Wednesday 27 February 2013

New Boots

New boots.
I bought a pair of new hiking boots on Friday. They cost me €7.50 at MaxPlus, the discount end of line store in Chambray-lès-Tours. They are not a well known brand, but they are leather, with a proper sewn in waterproof tongue. I like the fact they are nice and simple, without multiple cut away layers and kilometres of stitching for water to seep through. I'm slightly dubious that the inner soles will stay put and I will certainly put in an extra insulated inner sole.

This laneway looks lush. What you can't see is that walking it meant going through knee deep water. No wonder the sign tells you not to take farm machinery down it.
My current pair of boots were reasonably expensive (£80 I seem to remember) Salomon lightweights that I bought in Kathmandu (the outdoor and travel gear store in London, not the Himalayan city) just before we moved to France. So, they've lasted nearly 4 years and are still perfectly wearable, but starting to show battlescars. They especially didn't appreciate being waded through floodwater along a farm lane in the Brenne last May. Foolishly, I didn't rinse them when I got home and they've never been quite the same since.

The Salomon boots, and I'm soaked through from the knees down.
The new boots will serve as a fine backup, allowing me to put the old ones into semi-retirement.

6 comments:

Tim said...

Don't forget to feed them with plenty of dubbin before you use them!
They look good value for money tho'... but I prefer the sides of the flap to go right up to the top.

With your other boots, have you tried giving them a good soaking and a wash in saddle soap, then a dubbining when almost dry... it really brings life back into old boots!

The Beaver said...

Susan

I was going to suggest what Tim has proposed: saddle soap and mink oil ( don't know the meaning of dubbin) -which I can get at some speciality stores in Montreal.

the fly in the web said...

My husband bought boots at one of those end of line shops in deepest France...relieved to find something in his size.
He dubbined them well before use and all three pairs are still going strong over five years later.
There were 2.50 Euros per pair...probably because no one else wanted his size 47.

People here use suet for their boots...no wonder the butcher was puzzled when I wanted some to make puds!

Susan said...

Fly: he must have been lucky -- Simon is that size and we never find shoes for him here. We have to go to Paris to a big Halle aux chaussures that will have a full range of sizes.

Aussie in France said...

I'm sure they are just as good as the 150 euro ones I've just bought! Unfortunately,I have very thin feet and hallux valgus which means that practically nothing is comfortable and I have to try every pair in Le Vieux Campeur before I find any. I've already tried the cheaper places to no avail. It's very annoying.

Susan said...

Fraussie: Fit varies from brand to brand so much, and it is always very annoying to spend a lot of money only to find the quality isn't there. At least with these I have no expectations, and it doesn't matter if they turn out to be duds.

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