The Rain in Liverpool Falls Mainly

About those boots. The ones I hadn’t worn in years. The ones I bought in Liverpool.

I hadn’t been there very long—it must have been the first or second weekend. I’d already been through not three, not four, but TEN bomb scares.  Was trapped in the tunnel—UNDER the Mersey River—for hours and hours each time. Had my car searched each time. Had already changed hotels—to one on THIS side of the Mersey. Which is where she picked me up that day.

So it must have been the second weekend.

Anyway…

It’d been a rough two weeks. I was seriously considering calling New York and asking for hazard pay. I was thrilled when one of my new colleagues suggested going riding.

And really disappointed when I woke up Saturday morning and it was raining. The phone rang. I assumed she was calling to cancel—and you know what they say about assumptions. She laughed it off.  ‘If we cancelled our plans every time it rains here, we’d never do anything. I’ll pick you up in an hour. I’ll bring a spare jacket.’

Fair enough. Besides, she assured me, it was ‘just spitting.’

I found this recent image when I googled “Liverpool rain.” Just to give you an idea: http://www.pixdaus.com/single.php?id=188006#first_new 

(It was a long couple of months. Really nice people, though.)

The British have an incredible number of terms to describe each incremental increase in precipitation. Isn’t it the Japanese who have seventeen words for ‘yes’ and most of them mean ‘no?’ ‘Spitting’ turned out to be what, in California, we call RAIN. That steady, drenching drizzle that doesn’t look like much when you’re standing in a doorway, deciding that you can dash to the car without bothering with an umbrella…until you’re in the car a few minutes later cold, wet, and realize that your clothes are soaked all the way through.

An hour later I was the slightly resentful new owner of a helmet (no rain cover, which is basically just a shower cap, anyway. They assured me I wouldn’t need one—by then it was ‘barely a drizzle’), a pair of slightly water-resistant breeches in some incredibly unnatural polyester blend, and that now-infamous pair of knee-high rubber riding boots.

And her big brother’s borrowed barn jacket.

Just an attractive picture all the way ‘round.

And a wet, windy hour after that, I was flying—right over the head of my horse, ALL BY MYSELF over a three-bar jump.

Apparently, the horse thought I looked lonely. Or that, having seen me go over, the jump was safe, after all. So then he jumped too—damn near landing on top of me.

Afterwards, we put it all together. We’d been over the same jump, with a lower bar, a couple of times already. The rain had tapered off a bit, but the wind had picked up to compensate. As the horse and I were approaching the just-raised bar, one of those ubiquitous white plastic grocery bags went whizzing by outside the ring and >SMACKED< into a nearby post.

My horse startled, planted his feet, and dropped his head. I slid forward on my wet saddle and sailed right over the top of his head, (right between his ears), somersaulted over the jump (clearing it with plenty of room, thank you), and crash landed on the the other side. This surprised the horse, who threw his head back up and, in an effort to catch up (and quite impressively, I might add) bounced over the jump from all almost-complete stop. He landed with two hooves—that’s almost 1,000 pounds of horseflesh in two round, razor-sharp, iron-shod packages—on either side of my head.

This stuff happens. A more experienced rider (or maybe just a drier one) would have kept her seat. I just lay there for a second, stunned, desperately trying to catch my breath and staring up at a great, brown expanse of heaving horsehide above my head.

(It was actually kinda nice to have something blocking the rain for a minute.)

I was fine. Muddy, sore, and mortified, but fine. It did NOT help that my colleague—who has since become a dear friend—still looked like Grace Kelly, despite the rain and the gear, perched blonde and graceful on her mount on the other side of the ring. I had now added mud—a great MUCHNESS of mud—to my overall ensemble. (Plus some impressive, Technicolor bruises which wouldn’t be visible until later in the bath. And for weeks to come...)

As soon as she saw that I was all right, she started laughing her head off.

I caught my breath, caught the horse, and got back on. As you do.

And went over the jump a couple of times—successfully—just because.

An hour after that, I was curled into the tiny hotel tub, tired, and SORE, but happy. And looking forward to going again.

I mean, having invested in all that gear, I kind of had to, right?

