Ely, Winchester of the East

I've been discovering the delights of Ely with my little boy on our Wednesdays together. Having sampled most of the swimming pools in the area I seem to have settled on Ely as having about the best. The water in the learner pool is warm (I think they have underfloor heating throughout) and the pool slopes gently from zero to about one metre meaning there is a great shallow area for playing and building up confidence. The changing facilities are also quite nice and clean (and bright unlike Abbey Pool). The only down side was that when we went a fortnight ago the lifeguard was falling asleep in his chair - I was alerted by this little voice saying "Daddy, that man's sleeping" - not what you want to see from a lifeguard of a learner pool. This week he seemed well awake and we had a great time playing in the water with the floaty tube things and these armband cakes that a friend lent to us. Thinking of buying a set. After swimming we went to Waitrose for a little shop and a coffee (another key advantage of Ely over Cambridge!) and then took our picnic in the grounds of the Cathedral. We popped inside and the little guy was well impressed with the height of the ceiling and that it was painted. So much so that he was commenting on this as we talked through our day at bedtime. With warm weather we also managed some gardening time, cooking together - made a tofu stroganoff - and then a night time walk round the village.

2017-10-11