The Leopard Loo

This is one of the loos at  Kitsch coffee bar, Ebley, Stroud. I walked down to town, dropped off some milk and a print at the surgery, walked along the path called the Long Ground to Cainscross, and my friend A's house. From there we walked along the canal towpath to Ebley, which  has a gym, a soft play place, the District Council offices, two hairdressers, an ice cream stall (apparently no corner shop! Plenty of waterside housing and flats. It's had a makeover in the past ten or so years, owing to the canal restoration.

On the way back we stopped at LIDL, and A got excited and bought lots of stuff from the middle. As we walked along the towpath, with me making remarks about a Socialist paradise, we came across a woman with her dog: my boss at the second surgery, and her dog! Turns out she is a member of the Labour party, and the same age as me, and she enjoys a good walk too.

A. And I had lunch at her place, then I walked back to town, and bough bootlaces for GG and walked home.

 I was just unpacking the shopping when I heard a knock at the door. Our neighbour was looking for his dog. We could hear it barking but couldn't see it. We thought the barking was coming from the garden of the  neighbours to the right. That neighbour said that her cat hadn't moved, so there couldn't have been a dog in her garden...

We went to the garden next door to that. No dog there. Came back to my garden, I climbed over the fence to the right and shimmied down a tree. The neighbour started picking around with a shovel near the hole in my fence.  The dog had stopped barking even though we were nearby, and the garden on the right is a total.jungle, weeds up to chest height, a bit like ours last year. 

Eventually the neighbour's shovelling and gut instinct paid off, and he found the dog stuck in a tree root, and freed it. I did some more stupid superhero fence climbing back into our garden. The dog and the owner went back to their homes. I found I was hobbling rather than walking.

Went and watched TV for a bit, then set off down the road to a Buddhist meditation class. Only one other person and the 'teacher' turned up, but it was good. My knee had seized up again. I did manage to walk home, even though I was offered a lift. I won't be doing any more sliding down tree trunks into jungles, I can assure you!

21, 520 steps today.

Extra: close up of leopard wallpaper.