The epic saga of the steel toe cap boots.

Health and safety regulations in St John require us to wear steel toe cap boots while we're out on duty. Up until now, none of us have worn them (other than those who already have them). So after getting told off at Helston Flora Day about the state of our division's uniform (which, to our credit, is for the most part nothing to do with how smart our members are, it's to do with lack of funds and the changeover to new uniform meaning we can't buy pieces of uniform to make up for the stuff we're missing. That's another story entirely, and I will go on about it forever if I get started haha) we decided we needed to get the boots issue sorted a.s.a.p.

So I got my Google on and found us a company in Penzance who sold boots for a reasonable price, and sent a nice email to the company director who very kindly agreed to give us a discount and deliver them for free.

After what seemed like an eternity and a million emails (which people didn't respond to, grrr!) trying to find out everyone's shoe size, the boots were ordered and were scheduled to be delivered yesterday.

So, at about 4.30pm yesterday, as I was about to head home, I went to FXU to see if they'd arrived...

Nope, no boots.

So I walked up to the post room and asked.

No boots, but a package from St John Supplies with some extra bits and pieces (including hi-vis and epaulettes which we were originally told we couldn't have...) which we weren't expecting to arrive so quickly.

I figured the company had got held up making the delivery so decided to go home and try the next day.

In FXU at lunchtime today... still no boots. Same story in the post room.

At 4pm, when I wanted to head home, still no sign of the boots in FXU or in the post room, so I emailed the company and was told that they had definitely been delivered at about 11.30am yesterday.

So I trekked all over campus checking in the porter's lodge, the Peter Lanyon building reception, the main campus reception, the main FXU office... no one had a clue where they were.

I headed back to the library to log on and pester the poor woman in the office again to ask which office they'd been delivered to and who signed for them. One of the FXU committee had signed for them, meaning they'd been in FXU all along. But I'd asked in 2 different FXU offices and no one had any knowledge of them being there. How do 19 pairs of boots go unnoticed?!

Luckily I bumped into the FXU committee president, and she phoned the guy who signed for the boots to ask where they were...

... turns out they'd been in the main FXU reception all along, but the guy who signed obviously didn't think to put them in the other office with the rest of our stuff or tell anyone else that they were there. D'oh. And the girl who was on the desk when I asked in that office earlier had no idea they were in 3 large boxes about 2 metres to her left.

Major communication fail.

But it's all sorted now though, and we've got nice shiny new boots to wear to Royal Cornwall Show next week. I know it doesn't seem like that much of a big deal, but I'm quite proud of myself that I managed to organise this whole thing by myself and see it through from start to finish with basically no help from anyone else (as I've been running LINKS basically single-handedly for the past month while suffering and recovering from glandular fever, check me out haha).