Time to believe you are the norm and not the exception

What I’m getting at is that few of us are comfortable showing them.

My family and I discovered Arundel Lido last weekend, after much Googling on my part to find a decent open-air pool for my girls to swim in.

They’ve had very little experience of this, given the UK weather and the depth of Pompey’s splash pools, whereas my husband and I have myriad memories of Hilsea Lido, in all of its fading Art Deco glory, back in the 1970s and ’80s.

It was with this nostalgia in mind, the kind where you remember with startling clarity the sensation of a sun-whispered breeze on damp skin, the warmth and slip of mosaic tiles beneath summer feet and the sheer joy of an open-aired dip, that we set off to West Sussex.

We were not disappointed. Arundel Lido is a gem, set under the sublime shadow of the castle and, better still, heated.

The day was glorious and filled with new experiences for our girls.

Obviously, given the swimming nature of the day, we were all sporting our splashing attire.

Frankly, it was refreshing to see so many women completely at ease with themselves and their bodies. Or, at least, looking at ease.

This can be tough. It’s difficult to feel comfortable strutting about nearly naked, whether you’ve had babies or not.

But having seen umpteen bodies, some that had had babies and some that had not but all of which bore a striking resemblance to mine, I did begin to wonder about the ridiculous effect that the media has upon our expectations.

There was only one woman I saw with abs and no cellulite under her bum or on her thighs. ONE.

She looked great, but so did those with the same cottage cheese thighs as mine, or those with huge boobs, and those with zero boobs.

This is the norm ladies. Wibble is the norm.

So, I say hit this summer with pride, wobble your way towards September and believe that you are the norm, not the exception.

THEY’RE JUST HIGHLIGHTING WHAT UNEDUCATED WALLIES THEY ARE

Having been on Facebook in the wake of Muhammad Ali’s death, it’s astounding to see how many people have been posting various Ali quotes from across the years.

This doesn’t astound me because they’re of no interest – the man was poignant, profound, and, at times, poetic – but because Ali was Muslim.

I really couldn’t care less if Ali had been a member of the Monster Raving Loony Party.

However, the people posting his words are often those who also post anti-Muslim rants and general bigoted nonsense.

I wonder how many of those people realise that the man behind these beautiful quotations was himself a Muslim, thereby unintentionally highlighting what uneducated wallies this mob really are.

THANK GOODNESS OUR CHICKEN WAS FOUND IN FRATTON ROAD

My husband and I keep chickens and have done for years.

The latest additions came from his ‘living egg’ experience at school, whereby his students kept four of the little hatched chicks and we had the rest.

However, last week someone got into my husband’s playground, broke the lock on the chicken run, and either let one of them go or removed one.

Either way the chicken was, amazingly, discovered trotting down Fratton Road on bank holiday Monday. She was returned to her buddies, thank goodness, because the children, having watched the feathery poppets hatch and cared for them ever since, would have been devastated.

Something to remember before wreaking damage in an infant school, perhaps.