Thursday, February 14, 2008

The Winterbourne Mystery

The hotel we stayed in at the weekend has lovely grounds and is surrounded by beautiful country lanes. I went walking with friend Crinny and our cameras and took lots of photos of flora and fauna for my collection. Running alongside the lane was a stream and on the bank we saw this perfectly good pair of walking boots. We felt certain that there must be an interesting story to go with them. I would love to hear what you think that story might be.

13 comments:

  1. M - if I didn't still have a head full of cold, I'd try to think of something quirky and off the wall. Let me mull over it during the weekend!

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  2. Was the hotel anywhere near Baskervilles?

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  3. The person was was clearly abducted by aliens who had just washed their kitchen floor...

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  4. The thing about these boots is that although they were in good condition, these seem to have been lying in the same place for a good while - a couple of years I would say judging by the lichen growing on them. What I want to know is why has someone abandoned a perfectly good pair of boots, and why hasn't someone snaffled them. I would have done if I lived in the area, they looked about my size.

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  5. well, it seems we have been beaten to it. Did anyone catch 'Poetry Please' on Radio 4? If you did you will have heard about 'That Lonely Shoe Lying on the Road' by Muriel Spark

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  6. Another case of spontaneous vegetation.

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  7. I've just listened to the Poetry Please reading of Muriel Spark's poem, as recommended by Crinny (the fellow finder of those boots). The finding of the occasional single shoe, reminds Muriel spark that there are still mysteries in life and they invoke in her awe and sad pity. I don't know about you, Crinny, but I didn't feel any sad pity but there was certainly mystery.

    We've had house-proud aliens, murderous hounds and a new type of vegetation suggested, do you think we are near the truth yet?

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  8. Maybe the boots had got really smelly and they'd left them outside the back door to air off and a fox had run off with them. That's what happened to my slippers, but even the fox couldn't bear the smell and dropped them - and I'm still wearing them!

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  9. Interesting, Tiggy. The fox must have carried one boot a long way from the nearest house, returned for the second and placed them carefully together .... 'ze leetle grey cells wonder why, Hastings'

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  10. As I said to a friend of mine the other day as we walked across campus: "There's no good way to discovery that your boots are no longer waterproof."

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  11. David, I think the owner of these boots took them off in order to tread more quietly through the woods in the moonlight but for some reason never returned for them.

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I love to read your comments and promise that I will reply as soon as I can leave my garden, sewing room or kitchen!