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Post by Patrick on May 14, 2009 9:23:06 GMT
Whilst I hate boring shoes - and you can't get much boring than mens' shoes. I've never been a fan of trainers. I think they're a bit of an abomination really! If you called them plimsolls still - for that's all they are really - Plimsolls on steroids - they would undoubtedly lose their appeal, I'm sure.
Bit like jeans. It must be something in my genes, 'cos I've never got on with them. Heavy encumbered things and even more uncomfortable when wet. The nearest I've come to a pair of jeans is denim coloured chinos. I wore jeans - occasionally - but even as a teenager I found them dashed uncomfortable - and it was after receiving a good soaking at the hands of Mother Nature once and barely being able to move that put me right off them!
Oh! and if I might be permitted to sound really middle aged. Why do youngsters have to dress the same? What's with all these baggy tracksuits! etc! How positively depressing to be part of a tribe! It just goes to show that some form of oppression would work quite well in this country - because for some reason a great swathe of the population clearly doesn't like the thought of being "An Individual!"
Sure - in the seventies and eighties there were soul boys and punks and rockers etc - but there did seem to be more variety! Same with hair styles! Yes, you had your skinheads - but everyone else had different hair too! With the girls there were perms, bobs, boycuts and straight! Now there's straight, straight, straight and straight! (I won't go on about this 'cos I've done it too many times before) but we have a lot of group photos in the local paper where they report on various charity group gatherings etc and all the women look the same! In Lancaster they have long straight hair up until their 40's and then it just gets cut short as they all prepare for their blue rinse days to come!
Lancaster women are a very peculiar bunch - Most of the women in the North West for that matter! They start off growing and become tall and skinny and then little by little they shrink and get wider! This isn't something that I have seen [/b]anywhere else in this country![/b] There has been a scientific study that has shown though that such was the deprivation in the North and North West in particular in the 17 and 1800's that Women have developed a gene that stunts their growth and restricts their life span! I presume it will take another 2-300 years to iron this out again!
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Post by riotgrrl on May 14, 2009 10:15:24 GMT
I once had a pair of ridiculously high platform shoes. They were dead cheap, platicy things, so probably I didn't have much confidence that I'd wear them more than once. Neither am I very confident about my new boots. They are supposed to be waterproof but don't have a membrane so suspect I will end up with wet feet on the Pennines. They seem okay round the house but you can't tell if boots fit until you've walked about eight miles in them. Housey, when you off and for how long? And are you just walking in the UK or off to more exciting places? If you're in the Penines you should pop by and say hullo to Mouse. She lives up a hill there somewhere. And the Mouse and the Sparrow could have a cup of tea and hide from any passing cats! (lol) |
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Post by Patrick on May 14, 2009 10:18:47 GMT
And the Mouse and the Sparrow could have a cup of tea and hide from any passing cats! (lol)   - + - I had a morning dream about camping the other day. I do like it. I have this secret urge to tootle off along some long distance path or other. About Twenty years ago every bookshelf seemed to be heaving with books about people walking - be it Mark Wallington or Nicholas Crane. So many people just went off - on their own - I'd be interested to know if they felt they could do it safely today, after all Nick Crane only seems to do it with a camera crew behind him these days! |
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Post by riotgrrl on May 14, 2009 10:26:30 GMT
Housey, wear wedges. They go with anything. Alternatively, wear the ones that are too big and pad them out rather than the ones that are too small. For your own comfort. I worry about your walking tours. After all, weren't you responsible for the fall of Communism on a walking tour? I'm not that keen on wedges and only have one pair. I find them too stiff to walk in properly. Plus if you're not careful they can look like orthopaedic shoes. I have a tale from my travels that proves my 'wedges go with anything' theory. When I was up in I'ness yesterday morning I decided to go for a swim in the hotel pool before breakfast. I thought "well, I'm not getting dressed in my room, changed into a swimmie at the pool changing room, changed back out of my swimmie there, go back upstairs, get undressed again for a shower, and then re-dressed. That would be madness. It's 7.30 am in the morning FFS." I'd chucked my swimmie in my overnight bag, and the hotel provided robes. They weren't the biggest and fluffiest robes ever - about knee-length. So I put that on over my swimmie. But then I had to walk down 2 flights of stairs and down a corridor to get to the pool, so I thought I should put some shoes on. The shoes I had with me were a pair of brown wedges, as, because 'wedges go with