Red boots

[ailbhe]

Today I, Ailbhe The Hater Of All Things Retail, The Loather of Shopping and Destroyer of Recreational Spending Unless It's On Baby Accessories, who has never bought a pair of shoes without assistance from someone whose main task is to force her to enter the shop, bought...

Red Boots.

Red, calf-high, suede boots with square toes and no heels. Red boots with well-designed uppers that don't bugle at the ankle. They have tassels, and zips up the side. They are lined with fleece, so not entirely frivolous, but who am I kidding? I have succumbed to the Lure of Shoes. I own Red Boots.

Buying necessary work shoes, I went into one shop and demanded of an assistant "Plain black lace-up shoes with no heels." That was five years ago. When I started dancing, my friend Ellie brought me shopping and it was so upsetting to have to try things on and choose between different pairs that I needed a hot chocolate to recover. For my wedding, the same friend marched me in and out of multiple shops until we found round-toed low-heeled comfy white shoes (Rocket Dog, in case you were wondering, from Schuh, a music venue full of shelves containing shoes, with no salespeople but teams of trendy teenagers who help out occasionally because they like having somewhere free to dance in the afternoons). When I got pregnant and my feet splurged out flatter and wider and fatter, my big sister eased me into a little corner of a department store in Donegal and helped me choose some comfy Clarks Springers ankle boots in nice, sensible black.

I went into Faith in the Oracle, Reading's premier yuppie shopping centre, and plonked my baby down on the floor while I removed my sensible black ankle boots (yes, a year old now; annual shoe-buying is unusually frequent in my life), and tried on a pair of matt cherry-red (if you can imagine such a thing) boots.

Oh, I am happy! I dance! I sing! I walk home watching the hem of my skirt for those magic moments when the toes of my boots peep out redly below the denim! It is magnificent, marvellous, and bewildering.

Comments

[barakta]

I totally understand. I have ordered my shoes (docs) from catalogues for the last few years cos I know what sizes fit.... It keeps me out of shoe shops, which are worse than any other kind of shop.

I need to obtain work shoes, which involves actual shops... *shudder*

Yay to funky red boots.

Natalya