Ive been trying to get a pair of "non waterproof" shoes/trainers/hikers for a while, amazing how hard that was. Anyway I eventually settled on the Salomon eskape aero, I already have a couple of other Salomon boots that i really like, so that went quite a way towards picking these, in the end it came down to a straight shoot out between these and a pair of merrell.
    Initial thoughts are that they are very comfortable, as expected really.  I was initially worried about the heel depth being quite shallow,  im not used to shoes as everything from my work to leisure wear is in some sort of boot form. But after wearing them for three days those fears have been allayed.  I like the mesh, its sort of similar to the adidas climacool running shoes, theres no suede (one of the reasons I took these over the merrells, hopefully that allows them to drain off quickly. Im going to wear them a lot over the winter,  get them really broken in and comfy then try and utilise them as my main tabbing shoe next year, More to follow....

MUSE OF THE WEEK

I love lamb chops

I live in the back of beyond near Aberdeen, looking out my front window I see a field of lamb chops on the hoof (some quite cute but thats for a different blog.........), out the back window there's a futher four fields full of them, if I got off my butt and actually went to the window I would have a view over dozens of fields,  all of which are home to the wee wooly blighters. The farmer (small holding) mentioned he had 300 ewes lambing earlier this year, the majority had twins.

So, sheep/lambs everywhere but 9 or 10 quid a kilo for lamb chops, thank god the fields are full, imagine the price if we didnt produce them...

Funnily enough ive just returned from a holiday in paxos, a wee greek island only a few miles long and maybe one mile wide if that, everything arrives and leaves by ferry to corfu about an hour and a half away.
    I never saw a sheep or lamb the whole time I was there, ive also been to corfu a few times and cant remember seeing any there either, like me Greece is reported to be having some cash flow dramas,  so imagine my delight to find lamb chops on the menu's of all the restaurants in the little fishing village we stayed in, the dish below cost 9 euro,  so about 7.50/8 quid, there was four huge lamb chops on it, an other meal on an other night served up 6, yes 6 chops, still for 9 euro, tbh it was to much after a calamari starter

Help your local skint farmer, eat British meat, aye right..

Alex Salmond - Destroying Scotland

Being at a loose end this week i went for a wee walk recce yesterday (after being forced to partake in girdle scones and coffee at raemoir in Banchory and as they say up here they were afy afy fine min........).
    I wanted to confirm a possible start point and maybe an overnight bivi area for something im hoping to do next year, anyway a nice drive from Banchory to the Clatterin brig via the cairn o mount, and on to Stonehaven via Auchenblae (due to a rd closure) skirting the southern edge of the Fetteresso forrest.
    We stopped on top of the cairn for an all round view, looking west towards Mt Battock and glen esk it is thankfully still stunning. Looking east and around to the south and salmonds folly appears from the clouds,  monstrous wind turbines dominating the once wonderful hills, thankfully the low cloud base hid some, while others faded in and out of view like mutant triffids,  at least three giant cranes were assembling more for the never ending sea of monstrosities, a disgraceful scarring of one of Scotlands major selling points, its beauty lost forever to line the pockets of the already rich.

       At least my energy bills will decrease..............


    Finally Mr Salmond, iam a diehard fan of an independent Scotland, but never ever can i vote for it under the SNP and their plans to destroy my country, if these things are required put them out to sea, or is there less proffit to be made by the rich landowners and energy companies.

INOV 8 Recolite 190

For the last year or two I've been craving some after hike footwear, i was often coming off the hill after a long day and driving home in bare feet, to be honest its not so bad, but then when passing the Ballater chipper it would mean more faffing about getting the boots back on,  (the law states that you must stop at the ballater chipper for a white pudding supper after hiking the east cairngorms).
     Flip flops are fine in good weather for scuddging about but are worse than bare feet for driving in,  I've also never really been much of a trainer person, so recently after a couple of very long and bloody hot days i started to put a bit more effort into finding an answer, first off I discovered that its actually quite a common whinge and recovery shoes seems to be the moniker given rather than after hike shoes.  Google is my friend (what ever happened to the other search engines?) and a quick search threw up some options, as luck would have it, sport persuit were doing a INOV 8 sale at the tine and the Recolite 190s were available and dully purchased at a decent price.
    A wee while down the line, and after my initial "WTF" are these moment i have decided that they are exactly what i needed, initially they were a bit of a scutter to get on, especially at the heel, but after a couple of wears that has eased up, now I find them to be really comfy, last week i took them to the Greek island of Paxos and actually wore them while wandering along the donkey paths and cliff tracks, they performed brilliantly,  I'm that happy with them that I reckon next year they will get a run out while munro bashing and not just the driving home/recovery shoe.
    If I wear the recovery shoes all day, what do I wear to recover??????