By: Blonde Two
We Blondes like kit (this is no secret); but if we were asked to choose our two most important outdoor essentials, they would probably be walking boots and mascara in that order. (No point having lovely lashes, if you look like a numpty across the camel grass!) Please note, the picture below is a warning – this could happen to you if you come to Dartmoor without boots.
Not only do I currently look like a numpty, but I actually am one because I have managed to leave both my walking boots and my mascara in New Zealand. Let me explain:
No excuse for the mascara; I left it in the flat that we stayed in whilst in Wellington. Back at Norm’s farm, I asked the cows if they minded a pink-clad, make-up free cow cockess (female of cow cocky) and they said ‘moo’ (which was easy for them to say because they all had lovely long dark eyelashes). Quite a simple problem to rectify, I could just go to a shop (watch me fail!)
The boots are due to a miscalculation on my part. Boots are heavy to pack; and if you are travelling to New Zealand, they have to be super-clean to get through bio-security. My old (and once absolutely perfect) Meindl Burmas are wearing out, so I decided to order a new pair, and leave my old ones in New Zealand ready for my next visit.
A good plan you might think; but try buying a pair of Burmas in the UK now. I finally found a company, who were very helpful and ordered them in from Meindl for me; and happily went off to New Zealand secure in the knowledge that my shiny new boots would be here when I returned.
They are not! And I am in a mild state of panic. A Blonde without boots is like a moor without a bog, a river without stepping stones or a fairy without a bridge. I look in the cupboard, and there is a space where my boots used to be. (There is also a space where my daughter used to be; but she never lived in the cupboard and has gone to university).
Luckily, there are two Blondes; and obviously (who could doubt this) we have the same sized feet. Blonde One is eminently more organised than me and has two pairs of boots to my none. She is very kindly going to lend me her spare ones for the next week … I wonder how many mascaras she has …
Blonde One boots: 3 (one pair for wearing, one non-waterproof pair for spares or lending to Blonde Two, one pair that I can’t possibly throw away because I’m sentimentally attached to them).
Blonde One mascaras: 3 (one for wearing, one for taking on expedition, one as a spare so that I never run out).
It’s a good thing to have a spare pair of boots, even if not waterproof – it saves you having to wander around Dartmoor in a pair of emasculated blue flippers, guaranteed to admit bog-rot and other unseemly conditions.
Time for a first. Be the first woman (scary because of your bloodless face) to ascend Tintagelly Tor in Blahniks. Submit the achievement to the Guinness Book of Records: more publicity for your books and an enhancement of your already well-developed invincibility.