Awhile ago, when we still did that sort of thing, my family ( siblings and their families) all got together one Christmas. It was a big deal in that all five of us were at the same place at the same time. The previous time that happened was a funeral. Summer, in NSW, my brother had a lush lawn and we spent most of the time in shorts and barefooted.

One afternoon we were all sitting on a bench on the verandah, and someone said "My God! Look at all those horrible feet!" It was true. All five of us have very unattractive feet, and seeing all ten of them in a row was quite shocking. Most of it was natural talent, but there were some enhancements....my brother lost his toenails from each big toe by playing sport in borrowed boots that were too small. His toenails eventually grew back, twisted and a bit disturbing. I am gifted with awful toenails, but have added to the view by burning my foot when I was a child. The burn really should have had a skin graft, but it didn't, and so what grew back was this very odd raised lump of flesh that changes color depending on the temperature.

Here in Eurobin those feet hardly see the light of day. In summer I always wear boots. I've had enough encounters with snakes, ants, bees and wasps to make sure I keep my feet protected. In winter its cold, and usually wet, and I run two pairs of boots so I can swap the wet ones out for dry ones.

I go through about two pairs of boots a year. That doesn't sound like they are very good, but they do have a hard life.

I try other brands but I usually buy Blundstones. I find them comfortable and they fit. I know my size and can buy them online.

Which is mostly how I bought my clothes since we moved here. I worked out my sizes for Rivers clothes, and have pretty much bought all my clothes from them for the last 8 years. I usually did one or two orders a year, buying when they were offloading stock at ridiculous prices. I would buy, say, 8 pairs of pants at a time, next winter's jumpers in summer sales, job lots of t-shirts in winter.

The prices were ridiculous. No wonder they went broke.....! The t-shirts always lasted a long time, but I usually wear the pants out pretty quickly. Almost always a new pair of pants gets ripped the same day, or permanently stained on their first outing. From that point on its a downward spiral, until eventually I just wear them one last time then bin them. Socks suffer badly under my care. My monstrous feet develop hardened calcified heels in summer that grind through socks in a day. Usually when I was doing an order I would buy 30 pairs of socks at a time! On the Rivers site if you bought enough they were often less than $2 a pair.

Now that Rivers have gone offline and closed, I am working my way down through the backlog. Soon I am going to have to find a new process for buying clothes.