AN UNUSUALLY fine Easter and half the population rushes lemming-like to the sea. Here in the north west, the other half flocks to the Derry Feis, an esoteric entertainment inexplicable to outsiders because, like the Derry Feis, it would take far too long.
When I say 'to the sea', only the hardiest will dip a toe in the icy briny and only the most foolhardy immerse themselves in it. The rest will choke the roads in snail-paced motorcades, stroll the promenade with dogs on leads, babies in buggies, whining toddlers and sulking adolescents, scream at the funfair and sit in the car in a fug of condensation eating chips - all because "it's traditional". I've never been one for water. A day at the seaside (or worse, a week) isn't my idea of a good time. A foreign resort complex complete with limpid pool of Olympic proportions holds no attraction.
A cruise? Its five-star appeal is negated by the fact there's a bottomless ocean underneath. I'm not even that keen on ferries - always glad to disembark jelly-legged onto solid ground.
Basically, I'm afraid of anything deeper than a domestic bath. Where the roots of my fear lie I can't remember but I never look back on my early experiences in water or on it with anything but relief that I'll never have to repeat them.
Childhood summers were a succession of perishing Donegal or north-coast beaches, scoured by grit-laden winds, cut by shards of broken seashells, repulsed by slimy ribbons of seaweed and paralysed by freezing salt water that stole my breath and my balance and was hellbent on drawing me into its deeps and drowning me. Purple and goosefleshed, I'd flee back to the ritual sandpapering of a maternal rubdown with an already clammy towel, only to be dismissed minutes later to repeat the experience so the adults could get peace. "When I grow up," I resolved, "I'll never go near water again."
Alas, some evangelical minister of education decreed that swimming lessons should form a compulsory part of the physical education curriculum. As adolescents we were frogmarched to the local swimming baths - an echoing, chlorine-stinking circle of wet hell - for our weekly ordeal with a pitiless instructor who kept barking "Put your head underwater and open your eyes!" but never got wet himself.
I learned nothing but how to forge serial excuse notes and never took the final toe off the bottom. The only buoyancy I ever felt was of spirits as we left the place. Even the prospect of double-maths was a more pleasant alternative. Apart from a brief spell as interested spectator of local college boys at swimming galas, I thought that would be my last involvement with 'man's natural element'.
Until we had the baby. Inspired by paternal duty, the Loving Spouse announced "That child needs to learn to swim". But of course my presence was necessary with the togs and the towels and the pre- and post- ritual of the female changing rooms.
Every Sunday I sat, eyes watering, hair collapsing in the fetid damp of our new state-of-the-art pool (better facilities, but horribly familiar smell) reading the papers while Dad and Daughter Dear romped in the water. She took to it like a dolphin. The sudden blare of a wailing siren sent the timid scrambling shrieking for the shallows as the water began to swell and heave and the wave machine sent breaking billows over the sides of the pool. There she'd be, bobbing like a cork in her father's arms, screeching with delight. "Blue armbands to the changing rooms!" Signalled the end of session and a welcome respite - ice cream in Fiorentini's, packed with over-excited, wet-haired children and wrung-out parents. The pool closed last week to make way for a more lavish leisure centre incorporating all sorts of innovations - but NO WAVE MACHINE. The news was greeted with disbelief and vociferous indignation. We Derry ones with our inimitable capacity for prioritising major issues, took to social media in our hundreds in a veritable tsunami of texts and tweets. One might say a wave of revulsion swept the northwest.