Shoes

There are few things I dislike doing more than shoe shopping. Those who have attempted doing this with me will testify to the nightmare of a picky toddler I become when confronted with the need to clothe my feet and to do so from the selection available at retail outlets. It doesn't help that my feet are shaped like seal flippers and need extra space in any pair of shoes for arch support and cushioning inserts. On top of that I am ridiculously picky, and pretty much any pair of shoes I am presented with will have something wrong with them, such as:

• useless buckles/tassels/studs/doodads stuck on
• '80s spaceman puffy bits
• honking great stomping soles
• no discernible soles at all
• wrong material for soles (too cheap, hard and/or slippy)
• useless zips that compromise watertightness
• stupid great heel seriously how do you stand in that nevermind walk
• sparkles and/or metallic and/or shiny materials

Add a preference for real leather and some basic standards of construction, and a reluctance to spend more than a week's pay on basic footwear, and you begin to see the problem.

The sharp fall in the value of the pound this year is expected to hit consumer prices in early 2017, so I figured I'd better buckle up (so to speak) and do some shoe shopping before I regretted it. After some reconnoitering, week before last, I have managed to fill the gaps in my inventory, and now have the full complement of acceptable and practical footwear:

• black boots
• brown boots (wrong shade of brown, but I can do something about that, unlike items in the list above)
• black Oxfords
• brown Oxfords
• hiking boots, light (inherited from an ex-housemate)
• hiking boots, heavy (double as winter boots)
• sandals

How anyone could possibly need more shoes than that is beyond me – and the trouble of acquiring them; how can you stand it?