Day 58 of the Shoe Challenge – Warning: Dangerous Shoes Ahead

It takes a long time to get from A to B with a two year old.  The average 1.8 kilometre walk from the shops to our house can take upwards of an hour. Left to her own devices the Minx might find a way home for us in under three hours but I have never allowed her to.

A recent journey involved:

• counting all the mailboxes outside a block of high flats;
• meeting, greeting and naming the small army of ants congregating in and around a crack in the pavement 4oo metres from the aforesaid high flats;
• encountering several lizards living in a dry stone walls 8oo metres from the ants’ abode and discussing the meaning of life with them;
• building an extension to the dry stone wall with gravel and bits of concrete found around the foundations of the house belonging to the wall; and
• picking frangipani blossoms off the ground and trying to thread these between the laces in my shoes.

Very, very, very cute indeed. Also frustrating and a good exercise in living in the moment and thinking about other things while one is doing so.

Other things like my complete inability to walk in flat shoes. Every time I wear flat shoes something unpleasant happens. The same thing does not apply to sandals thankfully otherwise I would have to move to somewhere other than Sydney.

Dangerous Ballet Flats

Observe the scuff marks on the toes.

When I bought these shoes it was solely to ensure that I had something comfortable to walk in while pregnant with the Minx. Unfortunately I could not have anticipated how wide my feet would grow in nine months, nor how much wind I would break.  The farting and the rate at which my feet grew thankfully slowed down towards my due date.  My feet returned to their normal shape and size post-partum unlike other bits of me which will not be photographed for the purpose of this blog.

When I returned to work after my maternity leave ended, I was still in comfort mode wearing flat shoes, loose flowing tops and so on.   Striding confidently and comfortably downhill from Edgecliff Station to our old law offices in Double Bay one fine spring day, I turned the corner down a small incline.

There was a short  gradient no steeper than your average wheelchair ramp. “Must walk down this carefully‘ I remember reminding myself.

The next thing I knew my right leg was doing the splits in front of me while my left knee was grinding into the the concrete behind me. The toes of my shoes and my left knee bear the scars to this day.

It isn’t much fun picking denim out of bare, pulverised raw flesh.  Needless to say, I don’t wear these pumps very often any more. Experts do say that flat shoes are not the ideal for overall foot and leg health. You have been warned…