Worth every penny

I ummed and ahhed over whether to buy a pool for the garden. Will it get used? Will the water be too cold? Will it be a pain to keep clean and healthy? Will the children be safe? What about Noah?

But you know, it was the best £125 (plus postage and packaging) I've ever spent. The children LOVE it. Forget the children, Richard and I LOVE it. It's got a heater so the water is never too cold, sometimes too hot but not so much now we've worked out the best temperature for it to be at. Yes, we have to keep the chemicals topped up but to be honest it really only takes about 10 minutes to do that. The biggest pain is the scooping out of all the leaves and stuff that falls in to it but I'm currently trying to sort out some sort of alternative to the net system.

Kat is a mermaid anyway, loves the water, can't get her out of it if ever we go near some. Harriet has come on leaps and bounds with the pool, even to the point where she swims under the water! And Noah has so much confidence. The only problem is he thinks he can swim. Just the other day he was refusing to put on his armbands and said 'look, see, I can swim, mummy!" followed by a glug, glug, glug as he disappeared under!

And most importantly my safety concerns have been fine. I am vigilant. I am careful. I wouldn't let Noah go out in the garden by himself, well not with the pool now anyway and I've watched him and he doesn't take much notice of it when we aren't all in it.

It is such fun and worth every penny. And at the end of a long, hot day, a dip in the pool is just what you need.