Out and about.

Last week I had several shoe incidents. On Tuesday I discovered that my toe was poking through the top of my running shoe. On Thursday I went out to meet our grandson from school; walking up the hill to the school I looked down and noted that I was wearing one running shoe and one walking shoe, both trainer style shoes, but even so! And not even matching colours! Then on Friday I set off running and realised half way round that I was wearing my walking shoes. So it goes. 

Having discovered the hole in my running shoe, I thought it was time I treated myself to a new pair. So yesterday I went to the running shop in Manchester and explained what I wanted. A friendly, helpful young man offered to see what kind of innersoles would be best in my case, if I had about twenty minutes to spare. So I stood on a fancy glass affair that took a picture of the underside of my foot to show up how flat-footed (or not) I might be. Then the computer went to work and I had to stand on another kind of device which moulded innersoles to the shape of my foot. After this, with a fancy innersole in one shoe and an ordinary one in the other I ran on a treadmill while my running style was videoed. All this so that the charming, helpful, friendly young man could point out how much better, more balanced and so on was the leg with the special innersole shoe on the end of it. 

Eventually, after I had selected a pair of shoes he said, almost as an aside, that there was, of course, an extra charge for the innersoles. How much? £45. £45!!!??? 

So inevitably I opted for ordinary innersoles! And, amazingly, the shoes work really well. I don't run any faster than I did before but I doubt if that would have happened with fancy innersoles either. And do I really care? Well, no! 

I ran in early morning chilly sunshine today. It was fine. The day went off a little after that but picked up again in time for Phil's brother to come round and visit. 


We have established a tradition for his visits. After briefly catching up over a cup of tea we set off for a walk over the hill to Diggle. There we call in at Diggle chippie, the smallest fish and chip shop in the world. Actually I don't know if that is truly the case but it is tiny, located in a small shed, possibly what used to be someone's wooden garage years ago. If you were to try to set it up now you would probably get tied up in all sorts of planning approval difficulties but there it is, a fait accompli. A small wooden chippie, decorated with ancient photos of the area dating back 100 years, if not more. 
 
 And so we sat by Diggle duck pond eating fish and chips in the autumn sunshine. 

 Not a bad life.