About this blog

This is a window into the weird world of Anglicanism, as experienced on a Cathedral Close. Has anything much happened since Trollope's Barchester Chronicles? You will still see the 'canon in residence' hurrying across to choral Evensong, robes flapping, as the late bell chimes. But look carefully and you will notice he is checking the football score on his iPhone as he runs. This is also a writer's blog. It charts the agony and ecstasy of the novelist's life. And it's a fighter's blog. It charts the agony and ecstasy of the judo mat. Well, the agony, anyway.

Sunday 22 April 2012

What to Wear on a Walk in the Country

Well, look at that.  I've nearly done 4 months without buying any new clothes or accessories.  Only 8 more months and I can run amok with a credit card in TKMaxx.  Or more likely, the posh charity shops of Alderly Edge, rummaging through the footballers' wives old designer duds.  In my imagination the charity shops of the North West glow like so many Aladdin's caves.  Exploring them is one of the things I'm looking forward to when we move to Liverpool.

But in the meantime, What to Wear on a Walk in the Country?  I ask this because I have recently been on a muddy walk in Shropshire, while tutoring a school's course for the Arvon Foundation.  The experience flushed out a gap in my wardrobe: wellies.  I do not own a pair of wellies.

So I borrowed a pair.  I found them lying about the Main House.  Maybe they are The Arvon Wellies, donned by many a great poet or playwright down the years who happened to have size 7 feet?  They were pretty and floral and very nearly my size.  I wish I'd photographed them for you.  The left boot fitted slightly better than the right, for reasons which became clear when I confidently strode into a deep puddle.  There was a two inch split up the back seam.  But it was a lovely walk.  I saw some cowslips:



And holey wellies were better than ruining my suede boots, which were my only footwear for the whole week.  I tend to pack light.  After all, I'm seeking to impress people by my superlative wordsmithery, not my wardrobe.  It matters not a whit to teenagers what adults wear, anyway.  We are invisible--unless we are their parents and we decide to dance at a party.  One of the girls admired a necklace I wore on Thursday, but that is a rare exception.  To be fair, the necklace draws the eye somewhat.  It's so chunky it could double as nunchucks.

Wellies will not be on my list of clothes to buy in the New Year.  I don't have a welly lifestyle.  This was an emergency.  Normally when I'm out walking I wear walking boots, or trainers.  Or else I wear high heels and book a taxi.


1 comment:

  1. Am just back from Nepal. Three shirts, one skirt, one pair of trousers - for five weeks. Flip flops and boots for the mountains. How to keep clean? - walk on clothes in the shower and they dry overnight.

    (And I still had more than most of the women living here. Which was quite a lesson.)

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