Swimming pool rafistolage

Our swimming pool is a saga of mythic proportions. It has slain armies of wasps, a small battalion of lizards, a starling and now the hedgehog. Scooping dead lizards out of the pool marks more than anything the difference between my old and new life. I scooped ice cream not lizards and pools were giant municipal things ringing with the smell of chlorine.  
 
Our pool was built by Jean-Jacques about 8 years ago. His dating ability was about as accurate as his construction skills. It is sort of round, sort of a metre deep and tiled on the bits you see from the terrasse. He proudly did it all himself. And, thanks to his Millau-Viaduct rivalling construction skills I learned a new word - rafistolage.  

Rafistolage is the word to describe rough bricolage; the type of DIY project with ambitions greater than the skill input. Like this pool. JJ writes software for a living and was not involved in the viaduct, so you can cross it safe in the knowledge that at least this rafistoleur had nothing to do with it. Unlike JJ I know my limits. I can do some basic DIY and I can do some basic bicycle maintenance, but anything complicated and I get a jam-jar full of magically spare bolts that don't have a home to go back to. After years of riding on creaking bikes that seem to have some parts missing I have learned my lesson. Bike maintenance is more than just spraying on the oil and swimming pool building is more than digging a hole in the ground.  
 
Back to the pool and JJ's efforts which aspire to the lofty standards of rafistolage. Imagine the standard small back garden of a lotissement house with just about enough room to swing a barbecue, then, draw a circle touching the sides. Dig. That circle becomes the pool. Add the pump house in the patch of the garden that always floods in the biblical autumnal rains. While you're at it, bury a wheelie-bin in the corner nearest Kevin-the-teenager's bedroom to act as an overflow to the waterbutt/fishpond. When finishing the floor of the pool ensure that the drainage hole is at the highest point of the uneven surface. This gives the welcome pantomime of standing in the pool sweeping like crazy, uphill, into the tiny drain when it comes to emptying time. Given that the pump will have seized up after being flooded and rusted, and so the water won't have been treated over the winter, the pantomime happens every spring. Danny La Rue has much more fun in sequins.  

I wear big green wellies, a floppy hat and a Miss Jean Brodie expression. All this cleaning, washing, draining just for the short part of the year where even your toenails sweat. I know it's a waste of water but in this lotissement during the 2003 canicule it prevented the massacre of at least 2 adults. Not me, not my husband, just relatives of the trying-to-be-useful kind. 
 
On reflection though it might just be wiser to dig it up and start again. I might even locate that wheelie-bin... 
 
 

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