Father and Son at the Village Pool

In the midst of these hot days of summer (the scientific folks at PAGASA would not yet call it “heat wave”), what should the Bicolano Penguin do?  Answer:  Go back to where he came from.  But Bicol is  hot and more  humid while Antartica is many many many miles and dollars away.    Stupid me.  

Why not just go to the village pool?  Which is what I did last Sunday noontime with my son Marcel.

Boy, was it a refreshing experience!

The small pool at South Bay Gardens

The main pool at South Bay Gardens

For one, there were no swimmers other than the two of us.  We had the pool at South Bay Gardens all to ourselves. I was wondering where the other village folks were.  Given the pseudo long break,  that is the May Day weekend,  I guess many of them would have flown to some exotic destinations like Boracay or Bali or motored up to the cooler climes of Tagaytay and Baguio.  No problem for their holiday out of Metro Manila, is my holiday in the metropolis.  

Secondly,  it was a chance for me to try out stretching exercises underwater.  I just bought the April-June 2012 issue of the Runner’s World Philippines (the only edition I can afford these days at Php 150 per issue versus the US edition at Php 390 and Aussie edition at Php 699 ), and at page 34 was a gorgeous spread entitled “In the Flow : Improve flexibility by stretching in water.” The info was helpful and the photos were eye-catching.  Take a look at the picture of the article below and you get what I mean. 

April June 2012 issue

In the Flow article

I told myself that I would try the stretching exercises (hip flexors, calves and quadriceps)  out and take pictures with my Olympus “u tough” camera(water-proof, shock proof and more importantly for me, dumb-proof) part-submerged in water.  See the results in the subsequent photos.  Well, our  pictures are not as ice-candy as the photos in the magazine but heck, we’re no professionals.  We sure did have a good time taking the pictures. 

Stretching the calves

Stretching the hip flexors

Stretching the quadriceps

My son and I had more fun swimming in the cool clear water.  Diving.  Doing the “sisid”.  And we got to race with one another.  Our  Father and Son freestyle swim race had Marcel beating his old man by a foot. 

Flying underwater

Marcel, showing the freestyle form that beat his old man

My son, raising his arms in triumph

Some things never change.  The Bicolano Penguin is still slow, even in its watery home turf.  Laugh, everyone, because this is priceless... victor or not.  

The penguin underwater