Soggy Socks

The Start

Soggy Socks started off as Unsoggy Socks. For most of an otherwise uneventful day. But then events, or rather, one event, transpired and transformed the Unsoggy Socks into Soggy Socks.

Read on and I will tell you How This Happened.

The Second Start

Now, you know, as a regular reader of this here fine site, that I have a strong affinity for socks. The things you wear on your feet. No, never Socks the Cat. I have no affinity at all for cats and I find it remarkable that some people insist on sullying socks by calling their cats by that noun.

You also know, I’m sure I must have mentioned it to you somewhere, sometime, that I walk a lot. No day is considered well spent unless I have walked a minimum of 3 kilometres. Minimum. Over the course of last year, this minimum distance had been achieved with a hah and a snort, as 5 kilometres were achieved daily with nary a hiff or a piff. Not even, as you say, a huff or a puff. In short, we sneered at 5km.

Last year was a year of discovery. Due to the pandemic, we discovered many, many trails, parks, areas of natural beauty. I captured some of those moments in two photographic collections. One for Summer. And the other for Autumn. (You can click the links to see those photos). For the winter we went indoors. (Naturally. I live in the Tundra, did you forget? Where the summers are hot and the winters much too balmy to go outside for a walk. It’s never too cold. Never.)

Walkie Talkies

This year we started our usual round of walkies. There are some talkies on these walkies as well, as you can imagine. We’ve had much to talk about on these walks. The ineptitude of politicians for example. As a general statement, with specific examples to illustrate. Such as the management of the response to the pandemic. (Or lack thereof….) The lack of usable data for decision making, the loss of our vacations. The languishing of our carefully and gleefully and joyfully created plans for our holidays.

What? Yes. We plan our holidays. We like to ensure we know where we want to go, how to get there, what to do when we get there and what points of interest may lie outside the usual touristy bits. Our downfall seems to be the emotional / sensory / historical / literary / <insert other> connections we tend to find.

These tend to be things that struck a chord somewhere. Something we read as kids (Cornwall, Moors, London). Something we read as teenagers (Wuthering Heights, Wordsworth, Notre Dame). Historical interests (Normandy, Ste Mere Eglise, Colosseum, Florence). Things we saw on tv (Mont St Michel, Kew Gardens). Research done while planning may also throw up stuff to see and do (Margate, Tintagel, The Bernina Express).

We tend to be less fussed about things like Buckingham Palace, Changing of the Guard. We tend to prefer mingling with the locals and use public transport as much as we can.

Which brings me back to the the socks, doesn’t it?

The Big Damp

Yes. They were soggy. How did they become soggy? Well. the other day, we waited patiently for the rain to stop. It did. It was just after work. We hurried out. We took our rain jackets just in case. We had invested in some rain jacket prior to the trip to England in 2018. And the one day when we used them was the day… well, never mind all that now. It’s a sore point and it best that we leave that behind us and move on. To other, brighter things. Like sunshine, wine in the sun overlooking the rolling hills of Tuscany, good meals, hot baths, long walks.

So there we were setting out on our daily walk. As we came out, we ran into our neighbor taking his dog for a walk. He seemed to be in quite a rush. He almost ran off with the dog waving at us as he mumbled something about the rain. We looked up at the sky.

There were grey clouds in the distance. But the rain had stopped and the sun was starting to show itself at spots. We went on our way, up the gentle slope to the park. We walked through it and turned right along the street. The light seemed to get brighter. We continued down and about a kilometre down we stopped at a traffic light. We hit the button with our elbow and waited patiently for the lights to change. Once across the street, the light started fading fast.

This caused us to turn right into the big park ahead. This was the easiest way to loop back to the house. The pedestrian walkway was drying and then it came. The Big Damp. It started as big drops of moisture. The sky turned suddenly into a dark, glowering canopy. We looked westwards from where the rains usually come and the sky was crying big copious tears.

Soggy Socks

We did what we have always been told not to do. We stood under a tree. The rain continued, a pitiless downpour, long and hard. We were reminded of the time we suffered the monsoons in Calcutta and the monsoon that was instrumental in bringing us together. If you haven’t read that story, you’ve been negligent or missing in action. Go and read it now!

Eventually, we got tired of waiting and getting wet anyway, so we braved the rain and walked the 2 kilometres back in the driving rain and snow. Uh, ok, there was no snow. But there were puddles and baby streams to walk through. We got home and decided to enter the house via the garage where we stripped off and discarded our soggy socks and shoes.

The End

I had a shot of cognac for medicinal purposes.

PS: The photo of the moon over the lake has nothing whatsoever to do with Soggy Socks and has been inserted for promotional purposes only.

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