I’m lucky to live less than half a mile from a swimming pool. This is quite uncommon in London. Living so close removes the obstacle of having to make a special effort to trek across the borough with wet hair and carrying a soggy towel.

Although there’s a pool on my doorstep, I swim in other pools too – I’m a bit of a floozy when it comes to swimming. In sampling a few pools I’m becoming a bit of a swimming pool snob – I’m the swimming pool equivalent of people that look down their noses at Starbucks coffee.

On Tuesdays I swim at the Queen Mother Sports Centre in Victoria

[right hand picture]. This is where my lessons are and it’s likely I wouldn’t have ever stumbled across this pool unless my swim coach had set up camp here. Although it’s long been dark by the time I arrive here each week, the lack of windows means there’s no natural light in the pool.

At 25m long and pretty shallow most of the way, this was a reassuring place for me to go from crap swimmer to pretty OK swimmer. But that means that kids too are reassured by this pool and are free to splash about in it. Luckily there’s always quite a few lanes open so such nuisances can be avoided.

It has the best showers of the pools I’ve visited – you turn them on, adjust the temperature and turn them off when you want like you’re in your own bathroom rather than having to keep jabbing at a button to restart the thing. And you get your 20p back from the locker – something that can’t be overstated as a big plus.

My local pool, and current favourite, is St George’s Pool in Shadwell [bottom left], not just because it’s a few minutes from my door. The pool is 33m long and the deep end drops away to make it deep enough for the pool to have diving boards. Both it’s length and depth scared me when I first visited as a crap swimmer, but over time they’ve become plus points.

There’s usually a maximum of three lanes open which leaves half the pool open for kids to splash about in and slow breaststrokers to chat and not get their hair wet while doing lengths side by side. At first this was a plus for me, leaning Total Immersion meant several weeks flapping about trying to float on my side and I could do it here without getting in anyone’s way. Now, though, I’d quite like my own private lane.

The big windows on either side and the pool’s elevated position on the first floor mean that there’s lots of light shining through and if you’re here at the right time you can watch the sun go down as you swim. The showers are the sort that you have to press at like a rat in a maze trying to earn a peanut – but then it’s so close to home I’m almost close enough to walk home in my cossie and use my own shower (ALMOST).

A new find for me has been Clissold Leisure Centre in Stoke Newington [top left]. This has three pools – the main pool, a training pool and a toddlers’ pool. This, clearly, is what you need to keep splashy kids out of the way – pool segregation. The main pool is just 25m long, BUT it’s 2m deep the whole way. So there’s no shallow end for kids or those who think that going swimming with their partner is a romantic activity and that their fellow swimmers want to be witness to their public displays of affection. It’s not and we don’t.

The changing rooms are the nicest of the three pools here, though the cubicles are too small to get dressed inside with ease – and I’m a very small person. There is, however, a communal changing option instead, which I took.

For a wittier and more comprehensive look at swimming pools in London, check out the Swimming Round London blog which (like all the best blogs) is soon to become a book.