Bluebells and a Delaminated Sole
Early May is the one week when the beech wood on the north slope is worth the detour. The canopy is still thin enough to let light through, and the floor is a solid blue for about two hundred metres in every direction. I went on a Sunday, which I normally avoid, and had the wood to myself until nine because most people seem to arrive at eleven.
The walk was 14 km on paper: through the wood, up the shoulder of the hill on the old quarry path, along the top to the trig point and down the bridleway. Nothing hard. Dry underfoot apart from one boggy stretch near the spring, where I have never once kept my feet dry.
At roughly kilometre nine, on the stony section just past the trig point, my right foot started to feel odd. I looked down and the sole of my boot had come away from the upper for about a third of its length, from the toe back. The glue line had simply let go. These boots are seven years old, resoled once, and I had noticed a small gap at the toe a month before and done nothing about it. That is entirely on me.
I always carry a short length of fabric repair tape wrapped around a walking pole. I used all of it. Three wraps around the toe box, pulled tight, and the boot held for the remaining 5 km, though the tape was worn through on the underside by the time I reached the car. Walking felt like wearing a slipper with a stone in it. Blister on the ball of the right foot the next day, which I had not had in years.
Lunch was eaten at the trig point before the drama: a flattened sandwich of brown bread, pickle and hard cheese, two dried apricots, and a square of chocolate that had gone soft against my back. Weather 16 °C, light wind, high cloud. A good day for a walk that ended with a limp.
- Check soles before the season, not during it.
- Carry more tape than feels reasonable.
- Seven years is a fair life for a boot. Stop grieving.