Beer & Swimming

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Continuing on with the random 8 one by one.....   Number 3..

I seem to be missing a critical Aussie gene - the one that screams to the world: Aussies are beer swilling swimmers.

Everyone knows that "Fosters is Australian for Beer"   though I don't know any Aussie who actually drinks Fosters. The friends I have, who drink beer, prefer Coopers Ale or Bluetongue lager.

Captain Cook brought beer to Australia on his ship, as a means of preserving drinking water. On 1 August 1768 as Captain Cook was fitting out the Endeavour for its voyage, Nathaniel Hulme wrote to Joseph Banks recommending that he take -

    "a quantity of Molasses and Turpentine, in order to brew Beer with, for your daily drink, when your Water becomes bad. … [B]rewing Beer at sea will be peculiarly useful in case you should have stinking water on board; for I find by Experience that the smell of stinking water will be entirely destroyed by the process of fermentation."

I probably had my first whiff of this fermentation at a very young age - my mother used to drink Resch's Pilsner in a long neck bottle (though she did pour it into a glass).  Despite people telling me that I would "get to like it" (like one gets to like vegetables), I have never developed a taste for beer!

The town swimming pool was built sometime during my early childhood, as I remember the excitement surrounding the opening - though we would not have gone.

When I was about 9 years old my parents signed me up for a 10 day Intensive Learn to Swim course at the pool during a school holiday.  I have a little card which reads "At the end of the course,  your daughter, (Emjay) can swim 1 yard" !!!???!!

It seems that my mother was no more into sitting beside a communal pool than I am and she dropped me off each morning and left me in the care of "other" parents.

Apparently during the blowing bubble stage (which was probably the first day!) I refused to put my head under the water and the torturer  teacher pushed my head down and filled my lungs with that nasty chlorinated water.

Some "other" parent pulled me out and I basically spent the other 9 days gripping the edge of the pool, refusing to do much. I'm pretty sure I would have mentioned the incident to my mother but my mother seems to have been of the old school of thinking that those things which we survive will build character.

That little card was probably meant to give me a sense of accomplishment and encourage further learning.  It did not!  It does give me a big laugh now though!