The ponds of Hampstead Heath are small oases; fragments of wild nature
nestled in the heart of north-west London. For the best part of his life
Al Alvarez--poet, critic, novelist, rock-climber and poker player--has
swum in them almost daily.
An athlete in his youth, Alvarez, now in his eighties, chronicles what
it is to grow old with humor and fierce honesty--from his relentlessly
nagging ankle which makes daily life a struggle, to infuriating
bureaucratic battles with the council to keep his disabled person's Blue
Badge, the devastating effects of a stroke, and the salvation he finds
in the three Ss--Swimming, Sex and Sleep.
As Alvarez swims in the ponds he considers how it feels when you begin
to miss that person you used to be--to miss yourself. Swimming is his
own private form of protest against the onslaught of time; proof to
others, and himself, that he's not yet beaten.
By turns funny, poetic and indignant, Pondlife is a meditation on
love, the importance of life's small pleasures and, above all, a lesson
in not going gently in to that good night.