French Life-expat France

The end of the holiday season has come and gone, and the chances of anyone swimming in the pool again this year are, to say the least, small. The last few nights have dropped to about -3°, although the days are still pleasant and sunny.

Closing the swimming pool (there are a few notes at the bottom of this entry about the practicalities) - that is, getting it shut-up for winter - has been delayed this year because we were waiting for an official ‘wrinkle inspection’. Anyway, the big meeting and inspection took place a couple of days ago so that is at last out of the way (See earlier entries in the ’swimming pool’ category if you haven’t heard our sorry tale about liner problems.)

We had thought that the inspection would resolve the issue of the pool liner problems, but this being France nothing is so clear cut or quick. While the finger of responsibility seems to have moved away from us - initially the suggestion was that we had emptied the pool during last winter for no particular reason - it seems that no new liner is going to turn up until the teeny question of responsibility has been resolved.

Was it the manufacturers fault? The installers? Someone elses? I would have thought that could be resolved later but apparently not. In any event the discussions were all about insurances and responsibility rather than when the liner would be replaced.

This seemed strange to me. By way of anology, imagine I took a shiny new BMW back to the garage with a problem, let’s say a wobbly exhaust pipe. The garage might grumble and say the bracket was poorly made, and the bracket makers might say the exhaust was the wrong size, but I am confident it would be rectified without involving me or my lawyers at any stage, and the differences of opinion would be resolved later, without me even knowing about them.

For all that, putting the winter cover on the pool is one of the less thrilling tasks of the year. The cover is heavy and slippery, and difficult to manoeuvre. If the process goes wrong the whole cover can slip in the pool under 100 tonnes of water and become almost impossible to retrieve.

Happily after five years we are experts - the pegs that hold it are in place before we start, and the children are at the ready to clip it into place in five seconds flat. So a job that took us three days of catastrophies in our first year now takes about 15 minutes.

All the same it does involve sticking your hands in the water, which I suppose is now about 5°. Remember the scene in the film ‘Titanic’ where Jack explains what happens if you throw yourself in the icy arctic waters? You start to understand after a few minutes of closing a pool.

I tried wearing Mrs B’s rubber gardening gloves but they got full of water after about 10 seconds. I’m trying to dry them out on a radiator before she notices, but they might well melt, which will give the game away.

Closing the swimming pool is a symbolic day, the definitive end of summer. Time to start lighting fires and hanging out bird feeders, and time to hang the curtains back up so we feel all cosy in the evening. Curiously, one of my favourite times of year.

Closing a swimming pool for winter

A few brief notes about closing your pool for winter:

Clean the pool

Add the overwintering product (from your pool supplier) and let the pump run for a few hours so it’s well mixed in

Reduce the water level below the level of the skimmers

Put the winter cover on! Various tactics for making sure it doesn’t sink include:

• lay the winter cover out on the floor (upside down) next to the pool and securely attach one edge of the pool liner to the pegs that will hold it in place
• wait until there is a wind blowing in your face, since this helps the cover fly like a kite and stops it falling in the pool
• roll the cover around a large stick or pole (eg bamboo) that is wider than the pool, then unroll it into position
• act very quickly, never pause half-way, your goal is to have the four corners hooked on the corner pegs as quickly as possible

Drain down the pump and filter if they are somewhere likely to freeze

In principle you should add more overwintering product to your pool once or twice during the winter, and check the pH and adjust if necessary.