Wellies!

I’m not much of a material girl. While once in a while I’ll get an urge to do some recreational shopping, it’s rare. Bookstores, yarn shops, and garden centers can always lure me in, of course, but department stores literally give me headaches–something about the lighting. I like pretty clothes and cute shoes, but I also wear my pretty things until they’re not so pretty, and then use them as writing or gardening togs. I adore jewelry, but often forget to wear anything except my wedding ring and the eternity knot choker the Cat-Herder gave me long before we were married–and I only remember those because I never take them off. My husband and I gave each other cookware for Christmas, and I’m seriously considering asking for a load of compost as a birthday gift.

But once in a while, some random object will get under my skin and I’ll yearn for it with all the lust a marketer could hope to inspire.

For years, I’ve wanted a pair of Wellies. Not just any rubber rain boots, but Wellies, those tough, durable, shiny British classics. Beloved of Paddington Bear and British gardeners and gentleman farmers, they called to me like Jimmy Choos or other shoes with staggering heels and equally staggering price tags call to fashionistas. But for some reason, I’ve never gotten a pair–and by “for some reason” I mean I’m frugal with a side order of cheap and don’t replace my rain boots until they start leaking. So generally I’m swimming through a spring rain storm to look for new boots and I’m stuck taking whatever they have in the local mall.

I wear rain boots as “mud boots” in the garden, and if you haven’t noticed by now, I spend a lot of time in my garden, starting early in the spring and ending late in the fall. Good boots are important. And I do like the boots to be visually appealing as well as comfortable and functional, because they leave the garden and go to town with me on rainy days. This spring I decided I’d start looking early, before the need for new boots became a crisis to be solved by buying some flimsy knock-off at Target.

Somehow, I’d missed the important memo that LL Bean now sells branded Wellies in a variety of colors. I don’t want to swear they’re the same boot as the classic Wellie, but they’re about three times as heavy as “fashion” rain boots, with much better soles that seem suitable for tramping through gardens and fields. Success! And LL Bean was having a sale when I stopped in, so my new Wellies were cheaper than the much flimsier knock-off rain boots I managed to destroy within a year–something about getting snagged  on the chicken wire fence around the vegetable garden, I suspect. (Must learn to use the gate!) I always figured I’d wind up with daffodil-yellow Wellies–so cheerful on a gray spring day–but how could I resist this adorable plaid? They even look cute as well as functional with my hideous gardening sweat pants.

I suspect my new Wellies will come in handy later this week. We got a few inches of snow this morning but it’s turned to rain. Wet and cold now and muddy soon–the perfect weather for boots from Maine via England.