Someone's nicked my shoes!

I left them on the bench in the women's changing rooms while I used the gym at Cockermouth Leisure Centre, and when I got back, they were gone. I was quite sure they'd just been tidied up by some over-consciencious member of staff, but it seems they really have been stolen. I'm appalled! They only cost £7 from a charity shop, but I'm very fond of them because they actually fit my wide feet and they're great for cycling and they're nice and bright and red and I can't afford to replace them with a new pair of the same quality.

<sob!>

When I joined the gym I asked where the lockers were, and I was told that although there are lockers for the swimming pool there are none for the gym (although they're planning to install them sometime) so in the meantime you just have to carry all your stuff around with you. I don't like putting my street shoes, which are sometimes a bit dirty, in the same bag with the rest of my clothes to cart around the gym, so I generally just leave them under the bench. They're not worth much so I never imagined anyone would take them. But last night the floor was sopping wet - I think it had just been washed - and because I didn't want my laces trailing on it and getting all wet I put the shoes on top of the bench instead of underneath, making them a lot more visible, I suppose.

And of course, because it was warm, the back door was open. Anyone could have slipped inside, had a quick look around the changing rooms, picked up my shoes and nipped out again without being noticed.

Of course I complained, and now they tell me that I'm quite welcome to use the swimmers' lockers! That wasn't what I was told when I joined. I am not happy.

I may just spend a bit of time wandering around the streets of Cockermouth looking at people's feet and showing this photo to everyone I meet: "Have you seen these shoes?"

Stuff

GYM
Well, all that working out seems to have made my back stronger already, as I was only incapacitated for a few days, rather than the usual couple of weeks. I can actually feel some of these new muscles. If I lie on my back it's like I'm lying on something hard, until I realise it's a couple of muscles that run vertically down the back on either side of the spine. Heh. I've lived all this time without noticing they were there!

The gym has big wide-screen tellies in all the rooms, tuned, with subtitles, to BBC1, a channel I hardly ever watch, apart from the 6 o'clock news. Why are all the characters in Eastenders so ugly? I thought it was supposed to be a reflection of real life, but real people aren't so consistently unpleasant to look at. I can't follow the story at all - no idea who is who or what is what, nor do I care, but you find your eyes being drawn to it as you pedal away furiously on the upright bike or run, boringly, on the spot on the treadmill.

The reason they need subtitles is that they also have piped pop music. I tried using my phone's built-in radio with headphones so that I could listen to something of my own choice, but it's not loud enough to compete. I see people using iPods, but I don't really want to splash out that sort of money just so I can listen to the Archers.

RIGHTS OF WAY
They've recently erected a couple of new signposts in the village, proclaiming a Public Bridleway between Crosby and Crosscanonby. It's been a Public Right Of Way for a very long time, and I've known about it since we've been here, but it's been more or less impassible. Seeing these new signs I thought, "Aha! They must have made some improvements to the path! Hurrah!"

Last time I tried this path, you had to go through a big gate and through the seemingly private drying-green belonging to a farmhouse, and then into a big boggy field, with nothing to show where to go next. If, by dint of much searching, you actually discovered the spot in the fence with the stile, you still had to negotiate deep mud and broken wooden steps over the fence. When I discovered this I had to go back the way I came as it was impossible to get dogs over this stile and there were no dog-gates.

Seeing it was now described as a 'bridleway' I assumed it would now be improved to the extent that you could get a horse through. Hurrah! Entering from the bottom of the path, rather than the top, we made our way across the field to the place where the stile had been several years ago. It was gone. The only way you'd know it's the place to cross the fence is the absence of barbed wire for a couple of feet. I guess I could have climbed over - I'm quite good at climbing over fences - but the dogs wouldn't. It was too high to jump, even for Ghyll, who's happy enough to jump over things of reasonable height. No dog-gates, no holes in the fence, no way to get through. And as for horses? Well, yes, I know some horses do jump, but they'd have to be pretty accurate to jump that little gap, and if they missed they'd be impaled on the barbed wire on either side, or crash unceremoniously into the hawthorn hedge.

They say that if we want to keep our Rights Of Way open, we must use them regularly. How are we supposed to do that?

NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS


Just when I thought there weren't going to be any noctilucent clouds this year, I spotted a nice display the other night, as I was on my way to bed. Dropped everything, grabbed me trusty tripod and took a few pics. It's amazingly hard to get a camera to focus properly when the subject matter isn't very bright but I did manage a couple of good ones, of which the photo above is the best. I could sit and watch these mysterious phenomena all night - they're beautiful and fascinating, and, interestingly, a pretty recent thing. They may be related to climate change, in which case we should be worried, but in some ways I feel sorry for my ancestors who may have had darker skies and therefore a better view than we have of the winter stars, but who never even imagined the possibility of these beautiful nebulous things in the summer sky.