The High Heeled Ruminations Of Melrose Plant

[Shyheels]

My very first day in heels - four inch stiletto knee boots - I thoughtlessly bent over to pick up a flyer somebody had slipped though the mail slot in the front door. I completely forgot to take into account the fact that I was in lofty stilettos and bent over as I usually would and nearly face-planted! Lesson learned!

[pebblesf]

4 hours ago, mlroseplant said:

I have always sucked at doing two things in heels: 1) Walking down stairs. I have never once felt truly graceful doing it, especially if there is more than 3 or 4 of them at a time. 2) Bending over to retrieve dropped objects.

Number Two really hit home the other day when I was out on my morning walk. There was a small branch laying across the sidewalk from an overhanging tree, and as I bent over to pick it up to move it, it suddenly seemed like it was a looooong way to the ground, and I found myself doing a spread-kneed squat to actually pick up the branch. Not graceful at all. I have no problem picking up stuff off the floor in flats, I don't know why it's so much harder for me in heels. Another thing for me to analyze in the future! It may come down to being as simple as that when I'm wearing flats, I don't worry about what I look like, because I know nobody is ever going to notice me anyway.

Going upstairs is easy, downstairs is difficult for sure....Can't really go downstairs without a hand on a railing

[Cali]

Living where the ground is not flat, walking down a steep driveway or across a surface that is slant perpendicular to direction of motion. That compound angle is hard to navigate.  

Edited February 3 by Cali

[CrushedVamp]

On 2/1/2025 at 2:06 AM, Shyheels said:

And the beauty of boats is that if your neighbours are noisy, nosy or you take a dislike to them, or even if you just want a different view out of your galley window, you just fire up the engine, let go fore and aft, take the tiller and go.

Against, that, of course, is that boats do not appreciate in value ...

Some houses depreciate too, or at least here in the USA they do.

Mobile homes, also called single wides, and double-wides here not only depreciate yearly, but some lending institutions will not loan money on a single or double wide that is over 10 years old.

I buy my houses with cash as I hate having debt, but I will not buy these types of houses because it would mean only cash sales would limit the number of people who could buy them.

And there is no motoring up the canal to get away from crappy neighbors either. 🙂

 

[Shyheels]

Yes that would not be at all attractive. On the other hand there is a very nice bohemian community of water dwellers on the canals, especially amongst us who are continuous cruisers with no permanent mooring. 

[CrushedVamp]

On 2/5/2025 at 1:38 AM, Shyheels said:

Yes that would not be at all attractive. On the other hand there is a very nice bohemian community of water dwellers on the canals, especially amongst us who are continuous cruisers with no permanent mooring. 

We have a similar community here, but rather than live along canals they moor to public docks. There is a monthly fee because they are plugged into shore power with their vessels, but its their home full time and year around, which here is important because the Coast Guard does not break ice in every harbor.

I knew of some people that lived like that and it was its own, unique community. I was not a part of it, just invited to go see how they lived, and know they really looked out for one another just because they really had too.

I was a mariner myself then, but it was much different as I lived on tugboats which is a more industrial form of how you live @shyheels . So we were always in and around those that lived in the harbors. Sometimes they needed this or that, and because we were so self-sustained, we would lend them a hand when we could. (I was an engineer aboard). Its how I got my job now which at that time was keeping powerplants and generators running, and now I do the same, but am land-based in doing it. It still has the same problem though, power generation on land or at sea is a 24/7/365 task.

[Shyheels]

You’re not kidding about power generation. I’ve been sidelined because of a power issue - actually the big problem was the idiot electrician from the boatbuilder who misdiagnosed a simply matter and turned it into a mess. He was even more idiotic because it was all under warranty so he didn’t make a penny out of the mess. I eventually gave up and got a competent marine engineer and in an hour he figured out the problem - when even a non technical person like me had already guessed: a burned out domestic alternator. And now it’s fixed.

The idiot still swears it’s much more complicated and that he was right all along …

[mlroseplant]

OK, we're going down the electrical rabbit hole once again on my thread. @Shyheels, what have you got for a generator/alternator/dynamo on your boat? Evidently, it must not be a Honda. You can't break those things. Actually you can, but it takes considerable effort.

[Shyheels]

I’ve a Vetus 42hp diesel engine with two 95 amp alternators, one for the starter and the other to charge the domestic battery, which is a Victron lithium set up. Also 600w of solar. Lithium can easily overwork an alternator which is why there is a separate BMS to control the charge. The original domestic alternator may have been faulty or the BMS may have failed but it burned out.

