Friday 27 March 2009

Marshland trudges, new boots, blisters, and aggressive dogs...

It's been quite a week. I bought some new boots as my Lowa Klondike's are falling apart. Years ago I had a great pair of Brasher Hillmasters, and I've gone for the same again. The last pair were fab, however this time 2 miles into their first hike and I had huge blisters on my heels. Bugger. I've now splashed out on a load of 1000 mile "blister free" socks.

John being away, I was left alone with the 3 dogs last weekend, so instead of getting ourselves tied up in knots everytime we climbed stiles I thought it would be an idea to do a long road walk. Boring, but good conditioning for Patch's feet prior to our JOGLE (and mine). Unfortunately, walking through a village a few miles from home a dog charged us and attacked my dogs. The owners eventually got the dogs prised out of each others mouths, and then told me not to walk past their house with the dogs again - and if I did then they would "slit her throat" (refering to Patch). What absolute nutters! For the record, I walked along the road past their house, with 3 dogs on short leads and all quiet and under control - it was THEIR dog that ran out of the garden, over the road and attacked my dogs. I reported them to the police who, as it turns out, have had trouble with them before. These are exactly the type of dog owners I was talking about in my last post! Idiots. Rant over. Almost. The idiot dog owner is Jane Becks and her other half in Llwyn Y Groes.

A funny story though is our outing not long ago with our new Satmap GPS system. I'll never stop using the good old map and compass, but I think this is a sensible back up system to use, and it came into it's own on our hike. We went out over the Cambrian mountains...we only had a Landranger map rather than an explorer, but I was confident we'd be ok with the Satmap as backup...and we were...we were on EXACTLY the path - only it wasn't there, just a load of marshland. We were up to our shins in it! The satmap was great though as an easy way of seeing exactly where we were and where we needed to go to pick up an alternative route when we were feeling pretty soggy.

4 comments:

BG! said...

Hi Sophie

Regarding the blisters... have a word with the folk at ENGO (http://www.goengo.co.uk/preventing-blisters/GoEngoPatches.aspx) - their blister-prevention patches work well and they are happy to send samples. Maybe they'll donate sufficient patches for your JOGLE in return for a product review or recommendation if you let them know that you're JOGLING for charity.

Good luck

Stef

Sophie Easterbrook said...

Hi Stef, that's great advise - thanks for that. I've just emailed them.

I've just come back from another walk where with the 1000 mile "Blister Free" socks I lasted about 7 miles before giving in and swapping with my old boots that I had in my pack! Got a blister again still!

Hi "DogLover", that looks like a useful bit of kit - I would love to be able to let Patch off the lead without worrying about where she would end up. The problem is she could still end up among sheep or chickens etc which wouldn't be good for them!

Sophie Easterbrook said...

Hi Stef, just to update you - I contacted ENGO as you suggested (actually I included a copy of your message!) and guess what..they are going to provide enough patches for the JOGLE!! What stars!!

Thank you so much for the recommendation and suggestion.

Sophie

BG! said...

That's excellent news, Sophie. I'll email you later with some other info.