My new favourite swimming bag

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When I go shopping I use the thin plastic supermarket carrier ‘bags for life’, because I can fold them flat and fit them easily into the tiny little backpack I use daily. (That’s always amusing because at the checkout the operator will ask if I need any bags and will look a bit surprised when I say no even though I have a trolley full of shopping. But then I produce a stream of seven or eight carrier bags out of my little bag like a magician producing flowers out of a hat!) Anyway, I never use these big ‘tote bags’ or whatever people call them for actual shopping, but nevertheless we seem to have acquired a good number. Many people buy them at the supermarket to put their shopping in, even though they cost one or two pounds each, but then just throw them out or give them away instead of using them again. This must add a few pounds to the weekly shop, surely, but they obviously don’t think about that. I found this one at the Tesco charity book stall (where you can leave unwanted books and/ or take ones you want and leave a donation in the collecting tin). I could see that at least it had been used a good few times, as the handles were dirty and one was almost completely worn through, so they had used it to drop a pile of books at the stall and then left it there. As it happened I found several books there that I wanted, so I took a bundle and used the broken old bag to carry them. I was sure it would just be thrown out when staff tidied up. I rather liked the watermelon design, and I knew Little One would like it too, she loves this sort of colour of bluey-green and she is very partial to watermelon. So at home I cleaned up the bag, unpicked the handles, then took the pieces to the local sewing shop and bought some new webbing of the same length to replace them. That cost all of 44 pence, and sewing the new handles on only took about 10 minutes. So now I’m really rather pleased with our new bag. It may not be as trendy as those extortionately expensive plastic tote bags that seem to be all the rage right now, but I’m not a fashion victim. We are using it carry our swim stuff and towels when we go to the pool, and I think it looks lovely and summery. Who cares that it says ‘Morrisons’ on the side, it’s not even all that noticeable and the bag is distinctive so it’s easy to see where I have left it at the poolside and which bag is ours, because no-one else has one like it, there are no branches of Morrisons around this part of the country! Don’t you think it looks cute? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2025.