A flying visit to Oxford meant a dip in Hinksey Heated Outdoor Pool

When work took me to Oxford I found a gap in my schedule and hopped over to a lovely outdoor pool on a warm July morning. 

In early July I attended a conference in central Oxford, a city I've been lucky enough to visit fairly often over the last few years for work. For the first time, I was required to stay overnight and realised I would have enough 'me time' to find somewhere to enjoy a swim. 

On the advice of a local, I chose Hinksey Heated Outdoor Pool, which is only a 15 minute bike ride from the centre - I like to take my bike when I'm out of town because it's the best way to see a place and means I don't have to rely on local transport connections or pay for taxis. Oxford is very bike-friendly but I usually go round in circles on the bike paths, and this happened on the way to Hinksey because of works closing a footbridge over a stream, which led to my cycling across a field and some rubble. 

This didn't dampen my mood though. The morning was sunny and warm and as I locked my bike outside the pool, a friendly local started chatting away. 

You can book the lido in advance, and I'm told this is vital on a summer's afternoon, but I paid on the door. There are poolside changing rooms, hot showers and benches/grass for chilling out. I didn't have a lot of time so skipped the chilling out and jumped into the pool to swim. 

The pool is large, with lanes across one end and a shallower, beach entry zone at the other for kids to play in, but at 7am the pool is only for adult swimmers. 

It's hard to think of a better way to pass an hour on a sunny morning than swimming under a blue sky with a few others in the water. Hinksey Heated Outdoor Pool provided a slice of peaceful joy for me during a busy few days and I couldn't ask for more.