What happens when you are trying to survive the summer during COVID-19 in Texas? You head to your community pool thats what but with that comes all the extra need for sun protection and a bucket load of hand sanitizer. I hear you thinking community pool and COVID-19 well our pool is pretty unique. It sits in the center of our pretty neighborhood full of residents that are mostly in their 50’s and older. So for most the time the pool is empty especially during the week. The pool is what makes living in Texas for this Scottish lady bearable because if you haven’t experienced a summer here in Houston I can tell you it’s like walking into a sauna and staying there indefinitely. I quite frankly am reluctant to ever move anywhere else in Texas unless we have access to a body of water.

As a kid growing up in the city of Aberdeen where the temperature barely got above 11 degrees celsius most the year swimming was not in the forefront of my mind. Although I do have very fond memories of the Aberdeen leisure center pool getting sucked along by the rapids or almost drowned by the wave machine. We didn’t have to worry about sun exposure though like we do here especially not with indoor swimming. The one thing I have learnt recently with our constant swimming is that Nash will burn if he is exposed at the pool and has no sunscreen even if its 5 minutes. This wasn’t something I tested out but an accident that occurred twice. The first time before COVID-19 shut down the city and our pool we went out to test the freezing waters. Nash’s usual clothing his swim shirt appeared to be making him colder so I let him take it off. It was overcast on that day. The sunburn that resulted from that 20 minutes of no shirt and my stupidity at not applying his sunscreen was horrendous. The second time was from me telling him that I would apply sunscreen to his face and legs once we got to the pool, I forgot! Burnt nose and ears here we come even after realizing and applying a think layer of zinc sunscreen.

So the lesson here is no amount of sun is good without sunscreen especially when it comes to hanging out in or out of the pool. Sunscreen is sticky, doesn’t always smell great, can be hard to wash off if using the zinc kind and children never sit still long enough for you to feel like you applied it correctly. Applying it is worth it though to prevent burns, premature aging and skin cancer.