Review Good Life: Parliament Hill Lido | cold water swimming | temperature | sessions | Grade II listed | 1938 | Blue depths

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The Review - FEATURE - THE GOOD LIFE - LEISURE
Published: 14 May 2009

Cold water: you get used to it

Now Lido offers a summer evening dip

HEADING to the Lido before school as a little boy actually put me off swimming for some time. I couldn’t understand why my parents and siblings bounded out of bed at seven in the morning, made the short walk to Parliament Hill Fields, stripped down on cold concrete slabs and then threw themselves enthusiastically into the blue depths.
Instead, I would jog round the pool until they’d had their splash.
It has taken many years for me to understand what they were going on about – but this year I have discovered the joys of cold-water swimming.
Although I don’t get to the Lido every day, as many hardcore cold-water swimmers do, perhaps that will change.
The pool, managed by the City of London, is now hosting three late swims each week to allow those who’d like a dip after work instead of before the chance to use the Grade II-listed, 1938 Olympic pool.
On Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays you can swim up till 8.30pm under the summer skies, and although the pre-9am sessions are only £2 and later the fee doubles, it is still the most relaxing way I can think of to see out the day.
As for cold water, it takes a while to get used to, but once you do it is worth it. Ease yourself in gently – this week the water has been around the 14 degrees mark – and I guarantee once you’ve done your first length you won’t feel the cold. Come a few times and you will soon feel like the hardened regulars who will happily reveal they are 98 years old and have never had a cold in their lives.
DAN CARRIER

• The Parliament Hill Lido, Gordon House Road, NW5
020 7485 5757

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The Lenkiewicz exhibition is stunning from the remarkable St Eustace sculpture to the drawings featuring unicorns, tigers and Elvis! The skeletons and skulls were my particular favourite along with the octopus drowning the Titanic. The surroundings are fabulous; the Pite architecture lends itself so well to the mood. I admit I have a particular fondness for
the building having worked there for 26 years.
J. Trend-Hill

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