New shoes

 Cherry red buckle up Start-rite sandals

 with the daisy cut out motif at the toe 
and the springiest white crepe soles. 

I felt as light as thistledown.

We bought them at the family run Regal shoe shop.

The owner knelt at my feet to measure and assess.

Then he would disappear into the dim recesses of the shop

 and re-emerge with a tower of boxes.

Summer sandals were white and cleaned with chalky Meltonian shoe cream.
School shoes were brown lace ups.

Once a box contained rainbow sparkly fabric party shoes,

 the perfect finishing touch to my voluminous party dress 
with the angora bolero top.

 They didn't really stand up to the rigours of energetic party games. 

Squeak Piggy Squeak, Blind Man's Buff, Oranges and Lemons, 

Musical Chairs and Musical Statues usually entailed
 a fair bit of shoving and dodging. 

Your big toe went through them pretty quickly.

The first pair that I had any independent say over
 were bright pink ankle boots.
I was so proud of them.
They killed my feet but I could never admit it.

Desert boots and clogs were the mainstay through my teenage years.
Clark's sandals in summer.
I never wore high heels and my platform shoes were
much more conservative than my younger sister's.

The most coveted boots when I was a student, 

were made by a firm called Olaf's Daughter's.

They were incredibly expensive and my friend had 

the long emerald green ones that laced up.

I eventually managed to buy the three quarter length version in red.

Somewhere out there, 

one last perfect red shoe with a bouncy crepe sole, awaits me.

I'll let you know when I find it. 

These?

Well, you see, all this Kondo-ing has so depleted my belongings

that I am actually able to breathe new life into my wardrobe

and break out a little.

I found these in the sale at Helen Bateman.

My first choice would have been the purple ones with

the multi-coloured elastic, 

but they had run out of my size.

But these are pretty damn fine.

(No lizards were inconvenienced in the making of them.)