Mark is now the ‘other’ side of 45 and feels some cardio vascular exercise is necessary. To my mind, gardening and gite renovations provide quite enough exercise but there we go…Funnily enough I don’t share this ‘need’ for exercise..
We live about ten minutes from Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr a military school, the French equivalent to Sandhurst, and it is rumoured that there is an Olympic pool within the military grounds which is open to the public.
Mark searches the internet for details of the pool. Nothing, there isn’t even an acknowledgement that the pool exists.
We have a friend who works at the military school, so I ask him. Yes, there is a pool and it is open to the public for 6 hours a week, but first Mark needs to be checked out and his car registered at the Army base before he can go to the pool. Forms are completed, photos given, log book copied and eventually he and his car are approved.
Then, how can he use the pool and when?
Our military friend is on the case and provides Mark with the email address of someone who is responsible for the pool, he does have a title AJC… But I’m not quite sure what this stands for!…
Mark was quite keen to see the pool before he paid the annual subscription but was told that this was not possible.
This process started 2 months ago and this morning he went for the first time to the Military Swimming Pool. The barrier recognised his car and opened as he approached. His papers had all been processed and a card was waiting for him.
The pool was extremely modern, clean and unsurprisingly very empty!!
So, in France, it definitely pays to know someone in the know!
No comments:
Post a Comment