Monday 4th Sept
Didn't do much, took it easy after Manchester.

Tuesday 5th Sept
Reminded why Tuesdays are my busiest work days, between winding, regulating and cleaning the clocks and the other little jobs, Tuesday morning disappeared rapidly. When I finished at about 2pm, I walked home, picked up the car and drove to the Clarks Village in Street.

As far back as I can remember, I've been rather hard pressed to find comfortable shoes that last for long. My feet are only size 9 1/2 but very wide at the front. I think when Clarks used letters for width I was an "I" or "J" (Normal was around "G"), so for years I've had to go up to an size 11 to get one wide enough. When you factor in that I walk almost everywhere and normally walk with most of my weight on the balls of my feet, shoes rarely last long. Mum wisely stopped buying me trainers as they were lucky to last a couple of terms, I usually go for something with thick soles and a sturdy upper, like a hiking shoe.

Eventually I found a pair of shoes in Ecco, Clarks didn't have much of a choice in the extra wide range, filmsy looking things to my eyes. On returning home I decided to put up a poster offering free car travel for a day trip to Paignton Zoo on Thursday morning.

Wednesday 6th Sept
Made a late start decided to go to Quaywest in Paignton, the website looked like a reasonable fun pool. I was a little disappointed that other than the kiddy pools and one plain pool it was just a water flume park. Not terribly impressed by the rubber ring flumes, kept being thrown off the ring in each of the splash pools along the flume. Somehow manged to tear off a bit of skin from my right "index" toe, looked pretty gruesome, but what's a holiday without some form of minor injury. :-)

Thursday 7th Sept
No one turned up for my trip to Paignton Zoo, rather disappointed, someone had taken down my poster last night, waited until 9:30 then set off, lovely fresh day, watched the baboons being fed, enjoyed the day. Even got to see an egg starting to crack, medium sized hole, something inside fluffy moving ocassionally, but an hour later no progress had been made, so I went home.

Friday 8th Sept
Didn't really fancy returning to an empty house in Camberley, so decided to travel on Saturday. Enjoyed a nice quiet day in.

Saturday 9th Sept
Set off a little later than planned, didn't feel like getting up at first, made very good time. Enjoyed the spectacle of an impatient motorist overtaking me (at exactly 70mph) only to dive in front of me and then get boxed in by a stream of other impatient motorists. Made a few stops, one service was too full to park, and the second layby I stopped in I got followed by two carloads of picnicers, who left their car doors wide open which made it hard to see gaps in the traffic behind me, grr.