These boots were made for walking

Funny story about my hiking boots, let me relate it. Remember that I bought my first hiking boots from my moms shoe shop in Parkhurst way back when I was earning money every weekend working at Elke's hair salon during my high school years, first I bought my soccer boots and then my hiking boots, how many I have owned in the interim is anyone's guess, but I'd say plenty as I have been a hiker all my life.

the campers present parking spot, having a rest

When my mom passed on she left all her worldly possessions to Cami-Leigh and Gissele, only a few thousand rand remained in her account at that point so I said to the girls the money was theirs and what did they want to do with it, they kindly gave it to me to add into the household expenses which were min at the time, so I suggested that we use some of it to go off and buy something each that would remind us of her everytime we used it.

We decided on buying hiking boots, the ones I owned at the time were on there last legs, Cami-leigh had grown out of hers and Gissie had none, so off we went to camp Africa and purchased ourselves some stunning waterproof, event hiking boots that set us back R2000 each, although I did negotiate a discount using my past ANT membership as a negotiating tool.

Gissie then joined the travelling Carnival in the States for 6 months and left her boots behind, Cami-Leigh joined Meetup and used her boots on the occasional trips she took with them and some she came on with Lorraine, Ruth and myself. When Gissie came back from the States the two of them went off to Cape Town to do the photography course and then got themselves jobs on the sea cruises so they ended up packing their boots in the one box they each kept that had some odds and ends they wanted to keep and was then added to the boxes we put in storage at Val and Johann's until we found ourselves a new home somewhere. They then went off on their sailing adventure around the world. 

I walked the dogs every day at the Delta for a few hours so had plenty of time to walk mine in and by the time I was ready to leave Joburg my boots had molded themselves around my feet and would be perfect for hiking wherever we found ourselves, nothing worse than a long hike with the incorrect footwear, a whole host of blisters had taught me that lesson.

Just before we were ready to head off to pastures greener, a funny thing happened and my boots ended up on the feet of a young black guy who is probably happily walking around Randburg with expensive taste in footwear.

One day there was a lot of noise and banging on gates and shouts in the neighbourhood, mostly coming from the House behind me and in the street at our bottom gate, apparently some one had spotted a guy on the roof and he had run off jumping fences and moving from house to house, mine being one and the end result was a lot of upset neighbours, local security firms, the cops, some telkom technicians and who knows who else, brandishing an array of weapons from sticks to garden implements, seems crazy now but such is the paranoia in gangsters paradise it seemed the done thing to do at the time, I did see the young black guy on my neighbours roof, he seemed harmless enough and I asked him if he was okay, I thought maybe he just wanted food, he ducked off the roof and vanished and no amount of searching from all concerned found any trace of him after that.

no more hair

Eventually tempers settled and everyone went back to their business assuming the guy was long gone. I came back into the house intending to take the dogs for a walk and could not find my boots. My first thought was that one of the many guys who had run in and out of all the houses in our cul de sac in their search had decided to opportunistically help himself to my boots which always sat on my stoep, also Jos was going a little bit crazy barking at the roof so I put the dogs in the car and drove around to the neighbours behind me and asked them if they could ask all the people involved if any of them may have seen someone walk off with my boots, they assured me no-one of them would have so we chatted for awhile about this guy and then I left and went home, only to discover in my absence that a whole host of other things had vanished out of my house in our absence.

I was really pissed off as my camera, hard drive, G3 stick, cell phone and DSTV mobile were all gone, why couldn't he have taken the microwave and the bed and furniture instead, I didn't need those. Jos was still going crazy and it finally dawned on me that the guy we had been looking for had holed up on my cottage roof and while we were out, he had come down to help himself to a few more items, I ran around the back of the cottage following a madly barking Jos and found an abandoned red bag, turned out to be my red bag from the cupboard in my room, he must have heard us returning and jumped back on the roof and then left in a hurry when he realised that Jos was not quitting with her barking, he ended up jumping the wall into the neighbours yard, I found this out from my niece later, she works in the house as an au pair, but that's another story, he must have dropped the bag in his hurry to leave which was great for me because when I opened it up I found my camera, cellphone, his old scruffy black trainers, a tracksuit top that had seen better days, my best homemade packet of double chocolate biscuits, not the crummy pick n' pay brand that I had plenty of, three bottles of my favourite flavoured water, again not the cheap crappy juice and my Nuskin bag which is where I hide my cash and would you believe the cash was still in the side pocket so he had not had time to go through it. The rest of the stuff along with my boots were gone with him.

my hiking socks are too thick for Gissie's lovely new boots

So that's the story of the boots so I ended up getting Gissie's box out of storage and am now sitting with her boots which are slightly too small for me where mine were slightly too large, hiking boots not coming in half sizes, so I had to wear thick socks with mine but will have to wear thin ones with Gissie's. I have not had a chance to date to walk them in, it was too hot when we started on our trip to use hiking boots plus the two old dogs would never have hiked for long enough for me to need them, my slops or open walkers were always good enough, but now with just the pups left and winter upon us, so others keep telling me, it is time to take them out of their little hidey hole in the camper and get them walked in. There are lots of places here where I can walk up and down the hills, I have spent the week making sure the collies will listen to me and come when I call so I feel confident enough to take them with me on marathon hikes, I also want mine getting back into doing 2 hour walks especially Jos who looks like a tub of lard, she doesn't walk she waddles along, gone is my sleek golden cheetah for the moment, but I do want her back.