Leather Wellies again

Until I started wearing these boots in work, I hadn't worn them much and certainly hadn't posted many photos of me wearing them. I went for another walk in the countryside today so I could wear them again.

A Variety of boots

I finally got around to throwing out my riding boots a couple of weeks ago so I've been wearing my country boots a lot instead. Last week I went out for a walk in the countryside wearing them. I put them on before I left the house and drove out wearing them, keeping them on until I was back home again. Now they are a bit muddy, I haven't been wearing them around the house any more.
I have decided to keep my knee length converse clean and wear them around the house so that's what I've been doing recently, wearing them nearly every day with my trousers tucked inside.
I have been wearing my Lonsdale boxing boots a lot when I've left the house, unless I've been going into the garden when I've been wearing my wellies. I love wearing wellies and I wish they were a more acceptable fashion statement for men. When I was in the town centre this morning (wearing my boxing boots of course) there was a woman wearing a pair of black hunter wellies. Although it was a slightly chilly day it was completely dry and wellies were a bit overkill but of course nobody gave her a second glance (apart from me who turned to watch her walk past). It really isn't fair.

Riding Boots: not farewell yet.

So today was supposed to be the day when I got rid of my riding boots in favour of my new country boots. After wearing the riding boots around the house all day yesterday, I just couldn't do it. I'm wearing them again today. I just love the feel of the boots around my knees too much. I know I can't keep them much longer and due to a change in circumstances, soon I'll run out of daytime boot wearing opportunities for good. Just one more week. Then I'll get rid of them.

Last month I said I was going to make a note of how much knee length boot wearing I was doing. I recorded the first 4 days of a week of full time boot wearing. I never got around to writing about the rest of the week. On day 5 I did a full 24 hours, with 10 hours each of wellies/countrty boots  and riding boots, with 4 hours of knee length converse. I didn't record how much boot wearing I did in the rest of the month. All I can remember is that I wore my normal converse hi-tops pretty much non-stop for the bank holiday weekend.

Week of Knee Length: Day 4

I slept in my country boots last night and they were comfortable to wear overnight. I wore my riding boots all day, to give my country boots chance to rest before wearing them again tonight. The only bits of the day when I didn't wear my riding boots were when I went to the shops (and wore my knee length converse as usual) and when I went into the garden (when I wore my wellies).
I put my country boots back on to sleep in again tonight.

Week of Knee Length: Day 3

I woke up in my riding boots again. Since I enjoy sleeping in them and enjoyed sitting wearing them watching TV last night, I decided to wear them around the house for a few hours in the morning. They aren't as comfortable as my country boots but they do feel better around the leg/knee since they are taller and a closer fit. One of these days I will find a pair which gives me the best of both worlds but until then I'll have to compromise.
I didn't go into the garden today so I didn't wear my wellies but I wore my knee length converse for a few hours in both the morning and afternoon.
It occurred to me that I haven't slept in my new country boots so I'm going to go to bed wearing them tonight. I wore my riding boots for a few more hours this evening before changing back into my other boots for the night.

Week of Knee Length: Day 2

Another day, another 24 hours of wearing knee length boots. I slept in my riding boots again and wore my country boots around the house. I went out for a walk this morning, wearing my knee length converse. It was a warm day and there was no-one else in tall boots.
When I got home I decided to change into my shorts because my legs were a bit warm. I had to put the buckle on the country boots on the smallest setting otherwise the boots were a bit flappy around my knees. I don't think the country boots work as well with short trousers, they are much better being worn over long trousers.

Week of Knee Length: Day 1

So it's been over 24 hours since I started my knee-length boot-athon. The longest time in a one pair of boots has been 11 hours for wearing my riding boots overnight. I have fallen back in love with the riding boots again, after complaining that they were possibly a bit too tall earlier this year.
I'm wearing my country boots at the moment. I was wearing my wellies earlier this morning when I went into the garden to check on the vegetable patch. My wellies are slightly (50g per boot) heavier than my country boots but they actually feel slightly lighter to wear. This is possibly because they are softer and bendier in the leg. When I was walking around the garden wearing them, I remembered how comfortable they are and how much I enjoy wearing them.

A week of knee length boots

I have decided to spend all of this week wearing knee length boots non-stop. I have my 4 pairs and have decided to wear my riding boots and country boots indoors, my wellies in the garden and my knee length converse outside.
I started off this morning wearing my riding boots for a few hours before changing into my converse to walk to the shops. I am now back in the house wearing my country boots. My plan is to wear each pair of boots for as long as possible so I will be wearing my riding boots overnight.
I will try to keep rough track of how many inch-hours I achieve. Since everything is roughly knee-length, I should get some good results.

