No Heavy Petting

I’ve just had to look up the word ‘petting’. This is mostly because I entered into a discussion with some work colleagues today about what my understanding of ‘heavy petting’ was.  I’d assumed that it was snogging as there used to be a sign in the local swimming pool when I was about seven which declared that there should be ‘No Heavy Petting’ and this was illustrated with the crudely drawn picture of two swimmers puckering up with a little ‘x’ kiss sign above them. 

However the online Oxford Dictionary describes petting as to “engage in sexually stimulating caressing and touching” which has surprised me somewhat and puts an entirely different slant on a ‘petting zoo’. 

The reason that petting (heavy or otherwise) became of interest is that only the day before, whilst in a pool, I’d commented to the present Mrs Hayward that there was no such restriction. I read the signs, ‘No Jumping’, ‘No Running’, etc., all of which were being steadfastly ignored by the kids using the pool, but petting was in no way prohibited. 

That’s not to say there was any petting going on in the pool, that would just be wrong, and probably unhygienic given my new understanding of the words, but I guess it’s just become an unwritten rule. After all, if you had to have signs for everything you shouldn’t do in a pool then it would be a very long list indeed. 

‘No usage of Mobile Phones in the pool, ‘No Washing of Swine in the Pool’, ‘No Riding of Mopeds off the High Diving Board’, ‘No Re-enactment of Historical Naval Battles’, the list could go on and on. 

I suppose the point is that I have never encountered the phrase ‘No Heavy Petting’ anywhere else but in a swimming pool. Maybe that’s what put me off swimming pools during my formative years, it wasn’t the deep water and fear of drowning, it was the lack of opportunities for petting with girls.

Ah yes, the swimming. Unlike my new found running abilities the swimming has gone backwards a little since the lessons stopped. I’ve lost the confidence to actually put a few strokes together to swim. However this weekend, whilst we were staying in a Marriott Hotel (tres posh - it had an ironing board and a trouser press in the room so it gets the Terry Hayward seal of approval), was the first time in a while where I was happy to float in the pool without staying within grabbing distance of the edge. 

As I’ve mentioned before, the swimming instructors taught me the basics of how to swim assuming the confidence just  comes with this new found knowledge. Perhaps it does for normal folk but if you have a phobia of deep water then it takes a little more time. So, once I’ve found a quiet pool locally, I’ll go back and re-gain my confidence. At least I can say I have swam this year, and I am more confident now than I was six months ago, so I’ve achieved something, even if I’m not challenging for a place in the GB Olympic swimming team. 

So, it’s a phobia I am conquering slowly. Perhaps next year I’ll try to conquer my fear of spiders. Who knows, I could try to tackle both the same time and swim in a pool full of spiders.