PondlifePondlife

Here's the paradox- your body becomes steadily more troublesome just at that point when the world, which you are soon to leave, becomes sweeter, more poignant, more beautiful, more desirable...
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 there almost daily. An athlete in his youth, Alvarez, now in his seventies, has become slowed by the passage of time. The gradual deaths of his peers and his relentlessly bothersome ankle make him acutely aware of his own mortality.
Yet each time he dives into the cool, enamelled water of the ponds, he is liberated; his aches and pains melt away and the frazzled, hectic cares of life in the capital dissolve, stroke by stroke.
Patrolled by the coots, moorhens and swans, Alvarez also shares his watery utopia with the watchful lifeguards, an eccentric and exuberant cast of regulars, and, occasionally, a silent, solitary heron, the intermittent custodian of the ponds.
On the Heath Alvarez takes pleasure in all that surrounds him and records the landscape as it changes through the seasons- the joyous blooming of the heavenly scented mayflower; the glittering summer mornings which burst with birdsong and endless skies; the autumnal days when the Heath is carpet of russet and golden leaves; and the depths of winter, when the water becomes viscous and inky black, so cold that it cuts like a knife. Yet this is a small piece of paradise. This is as good as it gets.
A meditation on growing old, companionship, love and not giving up, Pondlife is a triumphant celebration of nature, and the importance of the small pleasures in life.