This is the small pool where I swim in the Tepid Baths in central Auckland. I usually just swim silently, keeping myself to myself, but this morning, I didn’t.
In this pool, as you can see, there are only four lanes. When I got to the end of my lane, I stopped for a rest. There was a woman in the lane next to me, and she was talking to a woman in the lane next to her. I didn’t know the woman next to me, but I know the other woman. She’s Japanese, and she swims there regularly.
I didn’t hear what the woman in the lane next to me said, but the music in her voice sounded familiar. We all started swimming again, and later I talked to this woman when she was also having a rest at the end of her lane. I said, “Excuse me, are you Irish?” because I thought she had an Irish accent.
She looked at me and said, “No, I’m French,” and then she added, “but my husband is Irish!” I asked her which part of Ireland he came from. It was Kerry, in the south-west of Ireland, so I told her I was from Belfast in the north-east of Ireland, opposite ends of the country.
I said earlier that there are four swimming lanes in the pool, so the Japanese and French women made two, and me from Ireland made three, but there was another woman in the fourth lane. I know her because she’s also a regular, and she’s from Scotland. Four different nationalities in the one swimming pool at the same time.
Ireland, where I come from, is a small island with just over 7 million people.
The world is a big place and it has over 8 billion people, but as the swimming pool proves, it’s still a small world.
Ireland map: https://www.ireland-information.com/images/map-of-ireland-big.jpg
World map: https://pixabay.com/photos/earth-globe-planet-world-space-11015/
Now Hear this. 
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