Watery charms

My son and I spend a lot of time at the pool. What's not to love about the pool? There's all sorts of water-based play equipment, from slides to fountains to wave machines, the change rooms are plentiful, and the kiosk serves the best hot chips with sauce ever (perfect when you're tired and pruney).

Happy, happy pool days.

Well, mostly happy pool days. Sometimes, like today, the pool planets fall out of alignment and deliver us nothing but floating bandaids and hairy-man-backs, leaving us with a very unhappy happy pool day.

So what was there not to love about the pool today? Here's the list:

1. Aqua nappies. A perennial complaint. There's no leakage barrier I really, really trust.

2. The mothers who were milling around in the wading pool wearing their waist-length designer caftans and ignoring their children except to screech the occasional "For God's sake don't splash me! I don't want to get wet!"

Go back to your mansions, ladies, and spare us all.

3. When the lifeguards turned off the jets in the wave pool when we were half way around the circuit. It felt like what I imagine it must feel like to lose an erection: one moment everything's rocking along, then pfzz, nothing.

On the plus side, the chips were still good and the sauce divine; and who knows, the Caftans might be back at the factory having their touch-ups during our next visit. We can only hope.