anything' they worked with the outfit I was wearing to the dinner on Tuesday night and they worked with the suit I was wearing on Wednesday. They're the kind of wedges with the big wedged heel, a toe bit, foot bare, and an ankle strap. Kind of slutty looking if you see them, but you don't see the ankle strap with trousers on. So I'm walking through this hotel in my swimmie and robe, bare legs and my kind of slutty looking wedges like some kind of Russian prostitute hanging round a pool in Goa. And I walked right into the most senior person attending the meeting, a man of 59 with a distinguished legal career now heading up a major Government Agency. I don't know who had the biggest reddie as we made polite conversation about breakfast and the like. He couldn't LOOK at me. I couldn't LOOK at him. We got the train home together - nearly 4 hours - chatting away about everything under the sun . . .but our early morning semi-dressed encounter was never mentioned again. |
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Post by housesparrow on May 14, 2009 16:07:43 GMT
I once had a pair of ridiculously high platform shoes. They were dead cheap, platicy things, so probably I didn't have much confidence that I'd wear them more than once. Neither am I very confident about my new boots. They are supposed to be waterproof but don't have a membrane so suspect I will end up with wet feet on the Pennines. They seem okay round the house but you can't tell if boots fit until you've walked about eight miles in them. Housey, when you off and for how long? And are you just walking in the UK or off to more exciting places? If you're in the Penines you should pop by and say hullo to Mouse. She lives up a hill there somewhere. And the Mouse and the Sparrow could have a cup of tea and hide from any passing cats! (lol) I'm off to walk Alfred Wainwright's famous Coast to Coast - well the half I haven't done already. We don't see much of the Pennines, we just cross over it (bog alert!) from Cumbria into Yorkshire and end up near Whitby. There are meant to be four of us but one has had a cycle accident and may not be up to it. But I shall certainly say "hi" to any Mouse we meet. New boots seem okay, but I shall take shoes just in case - and waterproof socks. We've got soft in our old age and now use a baggage carrier. |
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Post by everso on May 14, 2009 18:00:42 GMT
So I'm walking through this hotel in my swimmie and robe, bare legs and my kind of slutty looking wedges like some kind of Russian prostitute hanging round a pool in Goa.  Great look!
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Post by housesparrow on May 14, 2009 18:11:53 GMT
It actually doesn't seem like a strange look either. I can remember the days when en-suite rooms were almost unheard of so you often met the great and the good sauntering down the corridor in a state of half dress.
One of my relations had a flat in London without a bathroom at all, and she used to pop into the Dorchester to use theirs. She said no-one ever challenged her.
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Post by Patrick on May 14, 2009 18:29:06 GMT
Sort of posh hotel in Boston we stayed in had a Swimming Pool. On the third floor oddly enough! It was a distinctly odd feeling standing next to someone in the lift who was wearing a Fluffy Towelling Robe on their way to the pool You knew the reason why (unless they just liked doing that) but you had to suppress the urge to ask them if they'd locked themselves out of their room! |
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Post by everso on May 15, 2009 8:06:16 GMT
It's funny how typically British we are with regard to being seen in our towelling dressing gowns in hotel corridors. My German sister-in-law is mystified by our bodily shyness in those circumstances (forgetting about topless sunbathing and skimpy nightclub clothes for a minute). In Germany they think nothing of mixed bathing and sauna sessions completely in the nude. Our first visit to Germany back in 1990 saw Mr. E. and our son try out the mixed sauna completely starkers, while I and our daughter acted like a couple of old Victorian maiden aunts and refused to go anywhere near it. According to Mr. E. our 11 year old son's eyes were out on organ stops (as, no doubt, were his). A couple of years ago we took a short trip to Baden Baden, a spa town, and there are swimming pools where, at certain specified times, you can go nude swimming. Mr. E. said he'd be game, but there was no way I could possibly do it. I'd be bound to start staring and you can bet if I was staring so would other people.  |
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Post by housesparrow on May 15, 2009 14:03:23 GMT
When we went to Sweden about 10 years ago the nudist beaches were strictly segregated - men's one side, women's the other. The saunas in our campsite were pink and blue as well; much more civilised.
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Post by everso on May 15, 2009 16:16:37 GMT
When we went to Sweden about 10 years ago the nudist beaches were strictly segregated - men's one side, women's the other. The saunas in our campsite were pink and blue as well; much more civilised. I agree Housey. I don't care what anyone says, people will stare. Especially if there's a big bottom involved. |
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