The original electrician who installed it turns out to be the Basil Fawlty of electricians (a character on an old British comedy). 
 

the professional I called in has replaced the alternator and the relay - which also burned out. 

[mlroseplant]

That's a little bit different than the way I imagined it. I'm assuming the integral system must be 12V, because there's no way you need 95 amps x 240 volts on that tiny vessel. I thought the domestic power would be on a separate generator, but evidently that's not the case. Thanks for explaining that.

[Shyheels]

Narrowboats are different beasts! I've mainly a 12v system, but a 240v washing machine and 240v plugs which I use only for charging the laptop. Ive a 3000w inverter for those. 

 

[CrushedVamp]

20 hours ago, Shyheels said:

Narrowboats are different beasts! I've mainly a 12v system, but a 240v washing machine and 240v plugs which I use only for charging the laptop. Ive a 3000w inverter for those. 

 

Not laughing at you at all because they are different beasts of course, but on tugboats they do not even have electric starters. The air compressor and back-up air compressor does, but that is only because it must be fired up first, get proper compression and then use that air for the air powered starters for the main engines. Thiee by the way are two locomotive engines so about 4000 hp apiece.

For electrical power they typical have 250 KW gen sets, having a back up genset as well. Everything on a tug has back up systems.

I am in no way comparing a canal boat, just explaining how a tugboat is set up in case people on here care.

[mlroseplant]

I think this is a first for this thread! We've gone as far as vintage outboard motors before (nod to @pebblesf), but this is a whole new level! Which is somewhat ironic, because outside of cruise ships, heels and boats don't really mix all that well. Although I do remember travelling on a narrowboat in Thailand, and there was another passenger who was wearing sandals with impressively high heels. I suppose that's a little bit different. It's not like she was piloting/crewing the boat, she was a tourist passenger like me. I wonder if I could find that picture somewhere? It probably got lost on a hard drive that blew up at some point.

[Shyheels]

I’ve  been living on my boat for over a year and in that time I have seen only one boater in heels and that was only just the other day - a woman in black leather knee boots with chunky 2.5” heels. Not high heels, to be sure, but then high heels really would be dangerous if you’re mooring and operating locks. In her case she was piloting the boat when I saw her while her partner was footing the mooring - although I don’t think that division had anything to do with her wearing heels. More like it was just his turn.

i wear black leather knee boots when I'm moving the boat, but low heels. My lowest are about 3.5” which is just that bit too high for doing the locks. Had I boots with the heels she had I would probably wear them

[mlroseplant]

I have been very lazy about taking any photographs lately. However, a friend captured this still image from the church livestream and sent it to me. I think the only reason this worked out is because the camera operator forgot to zoom back out for a few seconds during the "greet your neighbor" portion of the service. And yes, those are ankle boots I'm wearing. I see I still need a little bit of work on my pageant walk.

[pebblesf]

1 minute ago, mlroseplant said:

I have been very lazy about taking any photographs lately. However, a friend captured this still image from the church livestream and sent it to me. I think the only reason this worked out is because the camera operator forgot to zoom back out for a few seconds during the "greet your neighbor" portion of the service. And yes, those are ankle boots I'm wearing. I see I still need a little bit of work on my pageant walk.

Great outfit indeed, hope you will wear them more often

[Shyheels]

3 minutes ago, mlroseplant said:

I have been very lazy about taking any photographs lately. However, a friend captured this still image from the church livestream and sent it to me. I think the only reason this worked out is because the camera operator forgot to zoom back out for a few seconds during the "greet your neighbor" portion of the service. And yes, those are ankle boots I'm wearing. I see I still need a little bit of work on my pageant walk.

Looks fine to me! Nice boots too!

[Mr. X]

Nice boots, indeed!

[CrushedVamp]

On 2/7/2025 at 8:31 AM, Shyheels said:

I’ve  been living on my boat for over a year and in that time I have seen only one boater in heels and that was only just the other day - a woman in black leather knee boots with chunky 2.5” heels. Not high heels, to be sure, but then high heels really would be dangerous if you’re mooring and operating locks. In her case she was piloting the boat when I saw her while her partner was footing the mooring - although I don’t think that division had anything to do with her wearing heels. More like it was just his turn.

i wear black leather knee boots when I'm moving the boat, but low heels. My lowest are about 3.5” which is just that bit too high for doing the locks. Had I boots with the heels she had I would probably wear them

I feel your pain on this.

I am walking on marbles might be worse, but having grown up on a farm I have walked a million miles in mud and really dislike it. Slipping back, stumbling, never assured of solid footing; it really wears you out walking in that. I can only imagine in high heels it is overly so.

