Clean Socks

I had taken my socks off at some point during the night - absent-mindedly, only half awake. As you might your clothes, in the early hours, after falling asleep fully clothed, inebriated perhaps following a night of excess. (If you haven’t done so then you should try that - the next day just gets better and better as you recover.)

I had followed Alan Sloman’s advice, except that I had fallen asleep after doing so. “Try wearing Bridgedale liner socks beneath your Merino walking socks …….. Wash the liner socks every night and then put them back on in the tent - they dry in minutes on your feet.”

As I put the wringed-out socks on my feet the night before, I couldn’t help wondering if this was one of those cruel hoaxes - accepted innocently only to realise later, embarrassingly, that you had been well and truly duped. Like the recruit sent to the Quartermaster’s store for a Long Stand. To be asked, having waited outside for 30 minutes “Is that long enough?” Or, to be sent to the same place by the Platoon Sergeant to get some Sky Hooks.

No. Alan Sloman wouldn’t do that to this recruit. And he hadn’t.

So I pass on his advice. Wear two pairs of socks when walking (which for me and most walkers is the norm). At the end of the day, wash and then put the still wet liner socks back on. When tired at night, I’m dead to the world moments after my head hits the pillow so my variation on his advice was to fall asleep in wet socks. It worked though - the socks were dry.

It was an odd sensation; putting wet socks on, and I did get cramp in my lower legs briefly. An odd thought too, momentarily, before dropping off; sock, line and sinker? Then, this morning, grateful thoughts - that my floor was a dry carpet rather than wet grass, that my socks were dry and that Alan had taken the time to tell me.

Thanks Alan.