These Boots Were Made For Walkin'

It's official: I'm an Old Fart.... I've just acquired a brand new pair of wellies, not for something cool like hanging 'round the muddy fields of the Glastonbury music festival or anything hip like that...but rather for trunching through muddy fields on my daily walks when the currently gorgeous sunny weather turns murky and wet again.



Brings to mind a list of reasons "You know You're Over 30 When..." that I remember reading shortly after reaching that milestone birthday. Here are the ones most relevant to me:

1. You own a lawnmower
Yip – hadn’t actually used one (that’s B’s domain) up until yesterday when we helped give my parents’ lawn a much needed trim.

2. Before going out anywhere, you ask what the parking is like
Parking? What about traffic getting there and toilet facilities once we're there?

3. Rather than throw a knackered pair of trainers out, you keep them because they'll be all right for the garden
Guilty... in fact, I have more “gardening shoes” than “going out shoes” these days....sensible walking shoes or slippers are more commonly seen on my feet, and of course now I have the wellies that could be just the thing for serious gardening jobs.

4. Instead of laughing at the innovations catalogue that falls out of the newspaper, you suddenly see both the benefit and money saving properties of a plastic winter cover for your garden bench and anelectronic mole repellent for the lawn. Not to mention the plastic man for the car to deter would be thieves.
I’m seriously considering getting a “cat silhouette” to deter the neighbourhood cats who use my garden as a public convenience....chemical deterrents, supposed cat-repellent plants, motion-sensing-low-frequency-noise-emitting devices...I’ve tried them all, to no avail.

5. You start to worry about your parents’ health.
Particularly of late.

6. Pop music all starts to sound a bit crap
Not all, but I’m increasingly dipping back into my “old stuff”.

7. You become powerless to resist the lure of self-assembly furniture
Not so much my thing, but B has become the pro at flat-pack assembly... just as well as almost EVERYTHING we own required some form of home assembly.

8. You always have enough milk in
Milk...and tomatoes...I am not capable of going within 1 mile of a supermarket without buying both.

9. The benefits of a pension scheme become clear
Although maybe not so in these days of credit crunch, collapsing banks, deflation, recession and derailed stock markets.

10. You have a shed
Yes, but not one that houses a wheelbarrow...bit of a sore point between B and me as he insisted we didn’t need one, stubbornly lugging bags of stone and rock by hand, and even resorted to using our wheelie bin to shift slate when we were doing some “hard landscaping” rather than fork out the £12.99 a barrow would’ve cost.

11. You actually find yourself saying "They don't make 'em like that anymore" and "I remember when there were only 3 TV channels" and "Of course, in my day".
Actually, in my day, we only had ONE TV channel, and that only came on at 5 pm...and we had a black and white set till I was about 12 years old.

And I have a new one of my own to add to the list:

"You take an avid interest in household tips"....like using newspaper and vinegar to wash windows, lemon juice to descale the kettle..... and ice cubes to get deeply compressed carpets to spring back into form. Seriously, it works! We’d rearranged the lounge to accommodate the fishy fellas’ home...only snag, where the furniture once stood we had a series of “compression spots”. Leave an ice cube to melt on top of it...et Voilà!...your carpet will slowly soak up the moisture and plump back up to life...though your home may temporarily resemble a new age hippie pad, with strategically placed energy-conferring “crystals”...