Good for you for keeping on in doing so.

[Shyheels]

I wear my heels on the boat, or if I am moored at a boatyard, on the diesel landing, or in town where the towpath is paved (although in some cases they are cobbled) For the most part when walking along the towpaths I wear low heeled knee boots. I’m virtually never not wearing knee boots of some description 

[mlroseplant]

Last winter, I purchased some shearling lined knee highs almost specifically for snow removal. They have broad 2 3/8" heels, and that's of a height for me (and I imagine most people on this site) where that's really the same as flats. I bet they'd do just fine in the mud, although I don't ever intend to find out. I hate mud probably as much as @CrushedVamp. However, shoveling snow in my low heeled boots is just as easy as flats.

[Shyheels]

That’s the height of heel you could use on the towpaths and while boating - it would be nice to find a pair like that 

[mlroseplant]

Looks like I will be wearing said pair within a couple of hours. We got snow! I'll have to see if I can't grab a picture. I'm sure I put them somewhere in the New Boots thread last year, but they are actual vintage knee boots, and they are easily the most quality pair I've got. I think they're from the late 70s-early 80s. I bet they weren't cheap when they were new.

[Shyheels]

Seventies knee boots would be nice 

[CrushedVamp]

On 2/11/2025 at 6:55 AM, mlroseplant said:

Last winter, I purchased some shearling lined knee highs almost specifically for snow removal. They have broad 2 3/8" heels, and that's of a height for me (and I imagine most people on this site) where that's really the same as flats. I bet they'd do just fine in the mud, although I don't ever intend to find out. I hate mud probably as much as @CrushedVamp. However, shoveling snow in my low heeled boots is just as easy as flats.

As you know, I do not wear high heels, but rather like my wife wearing them, but in mud I always wore a heeled logging type of boot that had a pretty good heel to them. So, I understand what you mean.

I like them at work because it was a solid place to put your foot when climbing towers as they sunk into the rungs of ladders well and when climbing out onto the cross-arms. But now I do far more sub-station work and find working in the crushed rock that is a requirement of substations, that no heeled boots work better.

On 2/11/2025 at 6:55 AM, mlroseplant said:

Last winter, I purchased some shearling lined knee highs almost specifically for snow removal. They have broad 2 3/8" heels, and that's of a height for me (and I imagine most people on this site) where that's really the same as flats. I bet they'd do just fine in the mud, although I don't ever intend to find out. I hate mud probably as much as @CrushedVamp. However, shoveling snow in my low heeled boots is just as easy as flats.

You need a pair of these! 🙂

[Shyheels]

High heels originated with Persian cavalrymen who used their heels to stabilise themselves in the stirrups when they stood to fire their bows at the gallop. 

[mlroseplant]

2 hours ago, CrushedVamp said:

As you know, I do not wear high heels, but rather like my wife wearing them, but in mud I always wore a heeled logging type of boot that had a pretty good heel to them. So, I understand what you mean.

I like them at work because it was a solid place to put your foot when climbing towers as they sunk into the rungs of ladders well and when climbing out onto the cross-arms. But now I do far more sub-station work and find working in the crushed rock that is a requirement of substations, that no heeled boots work better.

You need a pair of these! 🙂

A number of years in my past, I used to chase wind turbines. It's not quite the challenge of climbing high voltage towers, but I did always prefer a boot with a distinct heel on it for climbing those ladders. On the flip side, I found out the hard way that logging boots are not really the best thing for working at any facility that has grated flooring. I can remember my first day out at the Cargill corn plant in the fermentation building. I wore logging boots, and I have no idea how I did not faceplant at some point in the day coming down the grated stairs, as the giant lugged soles would tend to catch on the grating.

[CrushedVamp]

Grating just plain sucks! I am around it all the time and whether walking in high heels, kneeling on it, dropping things through it, or getting vertigo for looking down through it; the type of flooring is just a pain.

I am forever replacing broken clips that bolt the crap down too, which can sometimes be dangerous when the bolts break causing the grating to be lose at height or uneven from one to the other.

I guess they now make high heel proof grating but I still hate the stuff.

[mlroseplant]

6 hours ago, CrushedVamp said:

Grating just plain sucks! I am around it all the time and whether walking in high heels, kneeling on it, dropping things through it, or getting vertigo for looking down through it; the type of flooring is just a pain.

I am forever replacing broken clips that bolt the crap down too, which can sometimes be dangerous when the bolts break causing the grating to be lose at height or uneven from one to the other.

I guess they now make high heel proof grating but I still hate the stuff.

It is still better than mud. 😀