How Many Pairs Of Shoes?!!

I will just get a bit of nonsense out of the way first. Every week at the Ely Standard I receive hundreds of emails, many of which I have either no physical use for (Viagra) and marriage proposals from Eastern European women or others that I feel may be a tad dodgy such as online banking instructions from banks I don't have an account with and African businessmen who want me to arrange to set up bank accounts for them to offload their billions as they are being chased by demented warlords. All worthy causes in their own way I'm sure, but, come on, I have a newspaper and a website to edit and this week I have been particularly busy as it was my turn to do the biscuit run. There are also a fair percentage of these emails that come in the guise of being newsworthy press releases and these I pay a bit more attention to as they often have an interesting paragraph contained in amongst the chatter. For instance, I received a really interesting one the other day from the British Heart Foundation, an organisation I support wholeheartly, all about shoes. Apparently there is a shoe shortage. The BHF shops in Cambridgeshire need your old, or even not so old, shoes. Now, according to a recent survey carried out by the BHF, the average woman owns 44 pairs of shoes! And even more shocking is that almost two thirds of women own 10 pairs of shoes they have never even worn. I have to confess that I consider myself to be a fairly average woman (no feedback necessary here thank you) and I do love shoes, but 44 pairs! And 10 unworn pairs! Okay, I did have a count up when I got home and I know some of you are eager for me to divulge the contents of my shoe rack (s). If you don't include trainers for gym use only, gardening shoes, or boots, I have 27 pairs and one unworn pair, but that's only because they are new and I haven't had the right occasion to wear them yet. Is that a lot? I don't think so. If you are a man reading this and you want to shout at the newspaper "how many pairs can you wear at one time" please take a deep breath and remember that a woman can really never have enough shoes.

I had a wander over to the Cromwell event on Saturday and was pleased to see so many people about. It was a really fantastic and well-organised event and the renactment group were thoroughly entertaining. It's a shame that the weather was so awful for the rest of the weekend and I know that the Haddenham Steam Rally and the Great Ely Walk suffered due to the appalling conditions. It's such a shame when people have spent weeks, and sometimes months, organising events for them to be spoiled by bad weather.

This week we have launched our first-ever Ely Standard Sport Awards and I hope that in the coming weeks you will enjoy reading all the stories of sporting endeavour and achievement. The response to the awards so far has been fantastic and it's great to see that sporting organisations and businesses in the East Cambridgeshire area are excited about the future of sporting provision, especially in the next four years, and also so community spirited. Thank you to everyone who has shown their support so far. I am really looking forward to the awards night in December when we can all get together and celebrate and recognise all the people who work and train and take part in sport throughout the year.