There are some secrets that are so secret that not even the President knows about them. Those secrets are above “Classified”, they are more closely guarded than “Top Secret”, they are only known to a select few as “Swimming Pool Opening Times”.

I don’t think I’ve ever been able to find the opening times for a swimming pool on any council website. Glasgow City Council can easily tell you if their gyms are open, but if you want to know whether a swimming pool is open, or, even worse, whether the sauna will be open too, then you might as well have been asking for nuclear secrets. 

I used to swim regularly in Tollcross Swimming Pool, Glasgow’s only pool with a 50m pool, but I stopped after I realised the only way to find out if the pool was open was to turn up as anything written on their website had to be read Jamie Oliver style: with a pinch of salt.

Highland Council is no better. I spent a good 10 minutes trying to work out from its website whether Dingwall swimming pool would be open in the morning for a 7am swim. In the end, I could only confirm the leisure centre would be open as every link to a swim timetable led nowhere. I would just have to turn up and see.

Luckily, it was open, though whether you can use that as guidance for any other days, I’m not so sure. I don’t have the clearance.

Cost: £8 as a non-member. Pricy.

Facilities: £1 for a locker.  Decent size cubicle and nice and clean changing area. 

Swimming pool: Having grown up with a swimming pool that had a viewing gallery on the first floor, it felt reassuringly familiar to see this 1970s design in action again. The pool was divided into lanes and was 25m. Curiously, the steps/ladder into the pool was on the opposite side to the entrance into the pool from the changing facilities. Why not have it at the same side? Why make people walk to the other side? As I say, there is no logic to swimming pools.

Other facilities? A jacuzzi and steam room. There was also a flume pipe sticking out of an outer wall but I couldn’t see any evidence of it in the pool itself. Where does the flume go? Don’t ask, no one will tell you!

Busy? 10 – 15 people first thing on a Thursday. I was the fastest but I was also one of the youngest. 

Recommended? Yes.