This is a cry from the heart - a genuine cri de coeur - to find out if any of my readers can tell me where to buy a swimming cap.

I want a real, genuine swimming cap, preferably one with a chin strap, though I realise this is like the search for the Loch Ness Monster and my dreams are unlikely to be fulfilled.

What I do NOT want is one of those shiny brain-strangling objects which closely resemble a large white German sausage when they are levered on to your head. When you try to get them off, you may well find you have parted with a proportion of your hair in the struggle.

I am also strongly opposed to wearing a herbaceous border on my head. There are in existence a few such caps, covered in gaudy flowers waving insanely in the wave machine of the swimming pool, which make me fear for the sanity of the manufacturers and even more for the mind-set of those who buy and wear such monstrosities.

It is therefore a measure of my desperation when I tell you I could even be induced to buy one of those if I could find one.

I would apply a mowing machine to it before allowing it within perching distance of my head but at least I would have some kind of hair covering which might, if the fates were kind, also save my ears from getting permanently waterlogged.

So what has brought about this state of affairs?

An invitation to swim in one of the very pleasant private pools in the city has come my way.

In fact it came my way some time ago but when I started to look for my swimming gear, it was nowhere to be found.

A whole bag, complete with goggles, towels, costumes and all the paraphernalia we serious swimmers carry around with us, had vanished like the morning mist.

It is true I have not swum since I had my new hip but to lose an entire bag of kit in a house the size of mine borders on the impossible.

A friend who had helped me do some turning out of over-full cupboards came and tried to work her magic but to no avail.

I got the feeling even a water diviner would have been puzzled by a sports bag which simply appears to have vapourised.

In the end I gave in and convinced myself I needed a new swimming costume anyway and, of course, you can buy a swimming cap at the nearest chemist shop - or so I thought.

I went to local chemists, every branch of Boots, Debenhams, BhS and even specialist sports shops who produced the full range of German sausages and could not understand my resistance to the monsters.

One Boots had a child's cap, and this at the start of the summer season, but nothing for the likes of me.

So in the end I bought a shower cap - yes a shower cap - of sturdy construction which must have been a first cousin to the herbaceous borders referred to above.

At least it has room for my hair and my ears simultaneously and should be firmly anchored by my goggles - another replacement buy in the sales I hasten to add.

So, if you see a somewhat toned-down purple flower bed advancing as you swim around your leisure pool, do lift a leaf and say hello - it may well be me.

In the meantime, if anyone knows where I can get a good, proper, old-fashioned swimming cap, I really would be grateful to know.