[OSS RATS] dangers of indoor Vs outdoor swimming

[Helen Roche]

Hi chaps,

I thought you might enjoy this irony as much as I did. After all the  
dire warnings from friends and family about how dangerous it would be  
to swim in the Thames, and wouldn't I get that awful rat disease, etc  
- I went swimming in Reading Central Pool yesterday and gashed my foot  
open! I'm going for a tetanus jab later!

Actually it's more of a deep graze than a gash, but still. I was  
pushing off from the end of the pool and the back of my heel hit a  
nasty old rusty-looking bolt, sticking out from the bottom of a wooden  
step on the ladder. It's never happened before, surprisingly - it was  
just patiently waiting for me to come along.

Thinking of tetanus jabs, we should probably all have them anyway, so  
at least it's prompted me to do that. Rose thorns are a famous culprit  
for it and I'm sure that riverside brambles are no better... The jabs  
need topping up about every ten years or so (?), and my last one was  
15 years ago.

Conversely, the worst that's happened to me so far while river- 
swimming is a couple of nettle stings. Ha!

However, a friend of mine who surfs in Cornwall trod on a Weaver fish  
the other day, which is apparently agonising. They've had a lot of  
them this year, so wear thick-soled shoes if you go swimming down  
there. :-s  I didn't even know we had them in the UK!

Safe swimming, all.
X love Helen