Serendipity

For many years I had a pair of heavy, black wellies. They served me well until gradually they developed cracks and crazes. Then they got hard and brittle - and then they started to disintegrate. Boots that no longer serve their purpose are sad looking things - and there's no point in keeping them. Out they went to the dustbin and I started looking for a new pair.

That was five years ago. I went to all the nearby hardware stores, shoe shops and department stores. I found some big black boots but they were always men's sizes. My feet are hardly dainty but they're not that big. Probably, if I had lived in a country town, I'd have had no difficulty but I live in suburbia in a city and it seems there's not much of a demand for ladies wellies.

I started looking for alternatives. Rubber gardening shoes looked a possibility but they were hard and my feet hurt these days. Besides they let in the sand - and where I live we only have sand. I ruined several pairs of sneakers which also filled with sand but they seemed the only option until I walked into my local Woolies store to do the weekly grocery shop and found a rack of "ladies rain boots". Wow! There wasn't a single pair of black ones. There were leopard prints, flowers and patterns - and then there were these.

You may colour me happy.