Unfinished business (updates)

[shewhomust]

Fortified by the support of my f-list over Tuesday's upset (I may be a cranky old bat, but we cranky old bats demand our rights!), I went straight to the reception desk at the pool this morning, and said I had been told that if I asked them, they would ensure that there was no music in the pool. The attendant looked bewildered: "No music in the pool?"

"Yes. I complained about it on Tuesday, and Charlotte said that if I asked you..." I knew it was a good idea to make a note of that name. He reached under the desk, and switched off the music. And behold, there was no music in the pool, and I have swum, and am a much happier bunny.

And no doubt next week it will all be to do again, but I am tenacious.

For the record: we set out on Saturday to complete the Durham Coastal Path, from Easington down to Crimdon. durham_rambler has mapped our route here: it was pleasant cliff top walking, interrupted by steep wooded denes, but as with so many things, the southern part was not as good as the northern! We didn't quite reach the end of the route: it was a heavy, sticky day, and by the time we reached the edge of Crimdon we had had enough, and decided that we would skip the final section round the edge of the caravan site (though we will have to go back and do it at some point, for the sake of completeness). Walking this again for pleasure, I would look to park in one of the denes - Hawthorn, or Castle Eden, we'd need to check distances - and walk down to the sea, north to Dawdon and then bus back.

We were discussing this on the bus back to Easington, and the lady in front of me turned round and encouraged us to walk in Castle Eden Dene (that is, the one local to her): "It's very beautiful." I love that people are enthusiastic about the place where they live, on a very local scale.

Finally, on the subject of unfinished journeys, a correction from this morning's Guardian:

"A map of Antarctica identified the point at which Ernest Shackleton's unsuccessful polar expedition of 1908-09 turned back as 97 miles south of the south pole. That should have been north of the south pole."

Well, yes, I suppose so...

Comments

[anef.livejournal.com]

Also, East and West become confusing that near to the Pole. I read Roland Huntsford's biography of Shackleton and couldn't match the narrative to the maps at all until I started thinking "clockwise" and "anticlockwise". There are two sections of Antarctica arbitrarily named East Antarctica and West Antarctica. But there's nothing to say that they shouldn't have been the other way round. I'm not good at directions at the best of times, and this flummoxed me.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

That's why I'm hesitant about supposing so: places near the Pole can be east or west of each other, but surely once your reference point is the South Pole, everywhere else is north (by definition)?