A tale of two pools...

The first couple of days of our holiday in beautiful Valais has seen us mainly swimming. Yesterday I made good on my pinky promise to join Eleanor in the glacial Bella Tolla campsite pool. It took me some time to build up to going in, and once fully submerged, I found you did need to keep moving, as the water was bracing!

Eleanor and I had a morning swim on our own. Gaz excused himself on the feeble grounds of having forgot to pack his swimming gear. (We are staying on a campsite with a pool - I did tell him!). However, after lunch and a quick trip to Susten to stock up on essentials at the supermarket  (which didn't sell swimming trunks) we coaxed him into the pool (clad in running shorts). In addition to the slide, our pool has a diving board. Eleanor is desperate to have a go but didn't feel brave enough. She requires a rubber ring to do it. Since she can swim, I didn't think to pack her, long discarded, rubber ring. The supermarket in Susten doesn't sell those either. 

What the Susten supermarket has in abundance, however, is the many and various fruits of the pig. We bought brokwurst and the intriguingly labelled "party pig". It also had a large well outside, where Gaz took great delight in explaining to an interested Eleanor how the original winding mechanism worked.   Gaz armed himself with brickettes and firelighters and spend a happy evening tending to his barbeque whilst listening to TMS. Give an man beer, cricket and raw flame and he is happy, even if he is forced to swim in a frigid pool wearing running shorts.

Today we enjoyed a v quiet start. I was woken at 7 by the sound of church bells drifting up from the valley. I enjoyed a quiet hour to myself on the deck, with a cup of tea, a book and the glimpse of mountains through the trees around our holiday house.  Eleanor emerged an hour later and we hunted for acorns (after one fell on the breakfast table) and then El drew pictures of the Elf hats she gathered - and then the elves to wear them.

Since Gaz still needed swimming trunks and El needed a rubber ring, we headed to Laukerbad, where Google assured me we would find a sports shop. We also found a glorious spa town, high up the mountain side, approached by a very winding, steep road.

 Gaz was soon kitted out with swimming gear, but the rubber ring remained elusive. We tried the Laukerbad Therme (hot spring swimming pool). No rubber ring, but having had a glimpse of the water slide, Eleanor wouldn't let us leave without trying the pool. 

I will confess, a trip to leukerbad therme was on my list of possible places to visit, so I was keen to stay. After the bracing dip in our pool, the advertised water temperature of 38 degrees sounded bliss.

And indeed it was. I managed a  couple of goes on the waterslides before crying off and doing a few laps in the sports pool. I have never done backstroke with such a view before and I am, fortunately, slow enough to be able to appreciate it. I also had plenty of time to sample the various thermal baths and massage pools whilst Gaz and El continued to slide. I am starting to relax and the Leukerbad Therme is a primary catalyst.

We popped into a supermarket on our way back to the car, just on the off chance that they might stock rubber rings. What joy! They did! I am looking forward to my frigid dip tomorrow morning...