Wading through the spam in my wellies

Sun shining half heartedly in Sydney, but hey that’s a huge improvement on the torrential rain that has characterized the past couple of weeks. Things have got so soggy that bored of having tide lines round all my boots and shoes I have just invested in my first pair of Australian wellies. As I am hoping to only have to use them once every five years I couldn’t justify buying a pair of the highly expensive, imported Hunter wellies that are gracing the windows of our local shoe shop, which is always quick to jump on a pricy multi-coloured trend.

Despite rejecting it as a ridiculous expat type luxury – on the lines of 'I just have to have my British boots', I did succumb to temptation and I have just been onto the Hunter website http://hunter-boot.com/1/Welcome-To-The-Home-Of-Hunter-Wellies.aspxto to check out the potential colours. It is immediately apparent that Wellington boots have moved on from my childhood, when being a horse obsessed teenager I lived in a pair of hand me down green Hunter wellies which I think was the only colour you could get then – in the Hunter dark green ages as it were. At that point in time having a pair of green Hunter as opposed to the normal black common or garden wellies struck me as pretty damm swish – (you can spot from this what kind of fashion conscious teenager I was). Boy, has the world changed, Hunter wellies now have the most fabulous range of colours and in collaboration with Jimmy Choo produce a top of range pair of signature crocodile print boots complete with leopard print lining. Overcoming my longing to dazzle Mosman with my Jimmy Choo wellies – I mean how one woman-up-ship can you get, I restrained myself and sloped off to Big W – the Australian equivalent of WalMart, where I bought a nifty pair of leopard skin print wellies for A$24 that satisfied both my exhibitionist side as well as my need to keep my feet dry. Having bought them, you can now guarantee it won’t deluge again for months – which seems a cheap form of weather insurance.

I have just cleared my email spam box – if pressed for time I multi delete but this always makes me feel a bit nervous as I do occasionally get mail misfiled there and I would hate to miss my invite to party of the year or the genuine ‘you have won glamorous and exciting trip’ email. I can’t decide how much of the stuff in there is targeting me, in which case it is a bit worrying, and how much it reflects a wider theme.

Based on a quick survey of the 60 or so messages currently residing in the box, if it is targeting me, then I am person that fits the following profile in the sense that I
a) have an interest in writing, and more particularly in enrolling in courses and self publishing (possibly)
b) have a variety of medical complaints from the commonplace to the truly bizarre,
c) took a variety of pharmaceutical drugs during pregnancy and now wish to find a good class action and sue,
d) am in dire need of a housekeeper (definitely a tick, particularly with the alluring subject line of ‘come home to a clean house’),
e) would be keen to investigate teen boarding schools and summer camps (haven’t opened these ones but just from the way the subject line is worded, “Boot Camp could help your troubled Teen” suspect we are talking the equivalent of religious youth detention centres here – hmm could be of interest.),
f) would like to earn a legal/medical/pharmaceutical degree without leaving the confines of my own home,
g) feel my day is not complete without a daily funny joke
h) have a number of religious and loving friends from Nigeria who just happen to have misplaced their funds.