Gillott in 'good length' shock

Well ok, its not as exciting as you may think but to me it was a pretty big deal.

Number 1 son was picked up from the childminder and taken for his weekly swim with Dad. Last week was mainly having fun with some swimming so this week was agreed to be swimming with a bit of messing about. He jumped in and swam half a width immediately and just seemed very pleased to be in the water, or with me.

After a few trips up and down the pool where he gets three quarters of the way across before putting his feet down or grabbing me, I tried getting him to talk as he swam. Memo to self, 7 year olds swimming with mouths open tend to inhale water. So I tried an alternate tack where I talked and before he knew it we were under the second set of flags and 5 yards from a full length. I took things steadily and coaxed him onwards and he reached the shallow end and got a huge squeeze - his first full length swimming ever.

Now he knows he can do it, he got a pound for it too and the only mar on the evening was that he lost his goggles that he has had a fortnight. In the grand scheme of things, a small price to pay.