Shyheels

Indeed! Merry Christmas from this side of the pond!

I spent a day travelling on the trains from Leeds to London. Quite a few knee boots but mainly low heels, although there were a couple that were both high heels and very posh. It really seems to vary on the day, I went to York a few weeks ago and was startled by how many high heeled boots I was seeing.

For sure, you definitely get some extra height. I sometimes like to work standing up and if I am in high heels that can be awkward because then I’m too tall for working on the counter and it’s an awkward resch

In a similar vein I feel more creative in heels, my writing and editing flows better. I think because I’ve liberated myself from those restricting conformist views that prevented visual self expression. As well, the pleasurable feeling of wearing heels inspires me to get up at regular intervals and walk around - instead of sitting g blued to my desk and computer. It’s a healthy side benefit

Ah, long after my time. My last time in Antarctica was in 2005 My first time was in 1993. It had changed so much. I see ads now for huge cruise liners going down there …

I think Prion might be restricted access now - it wasn’t n my day. I don’t know when you went

Did you get to Prion Island (a coastal island in a bay in South Georgia) where the snowy albatross breed?

They are really gung ho on health and require all sorts of physical checks - especially if you are going to winter. I’ve not been to Antarctica in many years now - I used to go there often - but I suspect things have become even more strict since my day. Salisbury Plain and St Andrews Bay are the two really big king penguin colonies on South Georgia, they’re spectacular. youre very luck indeed to have made it to Elephant Island, that’s a very rare landing

It's a thought, but I reckon that would have been mentioned.

The idea is to enjoy yourself. Looking good or elegant may be a part of that but if you’re in pain then that too is going to affect your look. I can see being stuck in heels if you’ve no back but, but if you’ve options use them. Enjoyment should be the overriding factor in fashion. If the pain of wearing heels is overcoming that enjoyment then give it a rest. My most miserable experience in being stuck in painful footwear was going on a hike in a pair of poorly designed trail running shoes, whose poor design didn’t manifest itself in short walks around town but certainly did about five mikes into a 15 mile hike. Turned my right foot into hamburger. I’d have happily changed into anything. As it was I was able to limp to a rural railway platform, wait two hours for a train and from the station back in town limp to a cab and home. A horrible experience of bad footwear.

That’s an interesting result! Who would have guessed. I find wearing 3-4” heels can ease back problems - muscle spasms etc so I knew they had their practical uses, but that’s a new one

Yes, I’ve got it on Kindle.

I watched the video too. I think if I was going to climb a mountain in heels I’d be in chunky heeled ankle boots for at least a bit of support - why anyone would choose sandals and especially a pair like those is beyond me. But she made it and evidently had a good time so more power to her

Bookbinding is a fabulous craft. I always envy people who can create with their hands. I write and take photos - creating abstract things, really, images and words rather than physical objects. I think it must be lovely to create an object, something tangible. I never imagined I would actually wear heels one day or own several pairs of feminine style boots - both with and without heels. I’d always fancied the women’s boots since childhood but could never summon the nerve to buy or wear them, or even imagine doing such a thing until a few years ago. My tastes are still quite conservative by the standards of most of the people here - not because I don’t dare push the envelope but because those are genuinely my tastes - knee boots with low to medium heels. I suspect there are far more men out there who fancy wearing heels than we can know, most of them keeping it under their hat - as I did for many years. I’ve no interest in manicures or pedicures or shaving or any of that, just a predilection for feminine e style boots it’s a very friendly forum with quite diverse characters and tastes, but all very tolerant and good natured.

I'd not noticed your post before. I'd wondered about your username. Mine is more self explanatory - and suited me better when I first joined here nearly 11 years ago (next month) I am much less shy now about wearing heels. It sounds like an interesting ambition to fashion a pair of heels for your wife. A friend of mine is a bookmaker and I am in awe of his skills both in terms of design and abilities to create with his hands. Shoe 0r boot making is a real art.

That’s certainly not something you see every day

It would depend on the heel and the style - pumps would never last more than a bare few miles. But chunky heel ankle boots if well made might be theoretically possible. Not for the whole journey in one pair. Not even Vibram soled hiking boots would do the entire journey from what I hear. But if you had a big enough budget for quite a few pairs of really well made chunky heeled ankle or knee boots, I should think it would be possible. In theory. Of course the truth is than many would be through hikers never make it, for loads of reasons. It is not an easy hike. Adding to the degree of difficulty by insisting on doing it in heels might be pushing your luck. I wore my chunky heeled ankle boot up the towpath the other day. It was noticeably slower going and I felt less sure footed - and that was without a sixty pound backpack.

Well done! Looks like a nice outing, and a well put together outfit. I liked the colour of those mauve pumps. It would be interesting in a pair of boots

I’ve been fortunate enough to see a lot of the settings associated with the Shackleton story - South Georgia, Paulet Island (where they were hoping to go) Elephant Island (where they did go) and I’ve been into the Wendell Sea in an ice-strengthened yacht. On the other side of the continent I’ve the original Discovery hut, flown up the Beardmore Glacier and stayed at the South Pole. I also toasted The Boss with a shot of good Irish whiskey at his grave at South Georgia. An over winter experience in Antarctica would be incredible. I’ve never don’t that

A century ago pink was a masculine colour - seen as merely a paler version of martial red. Blue on the other hand, the colour worn by the Virgin Mary, was seen as a girls colour. It was an American department store in the 1920s who reversed this, for reasons of their own and which I can’t remember now. So yes, these things can change

Crossing the Rubicon - in heels

South Georgia is absolutely amazing. It has everything that is special about Antarctica crammed into one island. I haven fortune enough to go there several times. I hope you manage to get there too. It is (or was, it’s been a while since I used to travel there regularly) possible to get jobs on some of the bases for just the summer months, a three month contract

There are some really good online translation sites (free) you might want to consider using. Heres one I use: https://www.deepl.com/en/translator

I wore my chunky heeled ankle boots (3.5” heels) for a half miles walk down the towpath yesterday to get rid of some rubbish. It wasn’t muddy just uneven and I had to walk carefully. I was certainly noticed, and fair enough - nobody wears heels on the towpath.

As they say of Narrowboats, they don’t steer well going forward, they don’t steer at all in reverse and they have no brakes. It’s not really quite as bad as that - although they really do not steer in reverse. There are little tricks you can use to steer while going backwards but in simple straight out reverse, there is no steering. You can do whatever you like with the tiller, makes no difference. As @Puffer noted Narrowboats are less than 7’ wide (mine is 6’10”) for negotiating the very narrow locks on many of the canals - nearly all of which date from the 18th century. There are wide canals with locks 14-15’ wide capable of taking larger craft - Dutch barges or widebeams or handling two narrowboats abreast - while up north in Yorkshire the Aire & Calder navigation and the South Yorkshire Navigation have locks over 20’ wide and 200 feet long to accommodate the big commercial barges that still use them - usually tankers or barges carrying gravel. It’s an interesting life, living in The Cut