The Witchlings are having swimming lessons. They have been going for a few weeks now and are really starting to get into the swim of things (sorry but I couldn’t resist that one!). Witchling 12 is in a lower group than Witchling 10. This is mostly because she didn’t like water when she came to me and was terribly afraid of the the swimming pool. Witchling 10 on the other hand was happy to jump right in. She sank like a stone and had to be fished out by me diving to the bottom of the pool after her, but she jumped right back in anyway!

When we lived in Australia we had a pool in the garden (ah, those were the days!) and the girls could swim almost every day. This led to some serious improvements in Witchling 10’s swimming ability and some great improvements in Witchling 12’s ability to sit on the side and mope becuase she wasn’t as good as her sister. The notion to get in and try never seemed to occur to her and any suggestion that she might want to get wet was usually met with derision or sulks.

They are now enrolled at our local leisure centre for lessons. The first step of that was to have them assessed to see their swimming ability. Witchling 10 was obviously a strong swimmer and had benefited from her coaching in the Aussie school swimming program as well as the hours spent larking about in our pool. She was put straight into a good level of group and came home from her first lesson with a handful of badges to be sewn onto her swimming costume. Her class are not only practicing their racing strokes and perfecting dives, but they are beginning to learn the basics of synchronised swimming. The possibilities for our little dolphin are endless. This kid was born to swim!

Witchling 12, by contrast, was placed in a swimming group, according to her ability, that consisted of predominantly 4 and 5 year olds. The sheer humiliation of this has worked wonders. She can now swim further and faster than ever before. She can put her face in the water while she swims and can float on her bac kand on her front. The result… on Saturday she was moved up a group to swim with older children and practice in deeper water. The sense of pride at seeing her finally progressing at something she has hated and struggled with for the last 7 years is wonderful. She may not have been born to swim, but by god she is determined to do it anyway!