New Shoes

I hadn't really noticed how dry it's been. I've seen the commentary on TV about the drought here in the south-east, but I hadn't really been paying attention.

It was only on Wednesday, when I walked from Farringdon in the rain that I began to regret not finding the time to deal with the hole in the sole of my left shoe. I own two pairs of Oxford style Churches shoes, bought before the boys took away our spare income in 2000, so they've done six years' sterling service, well worth the £200 per pair my wife paid for them at the time.

The first hole appeared about five months ago, just after I started my new job - back then I was still enthused about the walk from Kings Cross to Holborn, and I'm afraid the daily mile and a half put paid to the first pair.

Although that hole appeared a while ago it only went through the leather, the cork inner sole remained to cushion my foot, so I didn't notice particularly when walking in them. The first time I became aware of it was during the walk to the staff Christmas party in December, on a very wet evening.

When I got home late that night I made the classic mistake of putting the shoes on the radiator to dry them out. I swapped to my other pair of shoes and left the holey pair for several days.

Next time I checked the holey pair, they had been gently toasting on the radiator for about four days, by which time the already thin sole on the right shoe had shrunk from the heating and drying, to the point that the sole split. For this reason, my practice of swapping between pairs every day (to allow each shoe to breathe for 24 hours between wearing), came to an abrupt end.

I've been wearing the same pair of shoes to work every day now for the last three months. Coupled with my very poor maintenance regime of late, it was not long before pair number two developed a suspiciously similar hole in the left shoe. The drought we've suffered however meant that I've not walked to work in the rain (or even on wet pavements) since early January - I can only surmise the hole has appeared since.

So, enter the low pressure weather system that finally brought rain to London this last week. By Wednesday, all that I knew was the hole in my shoe which was letting in water, to quote the surreal song (Traffic-1967, Neil-1984).

Having only one pair of shoes left (notwithstanding that I managed somehow to go through a brief phase of wearing holey left shoe from pair one with good shoe from pair two - even though one shoe was obviously made of a more "matt" finish black leather) suddenly became much more of a problem.

My left foot was sodden, and my right foot only marginally better as the leather on the right shoe was clearly too thin to provide any sort of barrier from the seeping dampness.

To make matters worse, when I got home Wednesday evening my two boys distracted me the moment I got in the door, so my sodden footwear ended up sitting on the doormat just inside the front door. By Thursday morning, they were in the same sorry state as I had left them the night before, only now my feet were clean and dry, and so was the pair of socks I was wearing. Sliding clean dry feet into nasty damp shoes is not nice, but when they are also cold and your feet are warm, it's positively unpleasant.

I endured Thursday. Thursday night the shoes found themselves in the airing cupboard, with me praying the indirect warmth would dry the shoes whilst not making the sorry state of the soles any worse.

By Friday morning, the shoes were still damp inside, but at least they were warm. I got through Friday and by this morning (having nearly four hours to think about it while my car was serviced... four hours!... but that's a different story), I was ready to endure the nightmare that is shopping.

It took less than ten minutes to find what I wanted. No Churches sadly. The budget wouldn't stretch to £250 - and besides they didn't have them in my size. So I got a pair of Barkers (only one pair, which is not good for the breathing thing, but good for my bank balance) - Oxford style.

I doubt anyone will notice, they look the same and they're black... and that's just fine.