You arrive at a hotel or holiday home and need a swimming hat. You have forgotten yours, or it has split. Eventually in a hot country the plastery ones go sticky and stick together. The elastic edged ones go loose.
Your hair is long. It's dangerous to have loose long hair in a Jacuzzi (spa bath) because the underwater suction holes could reverse in the interval and drag your hair underwater.
A girl in the UK nearly drowned and was only saved because a handy life guard was able to give her under water berths until somebody came to the rescue with a knife or scissor.
For safety, and health many swimming pools require hats. Sometimes they say for everybody (females mostly). Sometimes they specify if your hair is longer than ear length. It's obviously easier for them to check everybody has a hat which you can see from a distance on a monitor. They don't have time and energy to get out a tape measure, measuring everybody's hair. Nor would they want to get into an argument about whose hair is longer, shorter, too long. Easier for them to see if somebody is wearing a swimming hat.
Why else are hats needed? To stop you losing your hair grips. To keep in your set.
To stop hair spray making grease on the water. To keep out nits (head lice) of schoolchildren and others.
To stop the chlorine or other substances cleansing the water from damaging your hair.
To keep hair dry so it looks better and does not wet your clothes. So you don't have to spend hours drying your hair keeping others waiting.
Sometimes in a big swimming pool there's a shop selling swimming hats. They might be the wrong size, feel plastic and uncomfortable.
Answers
Your options:
1 Buy Spares / Bulk
Stock up with two or three spare black hats which go with all costumes for all members of the family. (Stock up for a group of friends or school outing or club. Buy in bulk and get a discount.) Stock up with assorted colours so you have one to match every costume.
2 Take a hotel shower cap. Use it as a base. Cover it with spare material from:
An old swimming costume (one you never wear because it is las year's fashion or too small).
A cheap any size swimsuit sold off cheaply out of season in a charity shop.
Material bought from the fabric department of a major department store or craft store such as Spotlight in Singapore and Australasia.
Ideally you want waterproof material. But if you just want to fulfil requirements and not look like you are wearing a shower cap, any fabric covering will do if you are keeping your head out of the water.
3 Use the hotel shower cap as a template.
Repairing Swimhats
If your swim hat is the shower cap shape with elastic around the edge, when it goes loose, tighten it by folding it over into a small pleat at the back and sew with a few inconspicuous cotton stitches.
How To Find Sewing Implements
Use your hotel sewing kit. If they don't have one, ask the receptionist if you can borrow a needle and white cotton. In a five star hotel the staff can call housekeeping or valet service to sew on a button or do a small repair. They might make a charge or you might leave a tip, or even just a thank you and a good review on TripAdvisor which managements seem to value more.
In a large group, probably another member has a sewing kit. They might not want to part with a sewing kit. But they might wait while you sew, to reclaim their needle, even do the sewing for you.
Short of cotton? Pull a thread from another garment. Use your hair if you have long hair. Use a piece of dental floss. Ask hotel reception for a piece of cotton.
On one occasion when I needed cotton I had the chutzpah to ask a hotel reception for a sewing kit and I wasn't staying at that hotel, just visiting for lunch with a friend. If you have a friend staying at a hotel, they might have a sewing kit they don't need. It might be sitting undiscovered in the drawer.
At one hotel I went without sewing for several days and was considering complaint on the hotel feedback form and on TripAdvisor. I wondered whether people in the grander suites had sewing kits. (Sometimes you can see from the trolley of the people who make up the room which items are given to the expansive suites.)
When I went down to the reception desk, they told me that the room had a sewing kit. It was in the plastic box in the wardrobe (Americans call that a closet).
Bye, bye. I'm off to sew a swimming hat.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Author of How to get out of the mess you're in. Please share my posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment