Ankles not recovered from Slate Trail

Some four years ago I bought a pair of new hiking boots. I wanted plastic boots, as they should be rather waterproof, and probably dry a lot quicker when they get wet. And they had really done their job well! I have had many instances where I figured I would have had wet socks in any other boot. And when we got soaked because of dripping bracken on the first day of the Slate Trail, my boots dried out entirely in one evening. Kate's leather boots didn't! So so far so good. The problem with these boots, though, is that they do have a penchant for uncomfortably pressing on my ankles. I remember them doing it during my hike with my Dutch friend Jitske a few years before. It really hurt! Although I don't mention it on the blog, for some reason. And during the Slate Trail, they did it again. I did manage to mitigate the problem by taping lots of foam to my ankles. I had also used that solution on a long skiing trip, evidently with entirely different boots. So I knew I could do with it, but it would be nice if I didn't have to bother with all that faff. And as long as you don't let it descend into full tendinitis, the problems solves itself when you take off the boots, and continue in anything below the ankle. So when I came back from the Slate Trail with two sore ankles, I happily placed my boots in the corner and spent nine days in low shoes.

When I was about to set off on my archaeological walk, I figured it wasn't going to be very long. There was only four hours scheduled for it, and I expected lots of stops where the archaeologist would tell us things. That would consume a lot of time we couldn't spend walking. But I knew the terrain would be bumpy in places, so I did want to wear high boots. So I did! Not to same ones, but high boots anyway. These few miles wouldn't cause any trouble, would they?

These few miles actually did cause trouble! I could feel it rather early on. Oh dear. I had to partially untie the boots in order to give some relief to my ankles. Then when I got home, I immediately took them off. I need to still be careful! For the foreseeable future, no high boots unless accompanied by loads of foam. And then many days of picking the glue from the tape off your ankles. Not ideal, but better than seriously painful ankles!