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Things had started to go a little wayward during the course of the afternoon as we found both Woburn and Eversholt (next on our list) closed. However, a quick change of plan saw us at Hemel Hempstead. Before finding the pool, I had to negotiate a huge roundabout with a series of mini roundabouts clustered around its exterior (horrendous!). The lady receptionist was lovely and quickly called her boss to give us free entry into the pool. This was part of a large sports complex with all the indoor facilities including a large pool being well used. The outdoor pool had no patrons as the weather had deteriorated still further. A lifeguard was called and he led us into the open air. The pool was a standard 25 x 12 metres and striped blue and purple on the bottom. The water was heated but not too hot, Peculiarly it sloped from side to side with one side being very shallow and the other side deeper at around 2 metres: most odd? We rattled off our 64 lengths and towards the end, one or two youngsters joined us. When we were changing, we could hear a mother pleading with her little boy “Please Harry, you can have your sweeties after your swim, please do behave”. And so it went on. Finally Dave shouted sternly from the next cubicle “Come on Harry, get your act together!” There was instant silence as young Harry stopped whimpering and took on board the instruction from this disembodied voice from the next cubicle. Big brother was obviously at work.