New Boots and… well, new boots.

I’ve been looking for some new boots for months. My brother’s partner gave me my old ones several years ago. She was the wardrobe mistress on 28 Days Later and had a couple of pairs of Jim’s boots left over after the film finished. She gave one pair to the homeless and the other to me. They were made by Ecco and were the best boots I ever owned; really comfortable, light and beautifully designed. I wore them every day for four years.
Unfortunately, inevitably, they started to get smelly this spring and I realised I’d have to replace them. First off I tried Ecco but their shoes were now stunningly ugly and they seemed to have stopped making men’s boots altogether. I realised that I’d have to resort to shopping in shops.
I spent several fruitless lunchtimes and afternoons traipsing around the millions of shoe shops in Covent Garden and the West End. Price was no object, I was getting desperate. My boots were too smelly to wear in a studio and I didn’t own any suitable alternatives. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any boots even remotely like my fantastic 28 Days boots, I couldn’t even find any boots I liked at all.
I went back to the web. I found some quite-nice shoes made by Brasher but I wanted boots and I’ve always been reluctant to buy Brasher boots, not because they aren’t good, some of them are excellent, but because I was once friends with the woman who started the company and it seemed a bit, well, incestuous. Anyway, the only stockist I could find was the Natural Shoe Shop where you can wait hours to be served.
Then I had a break-through. Trawling through search results at some online shoe superstore I saw something very similar to what I was after. Tactical boots made by a company called Magnum. Another search led me to a company called Gladstone Boots, who supply boots for Policemen. Their footwear section is superb, I was spoiled for choice. After a quick phone conversation with the helpful Mr Gladstone about the merits of nylon side-panels I ordered a pair of S.W.A.T. 9″ Tactical Boots. They arrived this morning.
These boots are brilliant. They are lighter than my old Eccos, they are really comfortable, they won’t set off airport metal detectors and the toe cap “has a rubber bumper section designed to aid grip and protect the boot when climbing walls etc.” I can’t wait for their first outing, up to the school to collect my girls this afternoon. Let’s hope the Premises Manager has forgotten to unlock the gates.