I used to swim a lot, about 9KM a week (3 x 3KM sessions). Problem is when I stopped I lost the cardio fitness which makes getting back to those distances quite hard, plus its boring counting hundreds (120 in a 25M pool) of lengths a session.
But I reckon I would still have a lot of fun in my own pool if I had one!

Dont worry your Brit skin will soon be a beautiful lobster red @steevc, ha ha. Be careful mate.