I was extra keen this morning and put my alarm on for 8.30am (on a SUNDAY!) in a vague attempt to get to the pool before the children invaded. The internet wisely informed me that 9 til 10am was "public swimming", but from 10am it was also the "fun session" which I thought it best to avoid. So, I was raring to go and in the water by 9.05am, aiming for a bare minimum of a mile.

For some reason the pool at Byker has a complete aversion to putting out lanes, so swimming is a bit of a free-for-all which involves much ducking and weaving. I was just getting into my stride and settling into a pattern (follow slow-breast-stroke-lady until past takes-up-too-much-room-man then dive across to avoid collision, and repeat in reverse) when Captain Crash-a-lot* put in an appearance and decided the best place to swim was right next to me. I did my best to get away from him, but there was nowhere else to go. Then, at 9.30am, the kids starting arriving and took over the bottom quarter of the pool. I was still bravely battling my way through (if I'm going to do this then I'm doing it right) but there's only so many times you can have a small child thrown directly in your path before the novelty wears off. Ten minutes before "fun session" time the lifeguards raised a big barrier in the middle of the pool, cutting it in half, so I gave up.

To cut a long story a little bit shorter than it could have been, I only managed 55 lengths. And I left my goggles in the changing room, and by the time I remembered and went back they'd gone. That's Byker for you.

*Captain Crash-a-lot seems to be a regular feature of my swimming. He always arrives just after I do and seems to be magnetically attracted to me. He jumps in and proceeds to whizz up and down the pool doing front crawl without once looking where he is going. As a result, he whacks people with his windmilling arms or crashes into them with his larger than average head roughly once a minute, never once even flinching let alone stopping to apologise.

Thinking about it, maybe I should adopt the same tactics.

The First Dip.

I'd forgotten what it's like to climb out of a pool after swimming 100 lengths. I feel a bit wobbly, to say the least!

I thought I'd ease myself in by just doing a mile (64 lengths), but once I got into the swing of things I couldn't stop. I ended up doing a mile and a half, plus four lengths for good luck.

I've also found this lovely map which will tell me how far away from France I still am. It's a bit depressing to see at the moment!

So I've made a start. One hundred lengths down - 1316 to go!

I'm swimming the length of the Channel!

I am part of a group of 12 students spending 2 months in Uganda this summer. Whilst we're there we'll be working on the construction of a Children's Village for orphans.

In order to buy materials and pay local labourers, before we go we need to raise about £12000, so I've decided to raise some money by doing a sponsored swim.

Over the next 6 weeks I'll be swimming the equivalent of Dover to Calais, which is 22 miles - 1416 lengths in a 25 metre pool!

I'll try to update this blog after every swim.

For more information, or to sponsor me, search for "Wider Mbarara Project 2010" on Facebook or email widermbarara@hotmail.co.uk.