I love my new boots

I have been wearing them most of the time, nearly every day for the last couple of weeks. Only changing to a different pair when I went outside. I'd normally wear my wellies in the garden or a pair of boxing boots if I went out anywhere, such as to the shops.

I love the look of the boots, with the buckle on the side and the zip up the back. I love the feeling of the boots on my leg just below my knee.

Shopping in my new boots

I left the house wearing my new boots for the first time today. It was raining so I wore them to walk to the shops. They were comfortable and didn't rub, which is a good start. They were nice and snug around the knee (I had the width adjustment straps on the second narrowest setting). The tops of my calf muscles got a bit warm but they are winter boots so that's probably expected when you wear them in the middle of summer.

New leather boots

My new boots arrived this morning. Now why on earth did I buy a new pair of knee length leather boots in the middle of a heatwave?

 The boots have a zip up the back for quick on and off, and a buckle at the side to adjust the width. If I have the buckle at the widest setting, the boots are a bit like my wellies where I can put them on and pull them off without bothering with the zip.

 So far I have only worn the boots for a couple of hours but they seem to be reasonably comfortable. Of course in this weather they are a bit too warm so I'll probably only wear them occasionally until the autumn when I should be able to spend a bit more time in them.

The boots are about the same height as my wellies, possibly a fraction of an inch taller, and are shorter than my black riding boots. I look forward to getting a chance to wear them for a whole day.

It's that time again...

when I feel the need to buy a new pair of boots. I mentioned quite a while ago that I would like a pair of leather 'welly style' country boots. I've been thinking about them a lot recently and have decided that I really want a pair.
I don't really have room for another pair of knee length boots so I'll probably have to get rid of my riding boots when I buy them so I probably won't buy them for a few weeks so I can get a bit more use out of my riding boots. The only real disadvantage of the country boots is that they are only 'welly height' and not full riding boot height. Even so, they'll probably be a snug leg-hugging fit and should be fun to wear.

Lots more riding boots time

I've been wearing my riding boots rather a lot these days, part of nearly every day. I've also been wearing my wellies for part of most days, usually when I go out into the garden.
Anyway my main point is that I've started to think that the riding boots are actually too tall. Now I usually feel that where boots are concerned, the taller the better. Now that I've been wearing them for several hours a day, I think they are slightly too tall. I used to love the way they would press into the backs of my knees but now they have started to rub a bit.
At some point I will probably get rid of them but I want to get as much wear as possible out of them before the weather gets too warm and they make my legs too sweaty.

October Boot Wearing

During October I decided to keep track of which boots I wore and for how long. I tried to wear boots as much as possible, and wear taller boots whenever I could. I did my usual 'inch-hours' measurements where I took lo-tops as the zero-point and multiplied the height of the boot with how long I wore them for. If taller boots are better than shorter boots, then the higher the inch-hours score the better.

I managed to wear most of my boots, from my normal converse hi-tops, all the way up to my riding boots. I wore boots for a total of 272 hours, and lo-tops for only 43 hours. The boots I wore the longest were:
Converse XX-Hi: 87 hours (worn on 14 days out of 31. I even slept in these boots one night, which I enjoyed doing.)
Lonsdale Boxing boots: 58 hours (worn on 11 days)
Converse Hi-tops: 54 hours (worn on 8 days)
Adidas Boxing boots and Riding boots: both worn for 22 hours each.

I also wore my wellies on 15 days during the month, mainly in the garden, but managed to wear them for a total of 12 hours.

My total tally was 2,800 inch-hours if I ignored any times when I didn't wear anything. If I counted nothing as -2 inches, then the total was 1,940 inch-hours, which was equivalent to wearing Converse hi-tops for 864 hours, or 36 days straight. This was also equivalent to wearing my wellies for 139 hours, or  5.8 days.

By subtracting time spend wearing no shoes, I have to wear boots for a minimum length of time to avoid being in negative inch-hours. Since normal Converse are just over 2 inches taller than lo-tops, I need to wear them for just under 12 hours per day to break even. Alternatively I need to wear my wellies for only 3 hours a day to break even.

