The Waterboy

Now it's Christmas again that means one thing - swimming in a pool.

Of everything I missed when I first moved out of home at 19 (there was probably a lot I didn't realised I missed until years later, like my mother's cooking), the biggest one was the pool.

Our pool at Gabo Place was fairly legendary among my family and friends. When I look back now I'm in complete awe that Jan and Frank landscaped that rock wall around the outside all by themselves (did they do all the brick paving too? I can't remember).

It would have been quite a job for any thirtysomething suburban couple back in the early 80s when they did it, but if you remember anything about my parents you'll know they didn't do anything harmoniously. I'm surprised someone didn't end up with their foot crushed by one of those huge river stones.

As Brad said at Dad's funeral, the Turneys wanted to come to the Gabo Place pool even though they lived a stone's throw from Coogee beach. When I was in Year 11 and 12, my friends and I would wag sport on Thursday and have pool parties.

I loved that pool. My Dad, either forgetting completely or just being dramatic in his storytelling as he sometimes did, once told Wendy he wished they'd never had that pool because it took so much upkeep and 'never got used'. I had to remind him I was in it all summer every spare hour I had, and I always stayed in it longer than everyone else. I remember spending half hour stretches just bouncing from the floor of the deep end to the surface to take a breath and go back down over and over again.

When I moved out I went from one rented flat to another, moved to another country, came back, bought a house that was too small for a pool, went back home where I at least had the Menai community pool, moved to Cronulla where we at least had the beach down the road, then moved to Perth where a series of rented houses didn't have pools and where bloodthirsty Great White sharks are just waiting for you to go in the water at the beach. When we bought our own house I finally had a pool again.

... and then I understood why my Dad always whinged about what bloody hard work the pool was. I'd never understood. All he did was dip that test tube kit thing in the water and add the drops, didn't he? I'm sure he threw chlorine and other stuff in when I wasn't there, but I'm sure it couldn't have been as much trouble as my new pool in Perth was.

It was never clean. With so many overhanging trees it was constantly full of leaves and rubbish. The Kreepy Krauly never worked properly. The filter didn't work properly, the pump didn't work properly. I bought one bottle of crap after another to try and get it right, and in the end I might as well have thrown the money straight in the water for all the good it all did.

Worst of all, it had leaks as tree roots punched through the walls. I spent months (and more money) of backbreaking work trying to fix that, eventually did, and we were getting ready to resurface it and finally get it working properly when the whole thing emptied out again – the tree roots were now coming up from underneath.

We finally found someone to get rid of it as cheaply as possible – some yobbo pool store owner who said he'd crane it out for free because he could resurface it and resell it. We had to pay two grand for a semi trailer full of sand to fill the hole and we were done with it.

Now, I might be right, the pool at Gabo Place might not have been nearly as much trouble as mine has been. It was professionally built (it seems almost everything in my house has been made by someone's shonky brother-in-law) and it was taken care of properly throughout its life. A few of the palm leaves from the two trees either side would have fallen in (my mum once told me they used to drop those orange nuts as well, but I don't remember them), and I still remember the ocean of purple flowers from the jacaranda over the fence once a year for weeks, but surely it wasn't that hard a job, was it?

But I might have been looking at the situation through a child's eyes, the same ones that think a fairy floats around the house every day doing all the housework, and it was as much of a pain in the bum as my Dad always said.

If it was, Dad, I'm sorry I never understood. I do now.