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Friday 11 November 2011

Boots Boots Boots Boots Marchinup and Downagain

boots boots boots boots

Those few of you who have read and will remember the Goodies Christmas Album from nineteen seventy blob, will recognise the title of this post as the name of a firm of solicitors….

Anyway – suddenly I have loads of pairs of boots.

Some time ago, I was asked if I would like to review stuff for Ukhillwalking (note well that I’m not reviewing stuff for the blog) and, never a one to refuse hillwalking gear, I said I would.

A bit later, I was told that TNF wanted to send me some boots.  Fair do’s – all my boots are now leaking, except, perhaps my venerable Scarpa’s which I only wear in the depths of icy winter when its require to wear spikes – cos they is stiff, see?

Anyway, the boots never arrived and, eventually , I mentioned this to Sarah at Ukhillwalking. A flurry of emails flitterred around the ether. Boots must have been despatched because…..

knipe towers front door

Suddenly, a few days ago, a white van appeared at the knipetowers  main drawbridge and the chap announced the arrival of a pair of boots from Belgium. Good-oh. They look very nice. I’ll be trying them out shortly and they’ll likely go on next year’s TGO Challenge (If I get on) – or otherwise on various backpacking trips.

Then , even suddenlier, another white van appears across the moat and the man with the van proudly  announces the  arrival of a pair of boots from Belgium. I accepted, of course.

Justaminnit, though – hasn’t this already happened?  I now have  two pairs of identical TNF boots – the first were despatched in November and the second, in September. Where’ve they been, I wonder. I’m just waiting to see if they want a pair back.

I’ll be doing a report for Ukhillwalking.com as soon as I’ve given them a bit of a bashing testing.

 

10 comments:

Dawn said...

Looking forward to your comments; I have a pair of North Face Hedgehog gtx mids.They are not water resistant. With current foot problems I am reluctant to switch over to my heavy weight deep winter mega boots, Aku Edge's.

Unknown said...

Ay-up, Rudyard Kipling too :)

http://allpoetry.com/poem/8445289-Boots-by-Rudyard_Kipling

Al said...

I'm glad I've not got your heating bills with a pile like that! Or do you just live in one wing?
That moat looks like it needs cleaning out!

Mike Knipe said...

Dawn - I'll be using the boots tomorrow, and, maybe for a bivi over theweekend. They look very chunky.... which is a good start...
Brian - I never did potery, it was too Ruddy 'Ard (see what I did there... Tommy Atkins this an' Tommy Atkins that...
Al How do you know about the piles?... oh yes, I see.. dhuhh....

Peter Crawford said...

If you can meet
With triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters
Just the same

Mind you I've never been a big fan of his cakes but there you go....

Mike Knipe said...

God of our fathers , known of old
How nice are the cherry bakewells, truth be told.
R Kipling.1865 -1936

AlanR said...

Make sure you don’t throw 2 right foots in the car Mike. it’s too cold for barefoot walking.

Mike Knipe said...

Ah yes, Alan - It had occurred to me that this could well happen. There's so many pairs of soggy boots in the boot of my car now, that selecting a pair is getting like matching up socks.

Jules said...

Looking forward to reading the reviews.

Make sure you get a pair, though. Reminds me of the (probably not true) story when more boots were ordered for the soldiers fighting in the Crimea (I never promised it was topical). 2 ship-loads were sent - one full of right boots, the other full of left boots (you know where this is going, don't you). Of course, one sank .....

Ooops. :-)

Mike Knipe said...

Jules - At the moment, I'm only using one pair so that (unless they ask for a pair to be returned) I can do before and after pics. So far, one pair has done just ten miles. Once they're a bit batterred, the danger of turning up somewhere with two left feet diminishes. I have so many pairs of boots, though, that a pair might not necessarily.....