Converse Close-ups

Yesterday was a nice varied boot-wearing day. I started off wearing my riding boots then wore a succession of black and white hi-top boots, starting with my lonsdale boxing boots, my new Converse hi-tops, my adidas boxing boots and finally tonight I wore my old pair of converse hi-tops. In the middle of all that I briefly wore my wellies when I went into the garden.

I am back in work now and wearing my new tall  Converse hi-tops, laced all the way to the top of course.

These are the hi-tops folded down, showing the star pattern on the inner lining. I quite like the star pattern but since I prefer tall boots I will be wearing them 'up' more often. I will only wear them folded down if I am wearing shorts.

This is a close-up of the ankle patch. It is a printed disk which appears to be sewn onto the inner lining of the boot. It appears to be positioned slightly too high though because with the top folded down and fixed using the studs, the top of the patch sticks slightly over the top of the boot.

The ankle patch on the outside of the boot isn't as good - it is just a plain printed disk which appears to be glued to the side. It is a pity this is lower quality to the other disk since this is the one which will be visible most of the time while I'm wearing them.

Blue Wellies again

I had chance to wear my blue wellies this morning. I haven't worn these since the summer. I'm going to wear them around the house this morning until I go to work, when I'll change into my Lonsdale boxing boots, which I haven't worn for a while either.

I didn't realise I bought the Lonsdale boots back in 2009. I thought I only bought them last year. I had also forgotten how much I enjoy wearing my blue wellies. They might be shorter than my green wellies and don't fit my leg as snugly but they are a bit stiffer so they press against my leg more, which is what I really like about wellies.

Boot survey part 2

After the recent snow and cold weather I have repeated the boot survey.
From a total of 470 people, (male 228, female 242),  30.56% of men were wearing boots and 78.51% of women wore boots. These are both increases over last month.

	Shoes	Ankle boot	Above the ankle	Calf length	Knee Length
Male	60.44%	23.96%	3.13%	2.08%	1.39%
Female	21.49%	21.90%	32.64%	14.05%	9.92%

Men:

Women:

Boot Wearing Survey

I decided to do a week-long survey of boot-wearing. This survey was conducted in and around where I work, which is in a mostly pedestrianised area. I made a note of how many people I saw while I was walking around, mainly walking between the car park and my office, and whether they were wearing shoes/trainers, ankle boots, above the ankle, calf length or knee length boots.

In total I observed 1048 people, 536 male and 512 female. 

Only 19.03% of males were wearing  boots, while 58.01% of females were wearing boots.

	Shoes	Ankle boot	Above the ankle	Calf length	Knee Length
Male	80.97%	16.23%	1.87%	0.75%	0.19%
Female	41.99%	19.14%	23.24%	11.52%	4.10%

I wasn't surprised to record that women wore more boots than men. There was only 1 recorded man wearing knee length boots and that was a builder wearing wellies. I included myself in the tally, so my 20-eye doc martens and my boxing boots helped to boost the above-the-ankle and calf length count. In fact all but one of the male calf length boots were me - the other was a motorcyclist.

In the charts below, non=shoes/trainers, low=ankle boot, mid=above the ankle, high=calf length boot and top=knee length boot.

Women:

Men:

I might conduct the survey again in the summer and see how the results change.

Boots and shops

Today has been another 'trousers tucked inside boots' day, with a slight emphasis on shopping with boots on display. I started off wearing my adidas boxing boots laced up with trousers tucked inside. I drove to the supermarket, got some petrol, then walked round the shop.

Later on I did a bit of gardening, wearing my Le Chameau wellies. When I got inside I changed into my riding boots.

This afternoon I walked to one of the local shops, about a mile each way, still wearing my riding boots. This is the furthest I've walked wearing them, and the first time I've risked wearing them in public in my street. I decided I didn't care what the neighbours thought - I was going to wear the boots and have them on show.

The left boot rubbed slightly just below knee, where the top of the boot is a bit tight, but otherwise they were ok. It got quite warm while I was out and the boots have softened up really nicely. I think I got at admiring glance from a young lady who looked at the boots and smiled as she walked past, otherwise nobody seemed to notice or care that I was wearing them.

Another fun boot day

This morning I went for a walk in the countryside. I decided to put my wellies on, which was a good idea because it had rained a lot in the week and the ground was quite muddy.
When I got home I changed into my riding boots. I haven't worn these for a few months and had been looking forward to wearing them again. I was still wearing my jeans and the boots were a very snug fit, quite difficult to pull on. I really should remember to wear thinner trousers with these boots. I first noticed this back in May when I bought them.