I  got to wear the boots a few more times after that in Liverpool, then off and on after I moved to London.

And hardly at all since.

But now they’re out again. They’re ready. Maybe even lucky. Wouldn’t it be nice? ♥

Boot Scootin’

I got stuck in my boots yesterday.

There are all sorts of things I love about being single, but there are times when it would be nice to have someone else around.

Yesterday was one of those times.

It was a glorious Sunday, sunny and bright and I was muddling around the house, as my British friends would say, “happy as Larry.”

I don’t know who Larry is—don’t ask. Since I usually think “happy as a clam” (which doesn’t make any more sense), I usually now picture a smiling clam with a little  “Larry” nametag. Pinned to the left corner of his shell. You know, like, “I’m Sandy…Fly me.”

ANYway--

I was happy and relaxed, and thinking about what a great day it was, and had just decided to take a long walk with the dog later, when it occurred to me that I didn’t know where my riding boots were. The ones I bought when I lived in Liverpool.

I haven’t ridden in ages, but somewhere in the back corner of my brain and rapidly elbowing its way forward, it occurred to me what a nice day it would be for it.

So off I went, hunting through the various closets until I found them.

And started to pull them on.

(And yes, Kim M., if you’re out there anywhere, I did remember to check them first. Not for mice—that would really be unlikely—but for spiders. Because the number and variety of arachnids out here is unbelievable.)

No spiders. Good thing, because I didn’t actually remember to check until I was halfway into the second boot.

Barefoot.

Well, they still fit. Sort of. Were a little tight, to tell the truth.  Especially that hard edge up around the top of my calf, right under the knee. But not as bad as I’d been afraid of and I decided to leave them on for a while.
See if they’d stretch out.
Did I mention that these are rubber?
But rubber stretches, right?

So off I went, and they either did stretch out a little or my lower extremities went numb. One way or another, they were actually pretty comfortable.

For a while.

A couple of hours later, I briefly considered leaving them on to walk the dog. By the time I actually got around to walking the dog, however, I decided that that might not be such a good idea.

You can’t actually flex your ankles in hard rubber riding boots. And I realized that I did have some feeling in my lower extremities and some part of that feeling was definitely PAIN.

Apparently my left foot is slightly larger than my right foot.

Or maybe it’s just that one toe.

In any case it was time to take them of and trade them in for a pair of running shoes.

But in the meantime I’d been walking for hours, barefoot and bare-legged, in tight RUBBER knee-high boots on a WARM day.

You get the idea.

I mean, they’re lined. Sort of. With thin nylon lining stuff that gets warm and damp and (it turns out) gloms onto bare skin in a smooth, unbroken (and almost unbreakable) air-tight seal from knee to ankle.

I couldn’t get them off.

Here’s where a guy would come in handy.

Someone to grab those boots by the ankle and PULL.

Of course, if I were really prepared for all this country living, I’d have a boot jack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_jack) hanging by the barn door, ready for such an emergency.

Having neither boot jack nor barn, I was left to struggle on my own.

And struggle I did.

Now, to my credit, I didn’t panic. Worked on that pesky left boot first. Used the right one to get it started. Since they’re rubber, they don’t even have that hard, raised edge around the sole and heel to grab with, but I did the best I could. Stood on the side of one foot with the other. Kept wiggling and twisting—the boot, my ankle, my calf—and inching it down. Maybe centimetering it down would be more accurate. In between I lay backwards on the bed in that time-honored pulling-on-jeans-that-are-too-tight move, and used both hands and both arms and everything else I could think of to p-u-l-l.

And finally got it off.

Then I realized that now I had NOTHING left on my left foot to get the right one started.

The one that was WAY too tight up around the calf to begin with.

Just breaking that air-tight seal took a couple of minutes. I finally, at great pains—and a giant mess—used one hand to pull the rim of the boot away from my leg and the other to dump baby powder, mostly on the floor, but some of it made it into the boot.

Took twice as long to wiggle my way out of that one.

Luckily, rubber is sort of flexible.

Luckily, so am I.

But a little help would have nice.

I left them standing by the door. Not back in the closet. Just seeing them there makes me smile.

Besides, I might need them sometime.

Soon.