Monday: Sun, Silver Birkies and Good Conversations over Coffee

Well, I can heartily recommend the feeling of summer - it's amazing!  I had a lovely meeting with a friend in a cafe this morning and I do adore conversing with an interesting, amusing and intelligent person, it's a great break from my normal routine.  In fact, I may one day pen a blog entitled 'conversations over coffee', but saying that, I'd hope to be more discreet than to give away mine, and others' secrets via the medium of the interweb.

As soon as I returned home I jettisoned my sparkling silver Converse (which are hurting my feet!) went straight upstairs and pulled one of the pairs of new Birkenstocks which are sitting proudly in their boxes on top of my wardrobe, awaiting the time when they'd be released to the care of my peds.  I have taken the liberty of snapping them for your enjoyment:

I'd imagine that they'd rub by the end of the day so I'm taking my time to wear them in gently because as you can see, there's a huge red patch on my left foot.  I am rubbing my foot into the suede lining - mmm, new Birkies are adorable.

I am loving my red toes - I asked my esteemed husband, The Duke, if he'd paint them for me and he duly did.  Bright red is my favourite colour and I think it cheers up even the dullest of days.

Finally, this arrived today for me to pen a review of.  I hope it's as effective as it purports to be.  I will let you all know.  Hopefully it will be like an orbital sander for my feet....

Sunday: Today is (Officially) Pedicure Day...and the Sabbath....

Yep, you've read it correctly - today is pedicure day and once I've written a whole load of guff on my various blogs, completed my eBay sales and indeed checked my work email (urgh!) rest assured that I'll be duly removing the dark purple polish from my toenails and carrying out the detailed series of tasks which lead to beautiful peds.  For those who crave a visual image, here's some shots from an earlier session:

Oooh - look - bare feet in bath salts - urrggghhhh....

They're not great when they're not covered in polish are they?  Frankly, they're quite foul in my view.

Imperfections abound.

Anyway, that's enough self-deprecation for any Sunday afternoon, let alone this particular one, which coincides with Queen Elizabeth II's eighty-seventh birthday.  I'll bid you farewell if I may and finally, I do check my statistics pretty regularly and would love to know why a Russian porn site web address keeps appearing - it's not my view that the content or indeed pictures contained within this blog are suitable for such an audience and if you're reading via Google translation, go and jump in a lake* won't you?

* Preferably a freezing cold one.  Ditto to all of the people who vex me on a semi-regular basis.

Friday: No More Bending To Clean Your Feet?

Ugh, after a week off work battling a chest infection which has been rattling around my system for the last month or so, today was the first time I'd left the house since Monday.  I feel like I'm on 'power saver mode' if that makes any sense to anybody, but if it doesn't please let me explain: it's like I'm awake but there's some kind of mental barrier blocking everything else out, or failing that I'm running on less than 30% battery.  However, needs must and I had to do the school run and head towards the shopping centre to pick up a few bits, hence why I saw this lovely item on the shelves in the mighty BHS:

Ooh, just think I wouldn't have to bend to clean my feet any longer whilst I'm showering in the morning (it's very much a case of shower in the morning, bath in the evening in my book..)  I like the idea, of course I do, but it would be another thing which would gather mould in my household after a while, despite my best efforts of scrubbing it with a potentially toxic fumed combination of Cif, Bleach and Limescale remover.  I've no doubt that the bristles would caress my sore soles though, but as regular readers know, I tend to do all of my hard skin removal via the medium of an Addis bowl full of bath salts.

Finally: as part of a review program I participate in I've been gifted a Scholl pedicure unit to test.  Hurrah!  Once it arrives (assuming it's not lost/stolen in transit!) I'll write a bit of a blurb about it and maybe I'll run a feather down my heel, akin to the television advertising campaign for the product(!)

Monday: Transitional Footwear Issues

Hurrah - spring's finally sprung and as a result it's time to jettison the boots and head towards a more seasonal footwear trend, which in my case means my Birki Dorian clogs.  I placed them onto my feet sans socks this morning and duly did the school run (on foot, as usual - I don't drive) but my word, I wish I hadn't (that's worn the shoes, not taken the Earl to school as the latter's my legal responsibility as a parent.)  Eek!  Blisters galore once again from my winter-encased namby pamby feet, this happens every year and I never learn.

