A tale of new boots

My dad, being the practical farmer that he is, bought me a pair of hiking boots. These are no ordinary boots; they are in fact, as he informed me, double sole, double leather, double stitching tan leather Razorback Jim Greens. This is what he told me after casually sending an SMS asking what size shoe my boyfriend Andrew and I are. I was not entirely sure what all these technical details meant, but I soon found out. I took my new boots on their first hike today, with the intention of making it to the top of the Coetzenburg mountain despite the foreboding heavy clouds and chilly wind. As my boyfriend, Andrew and I departed, I felt the sturdy fit of the leather around my ankles, and the support of the thick laces which locked them on to my feet. These boots meant business! After hiking up about 600m to get to the start of the approach, the boots stepped in, metaphorically. I would walk no further, they warned. They were not worn in yet, and would require countless wearing-in before any such hikes would happen. So we trotted on down the hillside, blisters all round, to wear them in another day.