Open Water Woman - Worlds Greatest Hoarder of Swim Kit Finally Turns Mrs Hinch to Tackle the Growing Problem...

  

Lockdown #3, and with no swimming allowed (aside from a short dip in the river near my house), I had time on my hands to be able to do other things – like for example become Mrs Hinch and organise, put things into neat piles, colour coordinate everything and tidy every drawer and cupboard in my house…  for the 3^rd time. 

 

In previous lockdowns though, the exception to this was my swimming drawer, which hasn’t been touched once, basically because I honestly didn’t think it needed doing, however with time on my hands, and some pretty horrid weather that involved some kind of severe weather phenomena type snowstorm cyclone thingy, putting a halt to any outdoor activity or indeed opening the front door at all, I set to work on it, expecting to be all of 10 minutes before I settled in on the sofa to binge watch something on Netflix that would inevitable end in a nanna nap.

 

I was that confident this would be a short task on the back of the fact that I am not a hoarder, that I had put the kettle on to make a cup of coffee. Unfortunately though, once I had opened the drawer, it was clear to anyone that could see that it was not as neat and tidy as I had made out, and would probably be inclined to disagree.

 

This was not going to be the quick job I had anticipated, there was so much stuff, some of which I have no recollection of actually buying in the first place, let alone used, which were nestled amongst loads of other stuff I also no longer used, including some Speedo flippers which have been worn only once, on the back of the fact they were involved in a nasty entanglement incident involving my right foot, a lane rope and the swim buddy’s tow float. They also gave me a nasty blister, and on the back of this were banished to the drawer for all of eternity, 3 pairs of new goggles I didn’t realise I had (yay!) and 1 pair that had enough mould on them that I suspected could probably successfully cure someone of a nasty infection, 1 Pair of fleecy socks with what I assumed was once a perfectly edible Jelly Baby secured to it. I could only assume that it was a green one I had saved for the swim buddy, as it’s the only colour I don’t like, and also I’m not wasteful, I would have definitely eaten all of the others, 6 swimming costumes, several of which were absolutely unwearable, and the others, bar 1, probably not advisable to wear either unless I was to risk arrest under some kind of indecency law… 1 towel from an event that I have no recollection of doing. I have no recollection because I didn’t actually do it in the first place, and yet have a towel for my non-efforts. Rather worryingly, the drawer was also the home to a tube of tomato paste and a surgical glove (worryingly because I can say with certainty that I have never had the need for tomato paste during any swim I have ever done, and nor am I a surgeon…).

 

Unfortunately, the tidy did not yield much in the way of cash. £1.12 to be exact, and nor did I find my missing membership card to one of the clubs I swim at, or the training notes I made for the run up to the Channel relay  (fingers crossed Covid will allow and the weather gods are with us this time - 3^rd time lucky). I did however find 1 bobbleless bobble hat, 1 non-swimming head band (not mine) that had no business being in the drawer, and 1 squished and out of date, packet of Jaffa Cakes – very upsetting to find this really, and a complete waste (although in the interest of not being wasteful, I did open the packet to double check as to whether they could be resurrected in any way – they couldn’t, which was a great shame). 

 

Although tidying out the drawer was exhausting, time consuming and heart breaking (Jaffa Cake wastage), it also highlighted the need for some post-lockdown replacement gear which I felt was important to strike whilst the iron was hot, and so instead of spending the remainder of the afternoon sofa surfing (of which there was actually limited time in the end anyway, as the drawer took an age to get through), I would instead put my time to better use by spending it shopping, or restocking as I liked to call it, ordering replacement Jaffa Cakes and swimming costumes (in that order), doing my bit to help keep the swimming costume and Jaffa Cake businesses afloat during lockdown!

Always a silver lining!