Once again, a sight for sore feet - there's a lot of vein action going on there too.

Here's a closer shot of my left foot - nice.  Yes, I do realise that I need to pedicure my toenails as they're looking a bit ratty and you'll be pleased to learn that bright red won the 'choose a nail colour' competition, so next Sunday I will be getting the big bowl out and doing the honours.  I purchased a new pair of toenail scissors and cracked heel cream from Superdrug the other day and assuming I haven't lost it in this confusing mess of a house, I'll be using them next weekend.  The heel cup of a Birkenstock footbed causes friction and results in dry skin by the way, combined with the toe ridge this means that I'm a slave to my pumice stone in the summer months....

Finally - I am currently reading Howard Jacobson's amusing Booker Prize winning novel The Finkler Question and noticed this amusing paragraph on page 10 of the paperback edition:

They had been sleeping together.  There was nothing else to do.  They coupled up on the gymnasium floor when no one turned up to their festival.  She wore Birkenstocks even during lovemaking.  He only realised he loved her when she sacked him.

If it were me I'd only advocate the wearing of Birkenstock Mayari during lovemaking as the two strap upper wouldn't be dislodged by undertaking positions such as the reverse cowgirl, wheelbarrow or indeed the coital alignment technique (Cat).

Friday: Sore feet, blisters and general miasma

Blimey - what a week that was and no, I'm not making reference to the 1960s satirical show starring Sir David Frost et al - it was just plain shoddy (my week: not the programme).  I have made it a rule not to write about my job in any of my blogs but I will say this - management please listen to me when I say that I am really uncomfortable doing something and try to see things from my point of view - reputation is everything (apparently) in this world, but a few sensible precautions are better in the longer run.  I would also like to thank the kind person who made time for me on Wednesday afternoon after I'd walked from the City of London to Docklands - it was a really nice thing to do and I really appreciate it - thank you.

That long, somewhat unexpected walk was the main reason why my feet are so darn sore now.  I was wearing my long black boots, pictured below:

They're years old now - I think I bought them back in 2005ish so they really should be jettisoned very soon because there's no padding left in the sole unit and you can really feel the unyielding pavement under the balls of the feet.  They're DUO knee length leather boots with a 2.5 inch heel and indeed are the first pair of long boots I ever purchased because I was much lardier in the last decade and as a result, couldn't zip a standard knee-high over my chubby calves.  I Googled this issue and found a company called Duo who offered calf size boots and best of all - they sold a size 43, which on their website is described as a 10, but we all know that it's a 9, don't we?  Suffice to say that I can zip up most standard boots now as my calves remain rather slender as a result of all of the walking I do, lady luck and regular massages.

So, add an old pair of boots + a weeping woman + a long unscheduled walk and what does that =?  Well, blisters to be frank and bad ones at that.  Pretty hideous painful ones, ouch!  Please see the picture below for more detail: 

That's a lovely blister on the side of the big toe isn't it?  Ditto the other ones on the bottom of my third and fourth toes respectively.

They're still swollen too, but to be fair, they'd just returned from a walk to the shops (I was there too, my feet didn't just fly off of the bottom of my legs and make a run for it....)

They then transferred to a pair of Betula flip flops, but there's quite a lot of vein action going on there, don't you think?  Finally, I decided that a Birkenstock sole was the only way to go and am now wearing my Dorian Clogs, which I've photographed before so you'll have to scroll back in the blog for full details of those. 

Monday (the very early hours of....) - insomnia, idiots and input

Bah - bloody sodding insomnia again - I really could do without this.

Anyway, if nothing else, it provides me with a platform for some right to reply, mainly at a complete berk called RS Taylor who emailed me earlier this evening via my search for a long-lost friend on Craigslist, which for me personally is a bit of an emotive subject anyway:

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Me: Sun, Apr 7 at 9:16PM

I am looking for my mate, end of.

Well done for swallowing a dictionary.

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RS Taylor - Sun, Apr 7 at 9:15PM

You're peddling a sexualised blog to the masses of redundant, repressed, sexually devious male internet users and you expect them to practice articulation in their responses to the progenitor of the site?

