This Christmas my children clubbed together to buy me a new Rab jacket. They said they were embarrassed by the state of my old green coat which was patched all over by black gaffer tape to stop the stuffing coming out. Some people even thought it was part of the design as I always arranged the gaffer tape in an artistic way. I had stopped short of using silver gaffer tape though. That would have been wrong in so many ways.
My new jacket was black when I got it just over a week ago. Such a good design. Cosy and snug fitting. The lovely hood gently enclosing my head in it's warm embrace.
I wore it to work when we went back on the 29th. What with the new black jacket and my black work trousers I looked like a cross between a Ninja and someone going to a funeral. Everyone was suitably impressed at how smart I looked. "You look half decent for once" quipped the boss. " Keep it up!....but be careful when you cross the road at night! " he warned.
And so a week later I wore my new Rab jacket for it's first proper inauguration on a walk in the countryside over fields with my son who sported an old Rab jacket.
I told him how much I liked it and thanked him again. About five miles into the walk the Public Footpath crossed a very, very muddy field next to a hedge. We were half way over when two shotguns went off a few hundred yards away......then the hedge all around us was splattered by pellets! As one, we hit the mud with a smack. It was a natural reaction. Instinctive you might say, honed by years of watching war movies and playing Call of Duty together. As I sank into the deep clay soil, which had the consistency of quicksand I remember thinking that the snug fit of the neck and hood of my new Rab jacket was even designed to keep mud out. Marvellous!
Needless to say we survived. No further shots were fired and I even saw three distant figures and a dog disappear into a nearby wood. Either they had realised their mistake of firing towards a footpath and decided to leg it, or more likely they had not even known we were there, both in our black Rab jackets against a dark hedge with the sun in their eyes.
So now I'm looking at my newish brown Rab jacket. I've only had it a week! It makes my old scruffy coat look like a brand new Savile Row suit. I can't even tell if it's punctured by tiny pellet holes because of the thick coating of brown gunge. At least the both of us are pellet free!
Trying to be helpful my son informs me that " Rab do really neat little patches you can cover holes with.....I don't think they come in brown though! "
Post edited at 18:16
