There was some wind and the country descended into chaos. Something had happened on the Hammersmith Roundabout. It was on the other side of the roundabout and there were buildings in the way so I couldnÂ’t see what it was.
There was no traffic coming round from the Fulham Palace Road or from Barnes, which was slightly eerie.. Pedestrians could cross the road without having to wait for the green man. The church with the cartoon canopy
which is still reading 11.05 had lost lots of its protective coverings and sheets of plastic were blowing around
Traffic on my side of the roundabout had ground to a halt and policemen were trying to direct people up Hammersmith Road. I was walking up to the gym, and tried to strain to see what had caused the hold up, but all I could see was traffic. There was police tape up on the pavement on the gym side, which may once have blocked off access, but it too had been ripped and whipped by the wind and was flying around like the last couple of strands on a denuded May-Pole. A man told me I had to go to the other side of the road. He said something about a building having been evacuated. But I didn’t know what he was talking about and I decided that I wouldn’t ask. “Can I get through to the gym?” was my only question. He told me I could if I crossed over a bit further up the road.
People were standing in the streets observing the unfolding events, which it seemed to me were happening out of eyesight.
I was only concerned with having my swim. I got to the pool, which was practically empty and started ploughing my way up and down the medium lane. As I turned to start my 21st length I noticed something odd about the water ahead of me. About half way up the pool little pockets of water seemed to be leaping in the air, like tiny fountains. It hadnÂ’t been doing that a second ago and my eyes had trouble making sense of this strange phenomenon. I got closer and still it seemed as if the water had come to life under some enchanted fairy power, but then I realised that in fact it was water dripping from the ceiling down into the pool and that was causing the spooky effect. Science had triumphed over superstition, thankfully.
I have often looked at the roof of the pool, which has some cracks in the plaster and wondered if it might one day fall down. This is partly because the last time I observed such a fault in some plaster work it was in the large awning at the front of the hotel I was staying in in Mexico in 1998. I was at the introductory meeting, bored, staring out of the window and noticed the cracks. I thought nothing more of them until a few hours later when I was walking out of the front doors on my way to catch a bus into town, when suddenly I became of something seemingly fluttering behind me. I thought it was a bird. But then suddenly I was sprawling on the ground with a massive sheet of plasterboard on me and my little beshorted untanned legs sticking out one side. I had been hit square on the head, but wasnÂ’t too badly hurt, though I feared that I might collapse with a brain injury at any moment. Some hotel staff ran out, took off the board and checked to see if I was all right. I didnÂ’t want to make a fuss, but the hotel was clearly terrified that I might sue. They sent me a free bottle of sparkling wine, but I was holidaying alone and never got round to drinking it, instead leaving it for the staff. It was an unfortunate start to quite a lonely and depressing holiday.
Anyway, I have often thought of this incident as I looked at those cracks as I swam beneath them and now seeing water dripping rapidly from those fissures I did idly wonder if the whole thing was about to come down on me. Despite this I decided to carry on swimming. I was by now the only person in the pool and the lifeguards were chatting away and hadnÂ’t noticed the development. I really wanted to get a good 60 lengths in and guessed that I might be asked to leave the pool if the problem was noticed, so I perhaps foolishly carried on, which was OK, except when I was doing back stroke and the water dripped on to my face. What was this water? What if it wasnÂ’t water, but wee?
I decided to move to the fast lane, where the drips were not dripping.
I had visions of the whole building falling down and live electrical cables hitting the water and me being buried or electrocuted to death. But I didnÂ’t get out. Because I need to get fit. I am aware that this might have proven to be a false economy of body fat.
After a couple more lengths the lifeguards spotted the dancing water and one of them came round to me and as predicted told me he was going to have to close the pool. After all they couldnÂ’t have people swimming in a pool with some water dripping down on them.
The roundabout remained blocked for a couple of hours and I was trapped in the carpark unable to move. I didnÂ’t mind. I just used the time to go through the Yoghurt show. Only later did I hear about the death and destruction that the wind had wrought around the country. I considered the random nature by which lives can be snuffed out and how just being in the wrong place at the wrong time can have devastating consequences. It didnÂ’t feel so bad that I had just had my day slightly inconvenienced and my exercise regime interrupted. Is this all our fault? Are these conditions a consequence of global warming? Are we going to have to get used to this and take a chance getting out of bed every morning? I blame the toilet rim blocks.
