The welly hierarchy

From our Cotswolds columnist, Catherine Moore, who said goodbye to inner-city London and upped sticks for Gloucestershire, for the sake of family life and more space...

 

'When you move to the country, you have to accept that mud is your constant companion. And if you factor a couple of dogs into the equation then you have to deal with more mud than most. I bit the bullet fairly swiftly after we left London and invested in a pair of wellies. Green, of course - not sure about all these other ex-city girls striding across the Common in paisleys and flowers. I'm keeping an eye out for Cath Kidston who lives lives near us in Gloucestershire, to see if she is schlepping through the fields in her own fanciful creations, or favours my  "I've been living here all my life (honest) and am just about to muck out the stables" look.

'Bizarrely, there is actually a welly hierarchy. No-one is looking at your feet to see if you've splashed out on Manolos, they're looking to see if you're a county type in your Hunters or if you're really worth talking to and are sporting a pair of Le Chameaus - did you even know it was possible to spend £200 on a pair of wellington boots?

'Wellies do bring their own special problems, as with a family of four owning wellies and lately, riding boots, we cannot make it to the back door without falling over the pile (we're not posh enough to have a ‘boot room'). I called in at the local saddlery yesterday to ask if there was a neat storage solution for my boots. The rather snooty assistant wondered why I had never heard of bespoke boot stands and hadn't I seen them on sale at the Badminton Horse Trials last week. That was me told.

It was a wonderful sight to see fashion stylist Isabella Blow stalking around in an outrageously voluminous fur coat - wolfskin, acquired on a fashion shoot in Russia'Two local ex-Londoner friends of mine are refusing to throw in the towel and will not buy wellies.  They are both incredibly stylish women, one a textile designer, the other a fine art lecturer and maintain that just because you've left the metropolis it doesn't mean you have to dress like you have and start hauling yourself around in gumboots and jeans.

'I admire them but I have to say I don't know how they manage it. I don't think I ever make it through a whole day without getting muddy pawprints somewhere on my person and bits of tree in my hair.

'I recently took my son to see the doctor and came out having not paid the slightest attention to what she had said about my ailing child. Instead I'd spent the whole appointment wondering just how she managed to stay looking so, well, clean, in her pale lemon linen dress, worn with killer heels.

'It's somehow marvellous though when people make no concession to the fact that their house may only be accessible via a muddy track, or that they have to negotiate two stiles and a field of cows to go the quickest route to the pub. It was a wonderful sight to see fashion stylist Isabella Blow stalking around in an outrageously voluminous fur coat - wolfskin, acquired on a fashion shoot in Russia. And Isabella's heels and hats didn't get left behind in the city when she stayed at her country house, just down the valley.

'People locally are very sad at her death. She was a nice woman. A friend's sister rented a cottage on Isabella's estate and she was always friendly, not batting an eyelid when her tenant wandered into her kitchen looking to borrow milk, and even showing her around the magnificent Arts and Crafts house.

'Oddly, considering how she looked, Isabella didn't stand out quite as much as you'd imagine around here. Given that her neighbours include a man who turns up to the pub in a tank, another who uses a Spitfire (the plane not the classic car) to get around and  a woman who takes her pet otters about with her, she fitted in just about right.'