The mp3 player for swimming takes its maiden plunge

The kibbutz swimming pool has an informal timetable for Saturdays: from 9am-10am (from 8:30am in July and August) the pool is set aside for serious swimmers; at 10am children start arriving with their parents; at 12pm (I imagine) the youngsters start arriving and stay until the pool is closed. I'm one of the early birds and normally get there before the lifeguard opens the pool. I also leave before the children come.

Today I showed off my mp3 player for swimming which I had set up yesterday. The few people there were very impressed: they all wanted the link to the player and they all wanted to know how well the player actually functioned. I'm pleased to say that the player passed its test with flying colours!

As opposed to normal earbud headphones, these have 'screw in' headphones which create a watertight seal and are in no danger of falling out. The sound was very good although there didn't seem to be much stereo separation, not that this matters in these surroundings. The people who I showed it to before swimming asked about whether the 'horns' would dig into the neck; the answer is that the player was barely noticeable, and anyway there's enough going on when I'm swimming to take one's attention from the very mild digging in of the player.

The very fact that I swam 30 lengths this week (last week was 22 and I stopped out of boredom) speaks for itself! Some of the increase from last week can be attributed to improved stamina, but most of the increase came from the headphones - in other words, I was concentrating much less on the mechanics of swimming and had something to stop me from getting bored.

I've sent the link to the player to a few people who will distribute this around the kibbutz (fortunately I'm not a member of the exceedingly chatty women's WhatsApp group). I imagine that the vendors will be very surprised to receive several orders from different people at the same address. It occurred to me that I could buy ten players then sell them here, but a kibbutz member does not take advantage of his fellow members.