Tuesday after the wet May Bank Holiday, and it’s still pouring. Only now steam is rising and the shed is a 10-metre dash away, but I’ve no intention of getting my sandaled feet soaked in monsoon torrents, however warm.
I spy shoes, nestled beside the back door. Tan brogue lace-ups belonging to Himself, the good ones.
Not my first choice but laziness, as ever, wins out. No-one will see me, I assure myself, slipping them on, but not tying the laces. That would just be plain weird. Flinging open the patio door I addess the flagstones with a vigorous Riverdance energy – to enter a suspiciously spacious shed. No time to wonder why, second-guess the gods or risk losing the magic. The tan Barkers encase me in their sensual all-leather grip, caressing, soothing, tempting.
A Disney set twinkles into life before me, full orchestra gives me permission to ‘let it go …’ Each melt-in-the-mouth piece of buttery-leather lining worships skin, in a Cadbury’s Flake advert kind of way. An instep support balances from the heel as if these are made with only my grateful smiles in mind. My feet are Dita Von Tees in her favorite corset, hand in elbow-length glove. I swear I hear my own strangled moans of pleasure rise above the drumming rain on the tin roof. My dance ends. A few glorious jetés see me back into the house, flushed and exhilarated.
Shoes on the other foot
Is this what men get at weddings, communions 21st and 40th birthday parties?
We’re crippled and tottering, pinched and scalded, ankle to toe. And they’re in a Rolls Royce wonderland. No wonder men step eagerly into their shoes, hours before having to, jauntily tying laces with a cheery smile on their evil lips. Have you ever seen, a man gratefully kick off his dancing shoes, while flinging his bra onto the bannisters, after a night out? No, you haven’t and now I’m telling you why. It’s a conspiracy.  Thank you, Manolo Blahnik, you and your ilk. Shoe designers are mostly men, sworn to keep us women hobbled, in pointy, wobbly torture devices. How did we fall for it-  the names are wrong for sweet little feet. Platforms? What sadist dreamt that one up, I’d like to know, importing oil-drilling discomfort from the North Sea. Wedges? Ah, yes, that’ll do nicely from the building site, boys. Stilettos? Vicious, pointy knives from the underworld, let’s not get judgmental here, lads.
They’ve done it with shoes – but believe me, there’s worse on the way.
Babies. The latest is convincing young women to freeze their eggs … instead of  actually having babies! Before you know it, you’re on the IVF ~ c-section treadmill.
Don’t fall for it, girls. Before you judge someone, walk a mile in their shoes. You’ll see the world differently!
