I suspect that our swimming pool is sentient. It is obviously warmer and more buoyant than other pools and it even seems to quiver with gratitude when I haul out the cleaning equipment. Most convincing of all are the sacrifices. Every week, particularly on Fridays, I find a bloated body conveniently circling the skimmer intake. Usually it’s a lizard or toad, occasionally a bird. As a rule, I recover the offerings, since E has a morbid horror of anything remotely reptilian (and dead).
After a year and a half of collecting pool victims, I had yet to rescue a living creature. But today was different! Inspecting the latest casualty, I noticed a feeble wriggling, almost obscured by the whirling induced by the skimmer. It was an upside down toad, which had cleverly managed to float himself at an angle to keep his nostrils above the water.
After putting the toad in a peaceful place to recover from his ordeal, I spent the balance of the afternoon constructing a toad-proof section of fence around the pool. I think the pool will have to content itself with birds and lizards for a time.
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