Wellies, lovely funky wellies and rain boots

Funky wellies are the new black.

Looking for a gift for mum, a birthday present for your wife, a corporate gift for a female client at an outdoor event?

You can't mean wellies? Ahh... but it all depends which wellies. Wellington boots, gumboots, rainboots, wellies - call them what you will - if you get it wrong they are stodgy cow manure covered fashion death, worn only by ladies who smell of horse blankets and who wear clothing that has been handed down by the farm hand at the pig farm.

However, get it right - find the perfect funky wellies and you give some lucky lady the gift of adventure and the ability to march headlong into whatever life throws, with a spring in her step and a 'wooo hooo' on her lips. Think I'm kidding? Well read on! Funky wellies are the way forward...

A wise person (probably a woman with small children) once said - 'there's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing', and it's so true. How many times have I been snug and toastie warm on a mountainside skiing in minus 20, and yet chilled through to the bone on the walk to and from school at 4 degrees C?

Why? Inappropriate clothing. Well, no more. Let us banish all miserable cold wet toes and soggy socks. Let us no longer look outside and think 'well we can't go out and do that because...'

Seize the day! Seize your wellies! And may they always be funky wellies!

Wellies are only boring if the person inside them is boring. Real women aren't boring, and real welly wearers aren't boring either!

Real welly and rain boot wearers climb mountains, walk dogs across open fields, see newborn lambs, spot the flash of blue of a kingfisher along the riverbank, pick blackberries and scrump for apples and then cook crumble for tea when they get home.

Real welly wearers don't tell their kids to 'watch out for the puddle', they leap in it first with a huge splash, and have the kids follow. They make footprints in the snow, and snow angels, and snow men. They go sledging without having to come home early with cold toes. They ford streams, and kick up autumn leaves. They dig flowerbeds and grow vegetables. They cheer from the touchlines in the heaving rain on the day that their child scores the winning goal, and they soak up the mud and tears when the character-building process of sport doesn't go our child's way.

Let loose the inner adventurer in you, and get out into the world, don't just observe it.

Of course if the inner you is a quiet and unassuming kind of a person, then maybe black is the new black? Whatever you do, get outside and enjoy the changing seasons and the fun you can have with your kids, your dogs and yourself.

Come on rain - where are you?!