Mission accomplished! I have finally acquired a six-month pass for the local pool. I only have to swim once every four or five days to make it worth the investment, and, of course, I plan to swim quite a bit more often than that!
What I really need is an adult stroke-correction course. But in the meantime, I'll brush up on the fantastic tips that I found a while back at this (Swiss) website, featuring photos and footage from some great (Aussie) swimmers! There's a lot of interesting stuff about front quadrant swimming and efficient freestyle technique. And some simple but alarmingly effective strategies such as 'swimming downhill'.