A pool, a pool, my backyard for a pool

My sister and I were spoilt growing up. We had swimming pools in two of the houses we lived in. The first was at a red-brick house my dad built in St Ives, when it was still considered a bushland suburb on the outskirts of Sydney. I was a little kid then, but I can still remember dad teaching me to swim. And the day he caught a snake in the pool and cut off its head. The image of the headless writhing body has stayed with me till this day.

Our next pool was some years later when I started high school. It was built after we moved into the house my dad renovated in Chatswood West, on Sydney's north shore. I recall my then best friend Lynne and I recording a 'documentary' about St Francis of Assisi, using a Super-8 camera, in the pool before it was filled.

And my mother, a woman who never gets her hair wet, falling onto the pool cover one freezing winter's day and slowly sinking. And drunken poolside teenage parties. And coming home from the beach all sandy and burnt and throwing myself into the soothing blue chlorinated water.

I would love a swimming pool now, but they are costly to build and have to be maintained. Spanner laughs like a pirate whenever I mention the possibility. If I had buckets of money, my pool would be long enough to do laps in.

Dream on!

This leads me to the reason for this post, which is to show off the pools in the two gorgeous hotels where I stayed in Bali.

The ocean swimming season is just around the corner, so I am thinking (note the word) about increasing my swims per week to four. Then there's the search for a squad.

Anyway, feast your eyes on these beautiful pools. The rectangular one is at the Oberoi in Seminyak and the more organically shaped one is at the Santi Mandala resort, about a 15 minute drive from Ubud.

More soon on upcoming ocean swims.