You'll be waiting a long time for that email, love. 

 

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Me - On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 8:34 PM, 
 

Thanks, but be a bit more articulate in your reply though!

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From: RS Taylor 
To: Me
Sent: Sun, Apr 7, 2013 7:15:09 PM

I'd f**k your feet until my dick fell off. Cool blog. 

 

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From: Me
On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 7:44 PM,

Good, it's at nomeanfeetfortheduchess - Google it.

---

From: RS Taylor 

To: Me
Sent: Sun, Apr 7, 2013 6:37:13 PM

I'm not the dude but I'd love to read your foot blog. Lol.

 

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OK - right - so is it cool to insult me like this via the medium of the internet?  Well, the answer's no in my case.   Why the hell this bloke felt the need to contact me via a completely separate advert is beyond me - was he lonely?  Did he feel empowered by insulting a woman with the internet?  Did it make him feel like a man?  Whoopie do.  

All I will say is this: although some aspects of this blog could be seen as 'sexualised' in my opinion, I've always crafted it to work on multiple levels - i.e. people can read it/look at the pictures if they find feet aesthetically pleasing or a woman who suffers, as I do, from having big feet in a world populated by manufacturers/fashionistas who truly believe that fashion stops at a size 41.  I think, on the whole, that I've been able to achieve this goal.  Therefore, I'll say this - I like feedback, constructive or otherwise, but I won't be insulted.  If this kind of behaviour continues I'll have no option other than to make this blog 'author: read only' again and that would be a bit disappointing for a number of regular readers, wouldn't it?

Rant over: as you were.  

 

Post script - the term 'LOL' puts my teeth on edge in the same way fingers scraped across a blackboard does so take my advice, don't use it.

Sunday: Footsies (not of the 500 kind!)

Today I'm talking about footsies and by that I don't mean the Financial Times Share Index (a nice joke for all of you finance bods out there!) or indeed the naughty thing which ladies or indeed, gay men, do under a dinner table.  Actually, I'm not sure if I could do that as I'm not very nimble - perhaps I need to practice?  Talking about the FT, the strangest people seem to read it, well, they do at work anyway - there was once this rather Margaret Rutherfordesque posh woman at work who insisted on reading the pink paper instead of doing any actual work.  Also, The Duke has purchased the weekend edition at various times, but the magazine's contents have to be seen to believed - we don't all own ski lodges in Aspen you know!  I do, however, wear diamonds to my local greasy spoon on a semi-regular basis, but that's just me, I like excessive formality at all times, as regular readers are probably aware.

So, herewith a picture of me wearing the nylon hosiery product popularly known as 'footsies' - M&S used to sell two sizes: 3-5 and 6-8 and I, for one, am glad that they did because any 'one size fits all' is actually a fallacy as it never fits me, but the larger size tends to hold up well.  So, what's the point of them huh?  Well, they're to stop shoes chafing, slipping and generally causing blisters during the summer months.  Although they're supposed to be invisible, they rarely are, but there you go.  They also have a nasty habit of 'pinging off' when I'm walking to the station, which causes the bloody things to ruck up under the arch of my foot.  Hence, why I don't tend to wear them a great deal.

I have also pictured them without the benefit of a foot changing their shape.  I think that they're a cousin of the wonderful pop sock - for the uninitiated they are a nylon knee length sock-like thing which means that you can wear a pair of formal shoes with trousers without the need for a full length pair of tights (pantyhose for the benefit of my American readership...)  There are also things called 'trouser socks' which are basically an ankle sock version of the same.  I seem to recall one of my relatives wearing a pair of pop socks and a skirt which barely covered the tops, thus revealing hairy legs - bleeurrghh!  Apologies, I really shouldn't be writing this as it's every woman's right to remove as much, or indeed as little hair as possible, but I don't really like the feel of hairy legs, but that's my personal preference. 

Actually, when we're on the subject of all things nylon - I was watching the peerless Sexcetera on one of the Sky channels the other day and there was a special report about the tights/pantyhose fetish which a huge number of men across the globe seem to share.  Apparently there's a studio in the US which only produces such content for the DVD market, fair enough - it seems harmless enough and you know me, I don't judge.