Soft-shell jackets, and a useful outdoorsy link

I went into Tiso's yesterday, planning to enter their competition to win shedloads of Icebreaker gear (they make high-performance outdoor clothing from merino wool - I have one of their jumpers, and it's lovely). While I was there, I got chatting to one of the sales assistants, who finally managed to explain this business of Soft Shell jackets to me. Briefly, soft shells are windproof and highly breathable, but not very waterproof. They're ideal for high Alpine climbing, or skiing, but in Scotland you should think of them as a windproof mid-layer: with the amount of rain we experience, you'll need a waterproof hard shell at some point. And then there are things like the Buffalo Mountain Shirt, which is sometimes called a soft-shell: it's kind of furry on the inside, and apparently can get soaking before you start to feel wet. Hmmmm.

Anyway, he also pointed me at http://www.psychovertical.com/, which looks like it has some good, independent discussions of what outdoor gear is good and what isn't. It looks a bit hardcore for me, but that's probably good. The soft-shell elucidation I'd heard came almost verbatim from the site :-)