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  "description": "A pictorial / homage.",
  "path": "/in-praise-of-the-public-swimming-pool/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-14T10:06:26.000Z",
  "site": "https://aswimmingpoollibrary.net",
  "textContent": "It costs nine rand (cash only!) to gain admittance to the Newlands Swimming Pools, a public facility in the leafy southern suburbs of Cape Town operated by the local government.\n\nThere is a 50m lap pool (which hosted inter-school swimming galas in my youth and likely still does), a diving pool (mysteriously out of order) and a shallow bowl-shaped splash pool inhabited, so often, by deliriously joyful children who then picnic on the nearby shaded lawns after.\n\nThe 50m pool (where I swam 2km yesterday) is sparkling, light-shattered, pristine chlorinated blue. A bounteous gift. A respite, a container, a blank page.",
  "title": "in praise of the public swimming pool",
  "updatedAt": "2026-03-14T10:21:56.443Z"
}