The first Christmas card of the season arrived yesterday. Thanks to our lovely friends ‘ The Hobbits of Cheam’
It features a robin and the toe of a lovely red wellie.

Wellies are a bit of a topic @theoldmortuary just recently. The wellies that took us from muddy park walks to commuting to work in London, on occasions, had a simultaneous death pact during 2020. Three pairs have hit the recycling bin in the last month. Two with leaky seams that worked OK in summer mud and were serviceable until faced with proper winter Cornish rain. The last pair, an incognito wellie masquerading as a Chelsea boot, developed an awkward fault. One of the soles started to take in water and mud . The fault was unnoticeable in fields or other grassy areas but the minute I strayed onto tarmac or any hard surface it made squishy noises and loud farty sounds . My feet were never affected and remained dry but sometimes the curious sounds startled passers-by. The sounds were not a good enough reason to recycle them but as the weather has got colder and we’ve needed some heating they have started exuding a range of smells as they rest in the hallway. Some smells are not so bad in a house in winter, warm earth or even mild vegetation smell and sound almost like a deliberately chosen room fragrance. But you don’t always know what is in the mud you’ve walked through. and sometimes the smell was more rugged. Clinical even, like a sigmoidoscopy room after a busy day or Accident and Emergency on a Friday night when a fighting drunk loses control of their bowels and creates a toxic cocktail of smells. The Chelsea boots had to go!

This wouldn’t really be a story but 2020 twists everything. Once the decision was made to ‘ let the Chelsea Boots go’ a fairly quick replacement was necessary. You would think replacing wellies would be pretty simple, but apparently during the run up to the storm that is ‘ Black Friday’ everyone had needed short wellies in a size 6 ( I need short wellies because my calves are a well rounded and substantial pair of muscles)

The only pair I could find that would fit the bill were a pair of ‘rugged’ ones from Kurt Geiger! Rugged or Chunky boots are this season’s big fashion news and if you are buying boots from Kurt Geiger they are going to have a stylistic edge. They look like the love child of a polyamourous coupling between a tractor tyre, Chelsea boot and builders safety boot conceived during Pride Weekend.

They neither leak nor smell and that is wonderful.

My thanks to the lovely ‘Hobbits of Cheam’ who sent us the first Christmas card of the season. They also very kindly wrote that these blogs are ” Keeping them going in 2020″ That is awfully big boots to fill and really lovely feedback. Hobbits you inspired this blog, I also can’t wait to see you on the other side and I hid your names in one of the paragraphs x.