(she also has a pair of red Hunters "for best")
And it used to be that green wellies were posh!
I now have luxury wellies which considering the amount of mud I've been stomping through lately, were a good purchase.
Mine were £10 from Go Outdoors. Given the frequency of long, wet, muddy walks I do over winter, it would probably be worth investing in a better pair - mainly for the avoidance of blisters.
I'm always surprised at people using wellies to go for walks in, as opposed to sploshing round an allotment or fields. I've just never found them practical for locomotion. It's not blisters or sweatiness, they're just the wrong shape; too big in places and too small in others. Unless you're intending to ford rivers, there seem to be other types of footwear better suited to walking. Mind you, I've never tried Hunters (or other posh wellies).
We got fed up of coming back with soaked boots and feet that were essentially clods of muddy earth. Which was every walk. As we hike and walk a lot, more so in the times of COVID, there sometimes isn't even time to dry them out after scraping off all the mud. I have two good pairs but basically it means a kitchen filled with the airs of mouldering boots. In places at the moment, there's unavoidable mud up to mid-calf height. Entire fields of it. And the sort of puddles you might be advised to boat across.
I had a cheaper pair of Decathlon boots that probably cost a tenner which were ok for the occasional stomp and the day we get a centimetre of snow, but not comfortable for extended use, plus after a few soakings, were getting somewhat aromatic (this mostly the fault of me for forgetting them damp in the cold porch – after the porch incident washing them only briefly ameliorated the smell, and as I say, errant hawthorn had already holed them below the waterline).
I punted for a pair of Muckboots (the ones with the neoprene tops). I now look one Ranger Rover short of proper posh farmer – Surrey props! I may get a little horse. My wife got some Aigles for continental points. We could probably pass as minor royalty.
Pretty comfy for walking, we do 15km or so. They're waterproof boots so there's always going to some condensation on the insides, but they're toasty and mostly dry and I can jump into deep puddles with impunity. Grip ain't great on that slippy-slidey mud that tends to coat fields, but that adds to the fun. It's better than the last pair were: the other week I slipped over, cracked my head, and then slid down a giant hill into the world's least-bothered sheep which graded my performance by pissing on my left boot and wandering off to tell its friends. That's the one with the hole in it.
Not sure how long they'll last, repeatedly flexed rubber will probably crack eventually, but I wouldn't have wanted to do this weekend's walks in hiking boots.