise has been whining for apparent aeons that she doesn't like swimming, that it's boring, that it's hard work, on and on and on.

I keep telling her how proud I am of her swimming, how she swims like a fish (in the sense that she swims well, rather than that she spends protracted periods of time underwater playfully and yet aimlessly adjusted her bouyancy through fine-tuned bladder control while opening and closing her mouth gormlessly), and how I get a free swim when she does her thing and it's pretty much my only avenue to fitness other than riding bikes, and taking long walks in the countryside and going to the pub with my friends.

I have finally relented however and allowed her to drop swimming, partially just to relieve my chronic earache, and partly to free up some time for her to do some homework as her other outside-school-activities, those being dancing in its many and varied forms, and so given it up she has.